Wu-Tang's Renaissance
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This week's big news? Collector collective PleasrDAO transformed the legendary Once Upon a Time in Shaolin album by hip hop collective Wu-Tang Clan into a digitized, encrypted NFT.
The record, originally made in secret over 6 years and released as a single physical copy, became the most expensive work of music ever sold when Martin "Pharma Bro" Shkreli purchased it for $2M in 2015.
The album, purchased by Pleasr from the U.S. Department of Justice for $4M in 2021 to cover Shkreli's legal debts, was originally slated to be sealed until 2103.
Thanks to Pleasr's new collab with Wu-Tang Clan, though, anyone can now purchase a $1 NFT on Base that grants access to an album sampler and advances the album’s public release by 88 seconds at a time, aiming for a crowdsourced full release long before 2103.
Why's this drop a big deal? Because it's a bold experiment in onchain music distribution. It challenges and riffs on traditional notions of music ownership and access, while allowing fans to directly participate in the release process toward a new kind of collective ownership.
Also, while sentiments around DAOs lately seem to be at all-time lows, this experiment exemplifies how onchain collectives are still viable and can be impactful in the real world.
All that said, Pleasr's initiative is not just about sharing a unique piece of music history but also about pioneering new pathways for digital collaboration and community-driven projects. It's worth applauding and tracking closely accordingly!
📰 General news
- Blast conducted its 5th Gold distribution
- Bonfire intro'd Season Passes
- Enjoy opened Season 1 airdrop claims
- Magic Eden released new Solana features
- Nouns is approaching $1B worth of lifetime bid volume
- Zapper unveiled Zapper Protocol, an onchain context protocol
🎨 Cryptoart & music
- Rutherford Chang auctioned CENTS Block 839969 for +$50k at Christie's
- Zora has seen ~200k minters through the first two weeks of June 2024
🏆 Digital collectibles
- ApeCoin DAO is considering The Banana Bill, a 100M $APE development fund for the ApeChain ecosystem
- Floor unveiled BASED MODE by YON, minting unlocks a calendar of Onchain Summer events
- Moonbirds unveiled its 2.0 art update
- Petra Voice released Babes, an AI art PFP collection, on Foundation
🎮 Decentralized gaming
- Axie Infinity kicked off Origins Season 9
- Fren Pet partnered with Floor for the new Floor dApp Launcher release
- Nouns Esports intro'd Nexus, a new community funding portal
- rug.fun released the first game of its new v2 system
- Uniswap Labs acquired Crypto: The Game, which is on the ballot for a 2024 Emmy nomination in Emerging Media
📱 Onchain social
- Farcaster added support for casts up to 1,024 characters
- spinamp added support for sharing song collects on Lens apps
🪙 NFTfi
- GONDI reached +8k ETH worth of outstanding loans
- NFTfi.com settled +$12M worth of loans in May 2024
🌐 Virtual worlds
- Decentraland announced an updated list of DCLGX Game Jam winners
Kraken NFT is one of the most secure, easy-to-use, and dynamic marketplaces available. Active and new collectors alike benefit from zero gas fees, multi-chain access, payment flexibility with fiat or 200+ cryptocurrencies, and built-in rarity rankings. Learn more at Kraken.com/nft
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