SoundCloud has completed its acquisition of Nina Protocol, the independent, blockchain-based music platform that announced its closure nearly two months ago. Under the deal, SoundCloud inherits Nina's editorial archive and genre map, while former Nina artists can choose to migrate their catalogues onto SoundCloud's "creator ecosystem," gaining access to distribution, direct fan monetisation and audience-growth tools. Nina's co-founder and chief executive, Mike Pollard, said SoundCloud was "the natural choice" given its role in laying the foundations for Nina's existence, framing the move as continuity rather than a simple shutdown.

Nina Protocol was founded in 2021 by Jack Callahan, Mike Pollard and Eric Farber and built on the Solana blockchain, allowing artists to sell music directly to fans while retaining full ownership and revenue; it was used by acts including ML Buch, Yung Lean and Ana Roxanne, and labels such as Warp and Hyperdub. A recent report by Components found that only around $50,000 was spent on the platform across its lifetime and that roughly 77% of its nearly 37,000 listings went uncollected, underscoring its limited commercial traction before the sale. SoundCloud, which last year clarified its AI policy after backlash over ambiguous terms on using uploaded content for AI training, has not yet responded to Pitchfork's request for comment.