PleasrDAO Releases Secret Wu-Tang Album | Leighton Cusack & Matt Metkov

David is joined by Leighton Cusack and Matt Metkov, two members of PleasrDAO, the organization that owns and is releasing the Wu-Tang Album. The Wu-Tang Clan created a unique album, “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin,” to combat music’s devaluation in the digital age. It was bought by Martin Shkreli in 2015, who later lost it due to a fraud conviction. In 2021, PleasrDAO, a crypto collective, purchased the album to restore its value and make it accessible to the public, promoting fairer digital ownership in the Web3 era. Hear how you can own the most exclusive music album and help support the movement. ------ ✨ Mint the episode on Zora ✨ https://zora.co/collect/zora:0x0c294913a7596b427add7dcbd6d7bbfc7338d53f/22 ------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 🐙KRAKEN | MOST-TRUSTED CRYPTO EXCHANGE https://k.xyz/bankless-pod-q2 ⁠ ⚡️ CARTESI | LINUX-POWERED ROLLUPS https://bankless.cc/CartesiGovernance ⚖️ARBITRUM | SCALING ETHEREUM ⁠https://bankless.cc/Arbitrum 🛞MANTLE | MODULAR LAYER 2 NETWORK https://bankless.cc/Mantle 🌐 TRANSPORTER | CROSS CHAINS WITH CONFIDENCE https://transporter.io/ 🔗CELO | CEL2 COMING SOON https://bankless.cc/Celo ------ TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Intro 9:09 What’s Special About This Album? 11:13 One-Off Event Or New Path For Artists? 14:24 Music Scenario: 2014 vs. Now? 17:41 Music Renting VS Collecting/Ownership 22:25 How To Own The Album? 26:47 Rights & Collaboration 28:07 Rethinking Music Distribution 31:02 Magnitude Of Album Release 32:47 Why Crypto People Should Care? 34:56 David On The Album Songs 38:05 Where To Own The Album? 40:16 Sales & Record-Breaking Week 43:48 Closing & Disclosures ------ RESOURCES Mint Here https://thealbum.com Leighton https://x.com/lay2000lbs ------ Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures ⁠

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:05David Hoffman?

  Bienvenidos a Bankless, donde exploramos el frontón de artefactos culturales con una profunda leyenda mainstream siendo tokenizado en Ethereum. Ethereum permite el futuro de la propiedad, y la industria de la música ha lentamente perdido el concepto de la música propiedad de usuario desde el surgimiento de la digitización y Internet. Hoy en Bankless exploramos una historia que comenzó en 2014 con el Clan Wu-Tang, y esa misma historia que continúa hasta hoy con la tokenización de un artefacto real en Ethereum, que está posicionado para convertirse en el artefacto más propiedad pero menos escuchado de la música creada. La nación Bankless, el Clan Wu-Tang, se formó en Staten Island, Nueva York, en principios de los 90s y es considerado uno de los mejores grupos de rap de todos los tiempos,

• 0:47David Hoffman?

  cuya influencia en el mundo extiende mucho más que la música que crearon. El Clan Wu-Tang es conocido por su sonido raro y agitado y la diversidad lirica de sus 10 miembros diferentes, que también tuvieron sus propias carreras independientes. El Clan Wu-Tang creció en popularidad a medida que aumentaba la digitización, la commoditización y la marginalización de la música como factor artístico. La música como arte, y a diferencia de otras formas de arte que existen, realmente sufrió del surgimiento de la digitización y el crecimiento de Internet. Los artistas derramaban su corazón y alma en la creación de su música, y luego se podía copiar sin parar, sin parar, eliminando la capacidad de los artistas musicales para descubrir una verdadera valoración de mercado para su trabajo, mientras que los Picasso y Monets saldrían por millones.

• 1:31David Hoffman?

  Los artistas musicales se volvieron adorados por etiquetas, compañías de streaming, plataformas de streaming y turnos infinitos, todo debido a que el factor de forma digital de su música nunca pudo lograr la escasez en el mundo digital. En respuesta a la digitización sin parar de la música, el Clan Wu-Tang grabó un álbum secreto en 2014 y convirtió ese álbum en un CD uno de uno. Sí, un disco compacto para todos ustedes zoomers. Y puso restricciones legales en su replicabilidad y comercialización. No se podía copiar, no se podía extrar comercialmente. Se podía escuchar, pero no se podía transmitirlo, y si lo vendía, ya no lo tendría. Este álbum uno de uno se pretendía ser un protesto contra la pérdida de valor en la música en el entorno digital.

• 2:14David Hoffman?

  Se tomó la decisión de hacer una aquisición en "Once Upon a Time" en Shaolin, el nombre de este álbum, a la mayor adivinadora con una estimación de que no se podía explotar comercialmente durante 88 años, asegurando su rareza y exclusividad.

• 2:27David Hoffman?

