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There’s some big Wu-Tang Clan-related crypto news that I’d like to share to close out the week. A few years ago, I blogged about how a “digital autonomous organization” or “DAO” named PleasrDAO had acquired the sole copy of the group’s legendary “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin” album that the feds grabbed from its original owner, fraudster Martin Shkreli.

PleasrDAO had big plans for the album, but those plans depended on its ability to persuade The RZA and Cilveringz to sign off on them. That sign-off was necessary because RZA opted to impose a unique restriction on any owner of Once Upon a Time in Shaolin when the album was announced in 2015 – whoever bought it would not be able to release it until 2103, 88 years following its release.

Well, it looks like PleasrDAO was successful, because according to this Bloomberg BusinessWeek article, it recently sponsored swanky listening sessions in NYC where attendees could hear selections from the album while “sipping artisanal cocktails.”  If you missed the New York sessions, don’t despair – all you have to do is travel to New Zealand to catch the sessions being held at a Tasmanian museum through June 24th (in case you’re on the fence, they’re getting rave reviews).

So why is PleasrDAO holding these events?  Well, this is where the tenuous connection to the federal securities laws that allows me to periodically blog about The Wu-Tang Clan comes into play. Here’s an excerpt from the article:

Perhaps not surprisingly, these exclusive sessions have coincided with the start of a campaign to wring more money from the album. On June 13, PleasrDAO started selling digital ownership stakes in Once Upon a Time in Shaolin for $1, entitling buyers to a short sampler from the album along with an encrypted file of the music that will remain locked—but maybe not until 2103, as originally promised. The collective says each sale will reduce the time it takes to make the entire album publicly available by 88 seconds. In short, the decades-long restriction is more fungible than most people might have assumed.

The article says that PleasrDAO raised $250K selling these NFTs in just four days, and cites a NY Times report as indicating that it would need to raise a total of $28 million to release the album to the public. It looks like PleasrDAO has attempted to structure this NFT to avoid having it classified as a security. Of course, that’s what all the NFT folks have said – and the SEC hasn’t always agreed. So, PleasrDAO would be wise to take some advice from the Wu-Tang Clan and “watch your step, kid, watch your step, kid, protect ya neck, kid!”

– John Jenkins