Latest news with #OnceUponATimeInShaolin
Yahoo
31-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
U.S. Government Reveals Seven-Figure Price Tag for Sale of One-Off Wu-Tang Clan Album: Report
The price tag behind the government's sale of Wu-Tang Clan's Once Upon a Time in Shaolin album has been revealed. According to Bloomberg, the Department of Justice sold the one-of-one Wu-Tang artifact for $2.23 million to WTC Endeavours Limited, a Hong Kong-based company, in 2018. For those who don't recall the knotty history of Once Upon a Time, 'Pharmabro' Martin Shkreli purchased the only copy of the 31-track album in a 2015 auction from Wu-Tang Clan for about $2 million. Later in the year, Shkreli was charged with securities fraud and convicted in 2017. In addition to his seven-year prison sentence, Shkreli also had to forfeit $7.4 million in assets. More from Billboard Kneecap Won't Face Criminal Charges Over Glastonbury Set Teen Planned to Attack Oasis Fans at Reunion Tour's Opening Night: Prosecutors Trey Songz Faces Police Probe for Allegedly Assaulting Cameraman at Long Island Restaurant The U.S. Attorney's office in New York announced in 2021 that the federal government had sold the album to 'satisfy the outstanding balance' owed by Shkreli, but the price tag was kept a secret until earlier in July. PleasrDAO, a crypto collective, is the current owner of Once Upon a Time in Shaolin after purchasing the album through an intermediary. The New York Times reported in 2021 that PleasrDAO paid an 'equivalent of $4 million in a cryptocurrency tied to the dollar' for rights to the elusive project. Last year, PleasrDAO turned the album into an NFT, which allows the public to donate $1 and hear five minutes from Once Upon a Time in Shaolin. While the album can't go to public consumption until 2103 (private listening parties are okay), each $1 purchase takes 88 seconds off the countdown. Billboard has reached out to the Department of Justice for comment. Best of Billboard Diddy Judge Rejects Claim That Prosecutors Leaked Surveillance Tape of Cassie Assault Four Decades of 'Madonna': A Look Back at the Queen of Pop's Debut Album on the Charts Chart Rewind: In 1990, Madonna Was in 'Vogue' Atop the Hot 100 Solve the daily Crossword
Gizmodo
19-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Gizmodo
We Finally Know How Much Martin Shkreli's Wu-Tang Album Cost
The saga of Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, the one-of-a-kind Wu-Tang Clan album that Martin 'pharma bro' Shkreli bought for approximately $2 million in 2015, continues. The album, the contents of which have always been a highly guarded secret, was seized by the U.S. government in 2018 after Shkreli was convicted of securities fraud. For years, it was reported that the government had sold the album directly to PleaserDAO, a crypto collective that specializes in NFTs. However, Bloomberg now reports that this was not the case. According to new FOIA documents, the government actually sold the album off to another company before PleaserDAO acquired it in 2021. Bloomberg sued the Justice Department for more information on the heavily redacted case, and the government has finally revealed the buyer's identity. WTC Endeavours Limited, which was set up for the express purpose of purchasing the album in 2020, was incorporated in Hong Kong. The company was dissolved some two years after the album was purchased by PleaserDAO in 2023. Bloomberg writes that WTC Endeavors purchased the album from the U.S. government for $2,238,482.30, which was the amount that Shkreli owed the government at the time. PleaserDAO then subsequently procured the album through crypto payments equivalent to $4 million. 'The DOJ made it clear to my FOIA attorney that PleasrDAO wasn't connected in any way to the corporate entity or the individual who purchased the album,' Bloomberg writes. Not a whole lot of information is available about WTC Endeavors, and Leopold notes that the names of the officers affiliated with the company 'don't appear to be well known.' Shkreli, formerly the CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, is best known for having bought and jacked up the price of Daraprim, an anti-parasitic drug that saves lives, by 5,000 percent. Shkreli subsequently became the face of the pharmaceutical industry's sociopathic price-gouging and has been notorious ever since. He went to prison for securities fraud in 2018. A thoroughly ridiculous individual, Shkreli subsequently managed to seduce a journalist while in prison, who left her husband for him. Since getting out of prison, Shkreli and the journalist have parted ways, and Shkreli is now thoroughly entrenched in the cryptocurrency community, which is probably where he belonged all along. Once Upon a Time in Shaolin is a 31-track album that was developed by Wu-Tang over a long period and sold with the legal stipulation that it couldn't be commercially released until the year 2103. For a majority of us peons, its contents remain a mystery, although if you get invited to the right party, you have a chance at catching some of its tracks.
Bloomberg
18-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Bloomberg
DOJ Finally Reveals Sale Price for Seized Wu-Tang Clan Album
Welcome back to FOIA Files! This week, I'm feeling sparks of energy. The government finally disclosed to me the auction price for Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, the seventh studio album by renowned hip-hop group, Wu-Tang Clan. The Justice Department seized the album in 2018 from Martin Shkreli, the notorious pharmaceutical executive and hedge fund manager who was convicted of securities fraud. The government later sold the album but kept the sale price secret. After spending more than four years trying to pry loose that detail, I just got it! Take a trip with me down the Wu-Tang rabbit hole for the whole backstory. If you're not already getting FOIA Files in your inbox, sign up here. I assume most people know the story by now. Wu-Tang Clan sold the only copy of their 31-track album, Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, at auction in 2015 to Shkreli for about $2 million. The album, conceived as a work of art, was pressed onto two compact discs and stored in a vault in Casablanca before it was sold. The buyer had to agree that they would not duplicate it or play it commercially for 88 years—until 2103.