  This album was purchased by the infamous Martin Shkreli, a pharmaceutical executive notorious for raising the price of a lifesaving drug, Daraprin, by over 5,000%. Much to the dismay of RZA and the rest of the Wu-Tang Clan, Martin won this auction for $2 million and became the owner of "Once Upon a Time in Shaolin." He reveled in the album's exclusivity, even taunting Wu-Tang fans and the public by threatening to destroy it or keep it to himself indefinitely. It was rumored that he loved the idea of giving a quick death to what could have been a legendary story about a piece of art that was trying to revitalize the idea of the ownership of music. And he even went so far as to use the CD as a coaster on his desk to insult the art in itself. Shkreli has been called "the most hated man in America",

• 3:12David Hoffman?

  and he was convicted of securities fraud in 2016, and the United States government ordered him to forfeit $7.4 million in assets. This forfeiture included the unique Wu-Tang Clan album, "Once Upon a Time in Shaolin." Because of Martin Shkreli's greed, the Wu-Tang album was given a new opportunity to find an owner who could appreciate the cultural artifact for what it was and leverage its power for good, rather than defaming the name of Wu-Tang and tasing their diehard fans. In July of 2021, it was announced that the album had been sold to an anonymous buyer in order to satisfy the forfeiture judgment against Shkreli. The buyer was later revealed to be a collective known as Pleaser DAO, a decentralized autonomous organization known for purchasing high-value digital and physical art pieces. So, enter Pleaser DAO,

• 3:55David Hoffman?

  an online community of crypto enthusiasts and internet culturalists who ripped the album from the hands of Martin Shkreli and placed it into a community of over 100 DAO members intent on collecting parts of internet lore. James Johnson, the chief pleasing officer of Pleaser DAO, said, "This ultimate protest against middleman and rent seekers of musicians and artists went south by going into the hands of Martin Shkreli, the ultimate internet villain." "Pleaser DAO wants this to be us bringing it back to the people. We want fans to participate in this album at some level." Jamis described the purchase as appealing to Pleaser Dow's interest in acquiring signature items of digital culture, as well as a wider mission that it shares with many cryptocurrency champions, prying artistic creations from an exploitative, antiquated

• 4:40David Hoffman?

  economic system, and offering the promise of a fair one. And, Bankless Nation, that is where we find ourselves today, on this decade-long story arc of the 2014 One of One album, "Once Upon a Time in Shaolin." But, that is not the end of the story. Hopefully, that was just a prelude, and you, Bankless Nation, in the fashion of Web3, have the opportunity to be a part of the future of this artifact that has immense significance to many in the outside world, not just for the fans of Wu-Tang, but for the entire music industry as well. Bankless Nation, believe me when I say that the entire music industry is watching this story that you just heard unfold, as "Once Upon a Time in Shaolin" takes its next step into the world of Web3 and digital ownership as a token on Ethereum.

• 5:25David Hoffman?

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• 6:08David Hoffman?

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• 6:52David Hoffman?

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• 8:18David Hoffman?

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• 8:45Speaker 01

  Thank you for having us.

• 8:46Speaker 02

  Thank you. Good to be here.

• 8:47David Hoffman?

  Leighton and Matt, you guys are two leading members of Pleaser Dow, the organization that is tokenizing an album that is, that was created before the word "tokenizing" was even a thing. There's a bunch of backstory, there's a bunch of lore that the Bankless Nation will have just listened to going into this episode. So, we're kind of entering into the middle of this story. But I want to start with why this album? What's special about this album that makes it a perfect fit to bring something that is real, a physical CD, into the digital online economy on Ethereum? Why is this a perfect album? Leighton, I'll start with you.

• 9:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, the history of this album is that 10 years ago, in 2014, it was released as a one-of-one album. One of the first, or certainly the most famous, if not the first one-of-one album ever created. So, there's only one physical copy that exists. And the reason why this makes so much sense, and why this is important to understand, is because it wasn't just done that way for novelty purposes. It was done that way as a protest against the devaluation of music in a digital world. Basically, the creators of this, the Wu-Tang Clan and the co-producer, Silver Rings, were very frustrated with how, in a digital world, there's no ownership. And in a digital world with no ownership, no one values music.

• 10:06Speaker 01

  No one pays artists. Musicians are not rewarded at all. And so, everyone just wants to listen to music for free, and no one wants to actually pay artists. And their response to that was to say, "Okay, if you're going to cut the artists out, and not value their work, and not pay for their work, then we're going to make a one-of-one and only let one person listen to it." Which is how this whole saga kicked off in 2014, and it's been a crazy... It's only things have only gotten crazier since.

• 10:33David Hoffman?

  Matt, what would you add to that?

• 10:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I would just say that this album is unique and is a one-of-one, but more than that, it's an album that is easily viewed as a fine work of art.

• 10:43David Hoffman?

  Yeah.

• 10:43Speaker 02

  And the question here is, what has value? And I think what resists all from the beginning was this juxtaposition between, hey... I can go spend fifty million dollars on this Monet. And why is it that this work of art that comes from the exact same place? It's arguably just as culturally significant, isn't. And so for me, it all starts with the ability for this piece to be a representation on-chain and off-chain of value.

