Airwaves
The decentralized network of creator radios

Airwaves is a decentralized protocol that allows any content creator to launch and operate their own web radio — live or on-demand — without relying on a centralized platform to reach listeners, receive payments, or prove authorship of their content.

Each creator operates their own radio on an open, shared infrastructure. Listeners tip, subscribe, and support radios directly. Curators and moderators are rewarded for helping good content find an audience. The long-term vision is for every value exchange to be recorded transparently and settled by smart contracts on Robinhood Chain, using AIRW.

Right now, the protocol itself is still in development. To bootstrap community, validate demand, and fund early work, Airwaves is launching $WAVE, a community token on a third-party token launch venue — described in full in the next section.

Those who make radio worthwhile should be the ones who benefit most from it.

Before the AIRW governance token and the on-chain protocol exist, Airwaves is starting with $WAVE, a token deployed on a third-party token launch venue. This section explains what $WAVE is, what it isn't, and how it relates to AIRW — those two things are easy to conflate, so we're being explicit about it upfront.

How $WAVE holders may benefit

• Early access — beta features, creator collaborations, and testing before public release.
• Community events — contests, meme competitions, and listening parties with token rewards.
• Discretionary airdrop consideration — at a snapshot to be announced, the team may consider $WAVE holders for an allocation from the 10% "Community & partnerships" reserve of AIRW's future supply (see §07). This is not guaranteed, is entirely at the team's discretion, and is not a purchase, pre-sale, or promise of AIRW.

Burn mechanism — where the funds come from

A portion of the ETH raised from $WAVE trading activity (via the token's own bonding curve / creator fees on a third-party token launch venue) is set aside to buy back and burn $WAVE over time, reducing its circulating supply. This is funded specifically from $WAVE-related proceeds, not from Airwaves platform revenue (tips/subscriptions) — that revenue doesn't exist yet, and once it does, it's already fully allocated (see §09–10). Burn frequency and exact percentage will be published once the token is live and revenue is trackable.

A small number of streaming and podcast platforms control discovery, monetization, and the listener relationship. Revenue is collected first by the platform, which distributes the portion it decides.

• Opaque revenue distribution — creators cannot see how revenue linked to their content is calculated or divided.
• No portable identity or reputation — audience, ratings and history disappear if a platform changes policy or shuts down.
• Weak provenance tracking — hard to prove who published first, complicating licensing, sampling and derivative works.

A global network of independent web radios, each operated by its own creator or collective, connected by an open shared infrastructure of discovery, payments and reputation.

• Creators own their radio, their catalog, and their relationship with the audience
• Prices and splits are transparent and verifiable on-chain
• Broadcasting, curating, moderating and loyal listening can all be rewarded
• The protocol is open: any developer can build a client, app or plugin on top of it

Airwaves is built for anyone who produces audio — radio hosts, podcasters, musicians, educators, collectives and independent journalists. A single station identity supports several publishing formats, all sharing the same audience, analytics, provenance record and monetization rails. Each item below is labelled with its current status so nothing is presented as already shipped.

Broadcasting & publishing formats

Creator tools

Every format settles through the same value flow described in §11: tips and subscriptions split 90/5/5, sponsored segments negotiated through the advertising marketplace. Published works are hashed and timestamped as described in §06 and §12, so authorship is provable regardless of where the audio is later distributed.

Status labels: In prototype — usable in the current demo; Planned — specified for Phase 1–2; Later phase — depends on on-chain settlement (Phase 3+).

Three layers, following the separation used by other open content protocols.

AIRW is not live yet. It is the planned governance and utility token of the finished protocol, to be used for tips, subscriptions, premium features, advertising settlement and ecosystem rewards once the on-chain infrastructure ships (see Roadmap, §13). Planned total supply: 1,000,000,000 AIRW, fixed from launch.

• 40%Ecosystem rewardscreators, curators, node operators
• 25%Private / public saleinitial investors and community
• 15%Founding team12-month cliff, then 36-month linear monthly vesting (0% at TGE)
• 10%Foundation reservegrants and development
• 10%Community & partnershipscreator onboarding + discretionary future community participation (details to be announced)

Initial draft allocation for discussion purposes — not final.

$WAVE and AIRW are separate assets on separate chains/venues. Nothing here obligates Airwaves to convert, exchange, or match $WAVE holdings to AIRW at any ratio.

Once live, the 400,000,000 AIRW reserved for ecosystem rewards (40% of supply) will be released gradually over years. Regular rewards split as: 65% creators (airtime, engagement, tips), 20% curators and moderators, 15% node/relay operators. A minimum reputation score is required to stay eligible.

Note: this pool is separate from the per-transaction revenue split in §11. Ecosystem rewards are a gradual emission funded by the protocol's own token supply; the revenue split in §11 is money moving instantly between wallets on every tip/subscription.

Once tips and subscriptions are live on-chain, a protocol fee of 10% applies, split as 5% to the radio's own treasury and 5% to listener rewards. A commission is also charged on sponsored segments sold through the advertising marketplace — see §11 for how this compares to the standard split.

• Radio treasury — belongs to that specific radio/creator. Funded by the 5% fee above. Used at the creator's discretion.
• Protocol treasury — a separate, platform-wide fund for development, grants, and ecosystem incentives, funded from the Foundation reserve (§07) — not from individual radios' tips.
• A premium plan for creators: advanced analytics, higher audio quality, custom branding.

• Creators — operate a radio, earn from tips, subscriptions, sponsored segments and rewards.
• Listeners — tune in, tip, subscribe; honest engagement builds their own reputation.
• Curators & moderators — categorize, recommend and flag, rewarded from the ecosystem pool (§08).
• Node operators — provide bandwidth and uptime for live broadcasts, rewarded from the ecosystem pool (§08). Technical requirements and SLA to be published in v0.4.
• Developers — build clients and integrations on the open API.

A listener sends value in AIRW to the radio's smart contract; the contract executes the programmed split and delivers funds directly to recipient wallets: 90% to the creator, 5% to that radio's treasury, and 5% distributed to loyal listeners as reward incentives. Subscriptions follow the exact same split.

Sponsored segments work differently: the advertising marketplace charges a platform commission (percentage to be published alongside the marketplace spec) instead of the 90/5/5 split, since sponsored deals are negotiated between creator and sponsor rather than being a fixed micro-payment. The creator still receives the large majority of the deal value; the commission funds the marketplace's operation.

• Minimum reputation score to remain eligible for ecosystem rewards
• Copyright infringement, fraudulent listener counts and harassment cost reward eligibility
• On-chain hash + timestamp (§06) prove who published first
• The official AIRW token address is disclosed only after deployment and audit

This white paper is an early-stage conceptual document for discussion and planning. It does not constitute an offer to sell securities or a solicitation of investment. All figures are illustrative drafts and are expected to change.