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About Bond
Bond, formerly the music NFT platform Royal, now builds on-chain tools for creator-fan relationships. A fan bonds a sum to a creator that can be withdrawn at any time; the pooled funds are supplied to on-chain lending markets, the interest goes to the creator, and the principal stays redeemable. Bonded fans join an inner circle with group chats, exclusive content and a ranking by amount. The model replaces subscriptions and tips with a refundable one-time commitment, so support costs the fan nothing while the creator gains a verified audience list rather than inferring true fans from likes and follows.
The mechanism runs like this: a supporter bonds an amount, the pool is supplied to on-chain lending markets, interest settles to the creator each period, and the principal stays withdrawable under the supporter's name; the bond opens the inner circle, ranked by amount. The money never leaves the supporter, it is lent for a stretch, and the creator receives interest plus a verified list.
Bond launched on the Base Layer-2 network, routing bonded funds into onchain lending and yield-bearing vaults via smart contracts, establishing the core model where creators earn interest while users retain withdrawable principal.
JoinBond introduced Twitter profile bonds, enabling users to bond directly to handles such as @openclaw and @joinbond itself, extending the mechanism beyond open-source projects to individual creator profiles.
David Tso bonded $100,000 USDC to OpenClaw through JoinBond, marking the platform's first major high-value commitment and demonstrating its scalability for large-scale creator support.
Bond is the post-pivot product of Royal, operating at joinbond.xyz. It turns support into refundable principal: fans bond funds to a creator, can withdraw the principal at any time, and the creator keeps the on-chain interest that principal earns while it sits in lending and yield vaults through contracts on Base, with no fee charged to fans.
Royal's funding history underpins the pivot: a USD 16 million seed in August 2021 led by Paradigm and Founders Fund, then a USD 55 million Series A in November 2021 led by a16z, roughly USD 71 million in total, with a team including musician 3LAU (Justin Blau) and former a16z crypto investment partner Michael Blau. The original music royalty NFT product has been taken down and royal.io now serves only a Bond landing page, with no formal shutdown notice.
Strategy: pull fan economics away from secondary speculation toward cash-flow distribution, using refundable principal to lower the barrier and give creators recurring income from interest rather than raises. Risks: no public disclosure in 2026 on users, locked value, funding or audits, so scale cannot be verified, and refundable principal plus interest sharing may qualify as a security or a fundraising in some jurisdictions.
Bond is the successor to Royal, the music rights platform Justin Blau co-founded in 2021 and still runs as chief executive. Blau started out as the DJ 3LAU, studied finance at Washington University in St. Louis, dropped out in his second year to tour, staged the first blockchain-powered music festival in 2018, and in 2021 launched Royal with Opendoor co-founder JD Ross to split song royalties among fans through limited digital assets. Co-founder Michael Blau, formerly an a16z crypto investment partner, owns crypto product and protocol design, and product manager Derek Moen handles bonding and withdrawal flows. The two Blaus lead company and protocol respectively, and Moen owns user-facing flow design.