• 11:13David Hoffman?

  We in the crypto industry, I think many of us became familiar with crypto. Thanks to the NFT movement of 2021.

• 11:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:20David Hoffman?

  Uh, which made a lot of promises. Uh, and made a, had a lot of awareness, brought a lot of awareness to crypto, made a lot of promises, especially in the world of art. Online art, the digitization of art, like artists, one of ones. And one of the promises that the crypto industry made was new monetization models for artists, specifically through NFTs. Now, we made a lot of promises. We probably like wrote more checks than we could cash. But I think with this story that's, that is being manifested here with the Wu-Tang Clan album, we are actually showing a way in, uh, being, uh, leading with an example of like how this might be relevant to artists.

• 11:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:59David Hoffman?

  So i- is this just like a one-off scenario? Is this kind of just a cool story that's happening? Or is this, are we trying to make this, uh, are we trying to carve a path here to show artists the way?

• 12:10Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, uh, in my opinion, we're trying to carve a path. Pleasure Dow is a digital, physical collection. We're a museum. And so it's not a question of, we're not Hayden, we're not Uniswap, we're not going to create the rails for this. But we can point the right direction with the art. And so, yeah, absolutely. I think there's a case to be made for this being a way forward. And when you have builders like Leighton willing to, to lean in and actually pull it back from where things are and contemplate like, how could this be useful? How could there be value accrual here? I think you kind of have the next step.

• 12:42David Hoffman?

  Yeah.

• 12:42Speaker 02

  In what comes.

• 12:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think the thing I would add is like, it's up to the people to decide at this point if this is a one-off or if this is the new model. Um, because right now, there's been a lot of people over the past 10 years who have complained about not being able to hear this album. And the work has now been done where anyone in the world can buy an encrypted edition of this album for $1 and speed the release of this album. And so now the ball is really in the court of the people. Right? Like, like, that's the art here. And if the people are willing to say, yes, music has value. And yes, this, this one of a kind piece of artwork that the Wu-Tang Clan created

• 13:23Speaker 01

  should be valued in the same way, at least at minimum, in the same way as like a painting by Monet. Right? Like, there's a bunch of paintings by Monet. There's only a few albums. There's only one one of one by the Wu-Tang Clan. Why would that not actually be even more valuable? And so I think whether or not this is a one-off art experiment, or whether this is a replicatable model for artists to use digital distribution, that is ultimately what's going to be determined by how people interact with what's happening here. And if people want to engage with it, then yeah, I think that's gonna, that's gonna get a lot of attention from a lot of artists who are gonna say, whoa, this concept of digital ownership actually means something to me and actually helps solve the problem that the internet created.

• 14:06Speaker 01

  Because if you think about it, for, at least for musicians, the internet's been terrible. Like, the internet has been not good. Like, they've, all they've, all that's done is cannibalize all their money. And so now we're saying, okay, maybe in a world with digital ownership on crypto rails, some of that balance can be restored between the artists and the value of their art.

• 14:24David Hoffman?

  I'd like to go into that a little bit more. So this album was created in 2015?

• 14:28Speaker 01

  14 was when it was launched.

• 14:29David Hoffman?

  2014 was when it was launched. A one of one album, one of one before this idea of NFTs, when one of ones on Ethereum were even a thing. And can we talk about like some of the pressures that inspired the Wu-Tang Clan to do this in the first place? We have Spotify streams coming out. We have the iTunes Music Store even before that. We have YouTube Music. There's a lot of digital online platforms where people can go and listen to music these days that has really marginalized the ability for artists to become profitable as a result of their art. And that, that was in 2013. We've seen almost a decade year of maturation of that industry since then. So why, why is this like so ripe for the world of artists these days?

• 15:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I think, I think that's like an important thing you bring up because this whole narrative of, of trying to bring value back to music specifically in art is not something we invented. It's a, it's a, it's a vision that we're trying to steward that was very much the Wu-Tang Clan's vision from day one with this piece. And so I think RZA has a great quote in one of the interviews he talks about where he's like, "People will spend $500 for a pair of headphones to listen to music, but they won't be willing to spend 99 cents for the songs that are coming through those headphones." And like, why is that? And so I think everything that they saw in 2013, or yeah, 2013, 2014, sorry, I'm getting my own dates confused. 2014, when they first released this, all those trends have only accelerated, right?

• 15:51Speaker 01

  Like, it's actually even worse for artists today than it was 10 years ago. Now, and that's not, and that's why you see, I think, people in popular culture, James Blake, or there's a lot of artists talking about how streaming is so bad for them. But what's different, what's different from 10 years ago, is that we now have this concept of digital ownership. And is that a solution to this problem? Well, we, let's find out. I think that's what we're saying. But Matt Cobb, yeah, I don't know if you have answered that question as well.

