Learn · Artists
What does being a Lightning FM artist look like?
The clearest answer is a worked example. 0GGM3NT3D is the first artist on the platform, and also the founder's own project, which means every claim below was tested on our own music before any other artist was asked to trust it.
The catalog. 0GGM3NT3D's tracks are Nostr events signed by his own artist key, published to the open-read relay. The track "Greatest Gift" (released 2025-10-31) is a signed event any client can read; the audio is content-addressed by hash on the media server. Nothing about the catalog lives in a database only we control.
The storefront. His public page is lightning.fm/a/<his npub>. Anyone can stream there free, with no account. Buying a download pays a Lightning invoice minted by his own wallet, and 100% of the price settles to him.
The money. The first mainnet sale on the platform settled on 2026-08-03, directly to a self-hosted artist node running on his own hardware. The platform delivered the file; the money never touched us. That is the same flow every artist gets, hosted or self-hosted.
The exit. If he left tomorrow, the key, the signed catalog, the followers, and the payment setup would all leave with him. That is the deal for everyone, founder included.
The first Artist Feature on the Lightning FM YouTube channel follows "Greatest Gift" from a riff recorded on a phone, through years of sessions, to the released master: Evolution of a Song: Greatest Gift. New artist videos land in the channel's Artist Features playlist as artists onboard.
Day to day, being an artist here is unglamorous in the right way. You publish tracks from the desktop app, they appear on your storefront and in the artist directory, listeners stream free, and buyers pay you directly. There are no play-count payouts to chase, because no money routes through the platform at all.
The hosted beta is currently gated to the first 21 artists. The software has no gate: all of it is MIT and public, and self-hosting needs nobody's permission.
Who is 0GGM3NT3D?
The founder's own artist project, and the first artist on the platform. That is deliberate dogfooding: before asking anyone else to publish here, Matt published his own music under the same rules every artist gets. The catalog is signed by his artist key, sales settle to his own wallet, and the platform holds nothing of his that he could not take elsewhere.
Do artists get paid when people stream their tracks?
No. Streaming is free for everyone, with no account, and no payment attaches to it. Artists are paid by purchases: a listener buys a download, pays a Lightning invoice minted by the artist's own wallet, and 100% of the price settles directly to the artist.
What does the artist actually hold, versus the platform?
The artist holds the identity key, the signed catalog, the followers, and the money. The platform hosts conveniences: file hosting, a relay listing, a name@lightning.fm address, and the hosted checkout. Every convenience is replaceable; nothing the artist holds passes through us.
How does an artist join?
The hosted service is in beta, gated to the first 21 artists; request access from the homepage. The software itself needs no invite: the desktop app and the artist-node daemon are MIT-licensed and public, so self-hosting is open to anyone today.
Where can I see or hear the artists?
Each artist has a public storefront at lightning.fm/a/ followed by their npub, where anyone can stream free and buy downloads. Artist videos are published on the Lightning FM YouTube channel in the Artist Features playlist, starting with the 0GGM3NT3D feature on how one track evolved from a phone riff to the released master.
Want the step-by-step version? Getting started walks the whole path.