Spotify is officially testing exclusive ‘Token-enabled’ playlists

Image credit: Bastian Riccardi

Roughly nine months after it began allowing select artists to sell non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on the platform, Spotify is testing a feature that allows certain NFT holders to access exclusive playlists.

The Stockholm-headquartered streaming platform’s latest NFT expansion recently came to light in social media posts written by entities including Kingship. “Signed” to Universal Music Group’s 22:22, the latter is a virtual “supergroup” made up of characters from the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT project.

And according to Kingship, which at 22:22 last summer made thousands of “virtual key cards” non-fungible tokens for, those who have their NFTs can listen to a “token-enabled playlist” on Spotify. The team behind Kingship – now including actual musicians – detailed in a tweet the seemingly simple process involved in accessing the playlist.

“All you need is a KINGSHIP Key Card NFT to unlock this playlist on Spotify. Currently this pilot is only available for Android users in the US, UK, DE, AU and NZ. reader one of the many messages written about “special moment.”

People who don’t own Kingship Keycards – which are still available on OpenSea and, if the displayed sale prices are accurate, fetch relatively significant sums – cannot see the playlist’s included songs. However, non-owners can view the landing page for the mobile-only playlist (aptly titled “KINGSHIP’S Exclusive Playlist”), which is labeled “TOKEN ENABLED” and had 46 likes at the time of writing.

Pressing the play button prompts one to link a crypto wallet (Metamask, Trust Wallet, and Rainbow among them) to their Spotify account, and for owners of the right token, this will presumably unlock Kingship’s Spotify playlist right away.

Besides Kingship, some of the Fluf, Moonbirds, and Overlord NFT community’s respective members can also access exclusive Spotify playlists at the moment, according to CoinDesk.

It is unclear when (or if) the streaming service will make the exclusive playlist feature available to different NFT holders and in more countries. But with NFTs reportedly experiencing a significant decline in sales in 2022, while also spurring several high-profile lawsuits, time will reveal the exact popularity of “token-enabled” playlists.

More broadly, though, the presence of exclusive Spotify playlists is significant, especially given the platform’s ongoing efforts to optimize user experience and stand out in the crowded audio entertainment sphere — while making cuts on the podcasting side.

Since 22:22 belongs to Universal Music Group, it is important to mention in conclusion that in January Lucian Grainge requested that streaming’s compensation model be developed, before UMG started February by announcing a related collaboration with Tidal.