• 16:19Speaker 02

  I mean, it's a nice, it's a nice circular thing, because the concept of digital ownership is certainly what started this problem, right? The tech world and people that are kind of very similar to our own ecosystem now, discovered that if they got an early copy, they could upload this onto parts of the web that were only accessible by certain others. And all of a sudden, you had every album ever coming out. I mean, just go back through the history of this and look at Eminem, look at others talking about like, whatever was always going to come out two months before we could launch it. And so for Full Circle to be, hey, look, now there are technological rails. We're not just the launching can exist, but the tracking can exist, the understanding of the ownership,

• 17:04Speaker 02

  the royalty payment system, that to me is, is perfect. I, I think that, you know, look, this is not only not ours on the music side, it's really not ours on the pleaser side either. This is something that Jameis saw very clearly when he went after this album, that this would be the perfect album to have this kind of question asked and potentially answered. And so I think that we're standing on the shoulders of a bunch of different individuals and getting the opportunity to ask a question, mainly because the technology now exists to see what the answer is.

• 17:41David Hoffman?

  One of the current stories about music is that the relationship between consumers of music, listeners of music, fans of artists is mediated by Spotify.

• 17:50Speaker 01

  Right.

• 17:50David Hoffman?

  Spotify knows who the artists are and they know who the fans are, but they don't allow for those connections to be made directly.

• 17:59Speaker 01

  Right.

• 17:59David Hoffman?

  And this is something that I think was also part of the motivation to make this album in the first place. And now this is something that I think Pleaser is reintroducing here.

• 18:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 18:10David Hoffman?

  Because right now, there's an opportunity for fans to own a part of this album. Maybe we can talk about the restoration of that relationship between the actual music and the owners and consumers of that music.

• 18:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, because I think the thing you're picking up on, just to like put a finer point on it, is outside of sort of the economics of it. Another thing that RZA and Silver Rings wrote about when they released this was just how sad it is that people don't collect music anymore.

• 18:37David Hoffman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 18:37Speaker 01

  Right? You rent it from Spotify.

• 18:39David Hoffman?

  Right.

• 18:39Speaker 01

  And if you stop paying Spotify, your whole thing's gone.

• 18:42David Hoffman?

  Right.

• 18:42Speaker 01

  You don't cherish it, you don't collect it. Those are their words, you know, if you go to their artist statement and read it. And so that is another component. Outside the economics, the other component is us saying, "Look, collect this thing. Own it." And that's why we had Hasan Rahim, who's a famous, very famous designer in this world, do the album art for this, right? And so you can actually, price points aside, let's try to bring that back. And yes, it is in a digital sense, which is a little novel, right? Because you're not collecting a physical object, you're collecting a digital object. So that's the novel piece of it. But that is another core component here is we're saying, "What does it look like to

• 19:22Speaker 01

  go back to a world where we actually collected music and we didn't just have AI giving us the Spotify recommendation that we listened to for 30 seconds and then never hear again? And then it's just in this cloud, right? Like, what does it actually look like to go back to collecting?" And I think that's another, that's another really important narrative I think you're picking up on.

• 19:43David Hoffman?

  Matt, anything for you?

• 19:44Speaker 02

  I don't have much more to add to that. I think that's exactly right, Lathan.

• 19:49David Hoffman?

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• 22:25David Hoffman?

  Well, let's talk about the actual mechanics of owning this thing. So let's just drill down right into the actual details. What's going on? What's happening? What are we doing here?

• 22:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I mean, so, okay, so let's start with it's everything about this album is interesting. So let's, let's start there. So right now, what is on offer to people is they are able to pay $1. Wanted to start with the lowest price point possible to really bring this question to the forefront of, are you willing to do anything for music? Are you willing to value music in any way? So they're willing, they're paying $1. And what they get when they pay $1 is a token that, again, this is, it's, it's, it's an NFT. It's also, it's also an ERC20. So it's, I'll get a little more technical for this audience because it's bankless. But what they're getting is this, is this dual nature token that has this new original artwork

• 23:15Speaker 01

  designed by Hassan Rahim and also has the link to the fully encrypted album hosted on IPFS.

• 23:24David Hoffman?

  So there is an encrypt, so I think one thing we might have missed is that no one, very few people have listened to this album because it's not being reproduced.

• 23:32Speaker 01

  Right.

• 23:32David Hoffman?

  And so it's, this album is scarce in the fact that there's one of one. But it's also scarce in that you can't go find it on Spotify. You can't go find it on the internet. So this is the only, this encrypted album is the only time that this album has been uploaded to the internet?

• 23:45Speaker 01

  Yes, that's correct. So the album was fully encrypted, every song. And so that's sort of like part of the, part of the story here, right? Is that you can actually become an owner of this music, right? You actually. Can access these encrypted files. You can't obviously listen to it, but you can't become an owner of it. So what you're doing is you're paying $1 and you're getting those things. You're also, the final thing you're getting is you are getting access to sampler from the album that was created specifically for this by the co-producer Civil Rings. A five-minute sampler where you can hear some of the music. Okay, so you can try before you buy. Well. Try after you buy. After you buy. You can listen, you can listen. Once you show that you value music and you care about this, you can get some access. Okay. Now, um, the final thing that happens, and this is where there's this interesting mechanic,

• 24:30Speaker 01

  is the Wu-Tang Clan originally decided that this album could not be released until 2103. Okay. Okay? So we use. What does it mean to be released? That was when they dictated that it could not be used in a way that's public. Okay. Outside of private listing parties. So they said the owners can have private listing parties, but you cannot publicly share this with the world till 2103. No broadcasting. No broadcasting, no just, no streaming, no, no public.

