What better symbol to represent this fight than an album created to stand up against these establishment juggernauts?

The primary objective of blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies is to enable one-to-one transfer of ownership and the creation of value without middlemen and centralized rent-seeking institutions. Decentralization and Web 3.0, at its core, addresses this head on.

The Wu-Tang clan’s protest against middleman overlords was prescient of the problems to come with the Web 2.0 streaming era, an industry that profits by standing between artist and fan, siphoning off profits and leaving creatives hanging out to dry, heart and souls stolen from the page. Creating an album that record labels and distributors could not monetize was an ingenious approach, highlighting the failed state of the music industry. Wu-Tang’s experience as innovators working within the confines of an entertainment industry which continuously reaped benefits of others' labor sparked the inspiration for this fuse of protest. When 36 Chambers was released in the early 90’s it was unlike any music heard before. Philosophically, Wu-Tang Clan is the OG DAO: a collective formed to reach beyond the limits of any single individual collaborative in nature to fulfill a higher purpose, yet allowing each individual member sovereign freedom to act on their own accord. The album sat in a temperature controlled vault in the basement of the Department of Justice, until now. In 2018 a court ordered the forfeiture of Shkreli’s assets which included Once Upon a Time in Shaolin. Shkreli, notorious for hiking the price of pharmaceutical drugs, was eventually found guilty of fraud and sentenced to seven years in prison. He threatened to destroy the album and allegedly used the jeweled CD case as a coaster. Martin Shkreli, aka “Pharma Bro” and prominent internet villain, purchased the album anonymously at auction in 2015 for $2 million - making it the most expensive work of music ever sold. The history between inception and the present of Once Upon a Time in Shaolin reads like pulp fiction. Ownership of this monument is accompanied by strict legal repercussions against any improper digitization and/or distribution of the work. Once completed, they pressed a single copy to be encased in a leather covered box with an interior nickel/silver-plated “box-within-a-box-within-a-box” made by British-Moroccan artist Yahya. The two-CD, 31 track album was conceptualized and then produced by Cilvaringz alongside RZA in secret over the course of six years starting in 2007 and includes every member of the Wu-Tang Clan, sans Ol’ Dirty Bastard who died in 2004.

Wu tang clan forever cd cover