Dmitry Boldyrev and Justin Frankel created the first version of Winamp for Microsoft Windows. It is one of the most well-known music players from the 1990s. Winamp has received numerous updates over the years. However, the software’s latest iteration, 5.9.1, now supports music NFTs. Let’s look at more details about this upgrade.
What Does The New Upgrade Bring?
After Radionomy bought Winamp in 2014, a new initiative to revitalize the brand was revealed in 2018. The goal was to serve as a connecting layer for all available music services, allowing you to launch Winamp and choose a song or playlist whether you prefer Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, or all three.
The CEO of Winamp, Alexandre Saboundjian, said, “When mp3s revolutionized how we listen and enjoy music, Winamp played a significant role in the initial digital music breakthrough. As more artists examine web3 and its possibilities, we are now assisting the forefront of the next revolution, ”
Similar to NFT photos, music NFTs work by providing a link to a digital audio file rather than a link to a JPG. Advocates claim that the advantages are that musicians can generate more revenue by generating scarcity and by receiving a percentage of NFT sales amongst fans.
Winamp’s recent revision gives music lovers the chance to connect their Metamask wallet to Winamp through Firefox, Brave, or Chrome. Then, it links their preferred player to their favorite music NFTs. Winamp is introducing this new capability for the Ethereum and Polygon protocols and now supports music and video data published under the ERC-1155 and ERC-721 specifications.
However, Winamp’s NFT music compatibility is complicated. NFT music library owners must export their collections from whichever platform they use, then import them as an .m3u playlist into Winamp. Moreover, users would need a new rendering engine for Winamp’s in-app explorer, centered on Internet Explorer 10, to display web pages required to download these NFT albums.
Nevertheless, fans of the original Winamp can still find a lot to enjoy here. In addition to NFT support, a memory footprint reduction, an improvement in streaming music capacity, and an upgrade to OpenSSL 3.0.5 are some other changes in the new version of this mp3 player.
According to Winamp’s developer, Eddy Richman, the NFT support can be disabled either during or after the Winamp installation process,
Final Thoughts
The fact that the original, vintage Winamp player is getting this new NFT feature, in addition to a ton of bug fixes and performance improvements, shows how quickly the market for cryptocurrencies and NFTs are growing. A post on the Winamp forum lists all the modifications, followed by heartfelt community thanks and bug reports.