• 24:58Speaker 02

  No public performances.

• 24:59Speaker 01

  No public performances.

• 25:00Speaker 02

  No DSDs.

• 25:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, all that stuff. So again, to honor this vision, we use that as the, um, as the decryption date for the music. 2103. But for each purchase of $1, it takes 88 seconds off of that clock. So it brings that, it brings that closer. Now, of course, the passage of time also brings us closer to that. Right. And so there's sort of this setup here where people can say, if you actually value music and want to hear this right now, you can. If you don't, and you just want to stream your music on Spotify and you don't actually care about paying artists, then that's fine. The Wu-Tang Clan was right, RZA was right, Civil Rings were right, and you can hear it when that clock hits zero. Right. And like, let's let the people decide.

• 25:45Speaker 01

  It's kind of like the put up or shut up because it's like, how many people have been complaining for 10 years that like, they shouldn't have done this, they robbed the fans, they, they didn't let us hear it. But then when it actually comes time to say, are you willing to value this as art? And where are the people? Right? And there are, and to be clear, I guess we'll get into the, we'll get into some of the sales and stuff. There are people who are showing up and saying, yes.

• 26:07David Hoffman?

  Now is the time.

• 26:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I'm not trying to say no one's showing up, but I am saying this is, this is the question that the art is asking.

• 26:14Speaker 02

  And, and how are they going to show up, right? I think the question, RZA didn't, I don't think they just made this from an economic perspective. I think they also wanted it to be treasured.

• 26:22Speaker 01

  Right.

• 26:23Speaker 02

  And so by putting it into Mona, we're having conversations now with other museums to take this on tour and to allow the listening experience to be, to be there. I think is also a very important factor here because a lot of people have kind of pushed towards, maybe we actually don't want the whole thing. Maybe we want to experience it kind of over here. And I think that's the open question. And so finding out the result of that is the fun part.

• 26:47David Hoffman?

  Okay, so the, the rules according to the contract or?

• 26:51Speaker 01

  Contract, yeah.

• 26:52David Hoffman?

  Of, of the album is that there can't be any public dissemination of the album until 2130 or very far in the future.

• 26:59Speaker 01

  Correct, 2103, yeah.

• 27:01David Hoffman?

  Do I just please your doubt get the right to move forward that release date by 88 seconds every purchase? What, how did that, how is that allowed?

• 27:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I think without going into this, into the details, I think it is true to say that we have been working with the original artists to be able to create a mechanism that people can at least have the option.

• 27:21David Hoffman?

  Okay.

• 27:21Speaker 01

  Of unlocking this music earlier. If they so desire.

• 27:26David Hoffman?

  If they have proven that they value music.

• 27:28Speaker 01

  If they so care to value the music to do so. This is not something that we are unilaterally doing. This is something that we've done in collaboration with, with the agreements created by the artists. With that said, it is a very complicated piece of music from a legal perspective.

• 27:42David Hoffman?

  Right.

• 27:42Speaker 01

  And so there's, there's, there's a lot there that we can't, we can't necessarily go into all the details. Let's just say though, Pleaser has worked its Pleaser magic to, to, and, and put in a lot of, and put in a lot of blood, sweat and tears to say to the, the world and to fans, do we want to decide that as a society, we can value music in the same way that we value every other type of art? We value that, and that's again, that goes back to what RZA said. It's like you go, you go to the museum, you see paintings, you see sculptures, you see all these different things, but you don't see recorded music.

• 28:20David Hoffman?

  Right.

• 28:21Speaker 01

  Because we just as a society decided we don't really. Just put that in the same category. And so we.

• 28:27Speaker 02

  Or because the reproduction mechanism was such that it could be stolen and not tracked.

• 28:32Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 28:32Speaker 02

  Which is kind of interesting.

• 28:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:34Speaker 02

  Because now you can actually put it out and track it digitally.

• 28:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:38David Hoffman?

  Yeah, so un- unlike other art mediums, music is so unique in the sense that it's extremely digital. Like there, you can scan a piece of artwork, but that never really is true to its original form of the artwork. But that is true for music.

• 28:52Speaker 01

  Well, and that, so that gets into an interesting, so in the digital world, pre-ownership, right? And this is maybe super nerdy, but with a crypto audience in mind, let's maybe go in here. In a digital world where there's no conception of like a public ledger that defines provenance. There is no difference between all these different copies of music.

• 29:08David Hoffman?

  Right.

• 29:09Speaker 01

  Right? Because you do have that with a painting, right? You sort of have the concept of the original.

• 29:13David Hoffman?

