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.

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.