In 2019, Goldman Sachs made a bold forecast: the global music market would grow from $77 billion to $131 billion by 2030, driven primarily by streaming. As of 2026, that forecast has proven not bold enough. Goldman’s latest analysis now projects revenues reaching $200 billion by 2035 — nearly tripling from 2019 levels.
This isn’t a tech sector story. It’s an infrastructure story about an asset class that generates recurring income from something human civilization will never stop doing: listening to music.
Streaming: The Engine That Changed Everything
The shift to streaming fundamentally transformed music royalties from a declining physical-media business into a growth asset. Luminate’s 2023 Year-End Report documented the global music industry surpassing 4 trillion streams — a 157% increase from 2019 — and that number has continued climbing.
What streaming did was convert a hit-or-miss, one-time-purchase model into a subscription-driven annuity. Every time someone plays a song — anywhere in the world, on any platform — the rights holder earns. Automatically. Contractually. Repeatedly.
The diversification of that income is equally important:
- Streaming platforms: Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Tidal, Deezer
- Radio performance rights: Still generating significant royalties, especially internationally
- Sync licensing: TV, film, advertising, video games — growing rapidly with content explosion
- Social media: TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts creating new royalty streams
No single platform controls more than ~32% of global streaming revenue, which means catalog owners are insulated from any single platform’s business decisions.
The Goldman Sachs Market Breakdown
Goldman’s latest “Music in the Air” report projects the 2030 global music market at:
- Recorded music: $81B (up from $37B in 2019)
- Music publishing: $39B (up from $12B in 2019)
- Live music: $22B
The recorded music segment — the segment that directly drives royalty income — is expected to more than double over this decade. For investors holding catalogs acquired before this appreciation cycle, the multiple expansion in catalog valuations compounds on top of the underlying income growth.
This is why catalog valuations have run from 6x annual royalties to 12–25x in premium cases, and why firms like Blackrock, Apollo, KKR, and Carlyle Group have deployed billions into music IP.
The Competition Problem — and BARS Fund’s Answer
The influx of institutional capital has created a genuine problem for traditional music fund operators: 15–20 well-capitalized catalog companies are all chasing the same deals. When Blackrock and Apollo are bidding on the same catalog, prices go to the highest bidder. Returns compress.
Traditional music funds’ response has been to lever up more aggressively and accept thinner spreads. That’s a race to the bottom.
BARS Fund’s response is structural differentiation. By using acquired royalty cash flows to build a Bitcoin treasury rather than acquire more music IP, we sidestep the crowded bidding market entirely. We don’t need to win a competitive auction to generate alpha — we need to structure the right deal with the right artists and then let Bitcoin do its work.
The result is a fund that participates in the $200 billion music market’s growth while layering on uncorrelated Bitcoin appreciation that no traditional catalog company offers.
The market tailwind is real. The structural arbitrage is available. The window to be first is now.
Erik Mendelson is the founder and CEO of BARS Fund. To learn more, visit barsfund.com or contact erik@recordgram.com.
Sources: Goldman Sachs “Music in the Air” report; Luminate 2023 Year-End Report; Goldman Sachs Global Music Revenues Forecast