  Right.

• 29:14Speaker 01

  And then the reproductions. You don't actually have that with digital music pre-blockchains.

• 29:21David Hoffman?

  Right.

• 29:21Speaker 01

  Now you do. Now you have this on-chain happening right now that the legal owner of this album is enabling you to buy a, a, a, a encrypted copy of it. And so you now have this for the first time. And that's again, that's us now saying, okay, in the 2014, the Wu-Tang Clan was very prescient to see ahead of the curve and look and say, what's happening to artists in a digital world is no one cares about their music, no one pays them, and it's getting completely devalued. We are going to protest that by making a one-of-one that will never be digitized. That was 10 years ago. Now we're saying, okay, 10 years later, we have this new technology. It enables provenance and ownership and collection to be experienced in a digital world. Is there now a way forward?

• 30:07Speaker 01

  Is there now a new way forward for this music?

• 30:08David Hoffman?

  Can we now rethink this idea of digital content?

• 30:10Speaker 01

  Can we now rethink this idea? And I don't know if we can, to be honest.

• 30:14David Hoffman?

  But that's why it goes back to the people who are buying these, with these one-of-one albums. It's like, it's really going to be up to the consumers of this product, and this product is the art.

• 30:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, the product is there.

• 30:25Speaker 02

  Maybe, right? I mean, sometimes the first thing isn't the thing.

• 30:29Speaker 01

  Right.

• 30:29Speaker 02

  And that's why this is more a pointing in the direction. But there's a reason why the California DMV is putting things on-chain. Right? There's a reason why companies are actually using this as a backend, because it's clear, it's open, it's obvious, it's not centralized. And so, you know, whether or not this is the exact mechanism, or whether or not someone takes this and says, oh, wow, there's some good things there. Let's build on it. I'm not sure. But super important to take the industry from kind of where it is to the next stage where it can interact with the rest of the world in a way that makes sense.

• 31:02David Hoffman?

  And to my understanding, you guys have been, the members of the Wu-Tang Clan are fully aware of of this process and are watching this happen. What's it been like to like work with them and kind of like pitch the idea of Web 3 to them?

• 31:15Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, I mean, I want to start with the first part of that question.

• 31:17David Hoffman?

  Sure.

• 31:18Speaker 01

  So not just the members of the Wu-Tang Clan are watching this. The entire music industry is watching this.

• 31:25David Hoffman?

  Hmm.

• 31:25Speaker 01

  The, this, this, look, this is the Wu-Tang Clan. This is, this is, this is like one of the most famous music groups of all time. The number of people who are watching this and seeing, is there actually something of substance?

• 31:37David Hoffman?

  Oh, going on in Web 3?

• 31:38Speaker 01

  To crypto? Is there actually something of substance happening here? That's not just some sort of Ponzi game? That's not just a speculative thing? That is actually people valuing ownership in a digital world? There's a lot of eyes on this. And yes, maybe some of those eyes are quiet. They're not commenting to the New York Times and the Rolling Stone, but they're watching this. And for me, speaking from the perspective of being a member of the crypto community.

• 32:03David Hoffman?

  Right.

• 32:04Speaker 01

  If we can show that there is something here and like what Matt Koff just said, is this the perfect thing? I highly doubt it. But if we can show that there's something here, I think that is going to have a massive impact and a ripple effect across artists, across distributors of music, across digital streaming platforms, across labels, across the owner, the copyright owners, et cetera. Like, the opportunity here could not be bigger. But it's a little bit sad from my perspective because it's like the opportunity could be bigger. But a lot of people in the crypto community, I think, don't, don't understand that full context. And I think if they did, they would be more excited about it.

• 32:47David Hoffman?

  So let's take the perspective of a crypto person who's very familiar with everything crypto. Maybe they're not familiar with the Wu-Tang Clan or how big of a deal of a music group they are. Maybe they just don't like rap. Maybe they're not really as familiar with the music industry. Most of this conversation is foreign to them. But nonetheless, they are here for the crypto movement and they believe in the power that crypto can bring the world. Why should they care about this? I think it's the best chance you have, at least this year, calendar year, I'll say, I don't know how long I want to extend that timeline, to show people outside of crypto that digital ownership means something and that we can use that as a tool to bring value back to artists. Like, I can't think of a better, a better

• 33:31Speaker 01

  Opportunity.

• 33:31David Hoffman?

  A better opportunity to show than that.

• 33:33Speaker 02

  I mean, I'd have to come at this from the other direction because the reality is, I'm, you know, I'm in crypto since 2020, 2021. I'm on boarded by Jamis, by Pleaser for this purpose and then kind of started to spread my wings and really come to love the, the industry. Um, you know, my prior jobs have all involved building a structure around talent. And so when I came on and saw this, to me, this was just an obvious aha moment. Like, why in the world aren't people getting outside of the casino and onboarding? And so from a, from a web two perspective, um, this is, this is super interesting. And I think that we have a real opportunity here to show why Pleaser really is kind of the

• 34:16Speaker 02

  92 dream team of, of crypto, right? And to bring to bear kind of the, the resources and the knowledge and the understanding and connect these worlds. And, and like Leighton said, whether or not this becomes the paradigm by which these launches occur, I'm, I'm not sure, but I can guarantee you that a lot of thought's going to be given to what we did here and the love that went into it because it's not value extractive. It's a way that you can launch something in our world and create a community, give back and also have something transparent and trackable without saying, oh, here you go, be a part of the casino. Um, there's a part of that, I think, that can be fun for some, but it's not the entire thesis.

