Rave culture is transferring to the blockchain

A decentralized party is unlike any other.

The rave culture has always been encrypted in certain respects. When knowledge of unlawful gatherings circulated by word of mouth, all you had to do was know the proper people. New technologies, on the other hand, are adding a new dimension to this. Rumours of a crypto-enabled rave rebirth have been circulating on the dark web and in exclusive members-only forums for the past year, with some referring to these meetings as crypto-raves, more generally, trustless raves are described as the "decentralised anarchic rave scene."

The blockchain has fueled this underground culture

Mat Dryhurst, a technologist and artist, has witnessed this firsthand. "It emerged slowly and spontaneously, like most excellent things," he explains. "I got a text message from a friend who was given a couple invites the first time I went to a crypto party, acquired my own unique keys, and I was given my own invitation to participate. " PGP-signed messages stored on public blockchains; or fragmented tokens distributed by DAOs (decentralized autonomous organizations), each token representing a single ticket, in tune with the current surge of initial coin offerings (ICOs) and the tokenization of everything that has come to the sphere of cryptocurrencies."

DJs use computers to play music in whole new ways

A number of 'block confirmations' must have elapsed to enable entry," explains Amnesia Scanner, a Berlin-based collective of designers and musicians who have been hired anonymously to perform at some of these decentralized autonomous raves. "You'll usually be given access to a decentralized application that secures the scene using a hybrid of proof-of-stake and proof-of-work once you've gotten in," they say.

Live-coding parties

It's friend-to-friend instead of peer-to-peer."Live-coding" parties, where attendees come for the if-thens and variables as much as the beer and munchies, are a relatively new phenomena in the underground electronic music scene. Shows like Bell's are right at home in the Bay Area, where the Venn diagram of the Silicon Valley and DJ cultures intersect. They're not, though, just more of the same tech-meets-techno mix.

Software algorithms are controlled by the code on the display. Individual noises are synthesized on the computer by the musician

Half-human, half-machine

Software algorithms are controlled by the code on the display. Individual noises (snare strikes, bass blobs) are synthesized on the computer by the musician, who then orders the software to connect those musical sounds together according to a set of established criteria. What emerges has the artist's fingerprint on it, yet it is wholly influenced by the algorithms. Repeat the procedure a second time, and the song will sound familiar and have all of the same parts, but the structure of the composition will be different. Half-human, half-machine, this is the pinnacle of electronic creation. Algoraves is a lovely portmanteau for the gatherings that have sprung up to commemorate this style of generative composing.

Find out more