JOE MARTIN
Joe Martin | London, United Kingdom
The Troubadour and Lightning: Joe Martin's Journey Into the Valueverse
Some artists stumble into Bitcoin. Joe Martin found it out of conviction — and then built a philosophy around it.
The Lancashire-born singer-songwriter is a modern-day troubadour in the truest sense: a storyteller whose descriptive lyrics capture the lives of people and encounters picked up on the road, blending the tales of friends and strangers with his own experiences into masterfully crafted songs that paint a picture with every verse. His sound draws from legends like Bob Dylan and Townes Van Zandt alongside modern icons like Jason Isbell and Kacey Musgraves. He started fronting a country band at university in Leeds, toured the UK, and eventually made his way to Nashville — where the New York Times took notice, writing that "a young Englishman with a rich, resonant voice named Joe Martin seemed primed for bigger things."
But "bigger things" in the traditional music industry still means the same broken math. Fractions of a penny per stream. Revenue funneled to platforms, labels, and lawyers. Joe saw it clearly: streaming platforms are worthless without the music on them — and yet the advertising revenue model that generates billions (with a B !) in income for platforms never finds its way back to the artist.
So Joe started asking a different question. What if music could be free to listen to, and fans could simply pay what it's worth to them — directly, instantly, with no middleman taking a cut?
That question led him to begin distributing his music via RSS feeds, which opened the door to a whole new ecosystem of software and platforms being built in an open-source protocol known as Podcasting 2.0 — all using the Bitcoin Lightning Network to enable Value4Value payments while songs are streaming.
In October 2022, he released his single "High Gravity" through Podcasting 2.0 and became the world's first artist placed into “a value split” — the technological mechanism for dividing incoming Bitcoin payments across multiple stakeholders in real time. Joe is the OG of Lightning music payments, and his release set a landmark precedent: artists no longer need streaming platforms to connect instantly and globally with fans. It was the beginning of a new chapter, not just for Joe, but for independent music as a whole.
Joe is an active proponent of the opt-out movement, and his philosophy is grounded in the logic of Value4Value: because digital files can be copied infinitely at zero cost, traditional market economics collapse. The Lightning Network solves the last real barrier — peer-to-peer micropayments that credit cards and PayPal never managed to scale on a global market.
Alongside fellow UK artist Longy, Joe headlined Into the Valueverse at the famous Fickle Pickle in South End on Sea — billed as the first live music show in the UK built entirely on Bitcoin — it was a celebration of artists who found one another through a shared search for better way forward for music.
Rather than abandon music, Joe Martin chased a solution. He used The Lightning Network to opt out of a broken system and commit to building his music career entirely on his own terms.
His debut studio album Empty Passenger Seat generated millions of satoshis through album sales, streams, merch, and live events — including shows powered by Tunestr, a live streaming platform that brings instant Lightning payments directly to artists during performances. Joe is currently touring in support of his upcoming second album, Alone In Valentine, set for release in 2026.