• 34:56David Hoffman?

  I have a memory I'd like to share before we, we wrap up and give some call to actions. Uh, 2021 NFT NYC, uh, was one of the first times that I met a lot of the members of Pleaser DAO. Uh, and also just a lot of people in, in crypto at all because we were coming out of COVID. Uh, and there was a Wu-Tang, the Pleaser DAO had just bought the album, maybe this was 2022. Pleaser DAO had just brought

• 35:19Speaker 02

  2021.

• 35:20David Hoffman?

  21. Please are now had just bought the album and we were doing a listening party in Brooklyn, New York and it's where I think I met Hayden for the first time. It's where Leighton and I had met in 2019 and we had a listening party of like maybe 30 people in Brooklyn, listening to the album. And I, some of the songs I remember to this day is like, oh man, I don't really like rap, but this song is awesome. And it's just one of the fondest memories that I have. And I definitely, it definitely came from the whole experience of like just the hair standing on end of listening to an album that you know that a very small number of people had been able to be a part of. And the story here is that now everyone can share a very small part of that, a part of the experience.

• 36:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I think it's the most exclusive piece of music ever to exist, only owned by one person, can now be owned by anyone for a dollar in an encrypted format, right? Like that's, that's, that's, and so there is like this really interesting play here where we have democratized ownership of this asset. Now, listening is still happens in these different modularities, right? Like, right now, it's at the Mona Museum in Tasmania. That's where you can hear 30 minutes of it. You can hear five minutes of it online. After you purchase, you can, you can go pirate it on YouTube and listen to five minutes of it if you want to. And so like, there's, but, but the point is, the point is, ownership

• 36:44Speaker 01

  of this piece of, of this, this art is now something anyone can participate in.

• 36:49David Hoffman?

  Right.

• 36:49Speaker 01

  And there's going to be continuing, the way that people can experience it and listen to it is going to continue to be rolled out and, and it will be, continue to be in different modalities. Like it will continue to be somewhat, some of it online, some of it streaming, some of it will continue to be in museums and other, our institutions.

• 37:07Speaker 02

  And David, I mean, I think you really zero in on it for A big part of this, I mean, I I grew up on, whoa, I grew up listening to them. Um, Thirty Six Chambers, sure, but Ray had only built for Cuban links, Ghost, Iron Man. Um, some of my my favorite music of all time. And the reason why you say what you say is the same reason why I can appreciate the Rolling Stones, but not necessarily know every song, because great music is just great music. And outside of everything else, this is just great music.

• 37:42Speaker 01

  It is. It is great music. I I've had the chance to listen to some of it and I it's it's amazing. It's beautiful.

• 37:48David Hoffman?

  Yeah, I I definitely am very partial to the song with the the trumpets, the brass. I think that's track four. Don't know the name of it. I don't know. Are there are there names to these songs?

• 37:58Speaker 02

  There are. There are names. Yeah, there are names. Um, and that track is one of my favorites as well.

• 38:04David Hoffman?

  All right, guys. Uh, if people are piqued, either because they absolutely love the Wu-Tang Clan and they want to own a part of this, or because they think that this is a great example to help promote the values of crypto to outside industries and outside players, who, like Leighton said, are definitely watching, uh, what should they go do? How can they help?

• 38:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, so you can go to thealbum.com.

• 38:22David Hoffman?

  Thealbum.com.

• 38:23Speaker 01

  Thealbum.com. I know, what a great URL. I think it's the best appropriate branding here. A lot of work went into creating not, yes, you can you can mint this digital artifact, but there's a lot more to that website. You can interact with like a 3D version of the box. You can listen, obviously, to this sampler produced by Civil Rings. You can look at the leaderboard where you can see like who's who's doing the most to unlock this album. Um, the other thing I'd really highlight for the crypto audience is that if you click Buy Album when you go to thealbum.com, you can click over to Apple Pay and there's a very, very, very simple like purchase flow with Apple Pay. And so this is something that you can send to anyone. They don't need to set up a wallet. They don't need to deal with crypto at all.

• 39:07David Hoffman?

  But there is a wallet there.

• 39:08Speaker 01

  Powered by Privy. There is an embedded wallet that's created based on their phone number. So there is something there, yes, but like the user experience of it is not that you have to create a wallet. And so it's really magical. I really encourage people to give it a try and it's something that you can send to your family. Look, again, it's like $1 and we wanted to make it accessible to people because we really wanted to take this from like the most exclusive owned object in the whole world and use crypto to make it the most widely owned piece of music in the whole world. And to really play into this question, I'm not going to say answer it, but play into this question that Riza and Silver Rings asked in 2014 about what does it mean to own something digitally and what does it mean to value and collect music? And like, this is the way you can do that today.

• 39:51Speaker 01

  And again, it's like, it's not, it's not a lot of money.

• 39:54David Hoffman?

  Yeah, I do think answering that question would be interesting, but asking that question in bigger and bigger form factors, I think also kind of serves that same purpose. And I think that's really what Ethereum and online digital property rights also brings to the table is what does it really mean to own something?

• 40:08Speaker 01

  Right.

• 40:08David Hoffman?

  And so just making, maybe asking the question, but bigger and louder is also kind of part of the original inspiration of this whole story.

• 40:15Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 40:16David Hoffman?

  So the sale has been live for I think a week now. So we are already getting some data about like how well this is going, how well, how well is it going?

• 40:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I'll let, I'll let Matt Koff add some color from the music side, but I think one thing that's really interesting so far is that of the, of the mints, we've already had, I think 45, 50,000 mints, between 45 and 50,000 mints are happening with people using credit card.

• 40:39David Hoffman?

  Okay, 45,000 mints just with a credit card, not with the crypto side of things?

• 40:42Speaker 01

  Just with credit card. And so what we're seeing is the levels of engagement with people using credit card, not using crypto are off the charts. Like thousands of unique people buying it, 45,000 or so unique mints, I think maybe 50,000 unique mints. And so I think that's an example. Now, on the flip side, the engagement of the crypto side, I would say has been relatively like tepid. Like there has been engagement, but it's not, not, not like, you know, what you would see with Constitution Dow or something like that.

• 41:08David Hoffman?

  Right.

• 41:09Speaker 01

  So it's, it's been very interesting to work on something that has a lot of relevance to culture, but is less relevant inside the crypto native bubble. Obviously, we hope to ultimately reach both, both people and, and have a message that's for both of them. But Matt Koff, I think you've looked into some of the stats in terms of how, how, where this puts, where this puts things in terms of normal album sales.

• 41:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I mean, I think the Constitution Dow was actually an interesting example because I'm pretty sure that trickled in before there was a couple much larger injections before it took out, took off. I think that in 2024, though, right now, I want to say Ariana was at 240 for Yes, And as a single. Redrum was at 155. I mean, at 250 right now, where people are acquiring the ability to have this, have this piece of art, along with the ability to stream a sampler, I think that we've probably broken or about to break some first week song, single record.

• 42:08Speaker 01

  High level, like 250,000, I think, is the total mint so far. We're about six days in, and I think it's come from around 15,000 unique minters. And again, a very large portion of that being people who do not use crypto, who are using a credit card, and who presumably don't have a wallet.

• 42:24David Hoffman?

  Right, and who heard about this probably from non-crypto channels as well.

• 42:27Speaker 01

  Yes, who heard about it from hip hop and, and, and larger, you know, New York Times type publications. Yeah.

• 42:32David Hoffman?

  So just to do the math, 250,000 minutes times 88 seconds?

• 42:35Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 42:36David Hoffman?

  250,000 times 88 seconds?

• 42:39Speaker 02

  We're getting close to a year.

• 42:40David Hoffman?

  Getting close to one year. So we have pulled forward the release date by one year. And this has been out for a week or so.

• 42:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:46David Hoffman?

  And, and we have 100 years to go?

• 42:49Speaker 01

  No, not quite 100. I think, I think it's like 70, 77 years is like the total, is the total. But it's not going to be a completely binary, right? So it's not like it has to get to zero for, for music to release.

• 43:01David Hoffman?

  It will be released sooner.

• 43:02Speaker 01

  People, people can expect that as people become owners and value music, the music comes out. And of course, on the, on the flip side, if, if people, if people don't, and they just want to wait, then the music will come out, too.

• 43:15David Hoffman?

  Right. Just, we might be dead.

• 43:18Speaker 02

  Much later.

• 43:18Speaker 01

  It just might be, it just might be later. But yeah, I mean, to be honest, like, you know, the amount of time we, the whole, the eyes and the ears of a very important section of the music industry are on crypto right now.

• 43:33David Hoffman?

  Right.

• 43:34Speaker 01

  And most people in crypto, I think, are totally unaware of that. But that is the reality. And yeah, I think this is a really interesting opportunity. And we'll see, we can't dictate what people want to do. But I think we can create a really unique opportunity if people want to engage with it.

• 43:48David Hoffman?

  Leighton, Matt, thank you guys so much for coming on the show and, and helping me explain this to the Bankless Nation today.

• 43:53Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 43:54Speaker 02

  Thank you for having us.

• 43:55David Hoffman?

  Cheers. Bankless Nation, you guys know the deal. Crypto is risky, DeFi is risky. Is owning music risky? I don't know. I'll let that be a question for the listener. But we are on the journey west. It's not for everyone, but we are glad you're with us on the Bankless journey. Thanks a lot.