David Bowie’s estate withdraws NFT announcement after backlash

After announcing it would release a non-fungible token (NFT) line, the estate of David Bowie has deleted the first post about the project – and it’s unclear what’s going to happen next.

“On September 13th, David Bowie’s immortal influence will impact yet another new frontier as nine of the world’s leading crypto artists come together to celebrate his legacy and put #BowieOnTheBlockchain,” read the since-deleted tweet from earlier today. according to the Internet Archive.

The archived post shows ample ridicule about the NFT project which, per Billboard profile, set out to benefit a humanitarian non-profit that the late rock star’s wife Iman Abdulmajid works with.

“I’m going to scream,” says one reply to the since-deleted post.

“No – don’t trash Bowie’s legacy like this,” another user pleaded.

As horrifying as the prospect of using Bowie’s estate to sell NFTs may seem, another Twitter user pointed out that these NFTs appear to be a “logical extension” of another, largely forgotten trick the superstar pulled off back then he still lived.

In an October 2021 blog post, data standards expert Terence Eden stated that in 1997 Bowie had “invented NFT” with Bowie Bonds, which “allowed you to invest directly in an artist’s catalog and receive royalty payments based on their sales.”

The concept, as outlined by Eden, held promise. By paying money for shares of a given artist’s catalogs, people like Bowie could use the proceeds to buy back their masters. Every time one of the artist-owned songs is sold and played, they get paid – and so would the investors.

As BBC noted after Bowie’s death in 2016, this concept fascinated a number of other artists such as James Brown and Iron Maiden, who in turn began issuing similar bonds for their own catalogs. However, in 2004 Moody’s Investors Services rated the securities-backed assets almost worthless because, as Bowie infamously predicted just a few years earlier, the music industry had become a public good.

In his October 2021 post, Eden listed a number of “perverse incentives” for artist bonds meant as allegories for the NFT market – “pump and dump” planning, “despicable” evangelism and even “share washing.” Although the market was much younger at the time, these predictions have obviously proven true.

“Unfortunately, this is the logical conclusion of the NFT craze,” the data standards expert said.

Bowie NFT, Eden wrote on Twitter todaywould have “even more perverse incentives” — though he didn’t explain exactly what those incentives would be.

Despite the deleted tweet, there’s been no news that the Bowie estate’s NFT project has actually been canceled — a representative for Bowie’s estate did not respond to a request for comment — but you’d better believe they’re under pressure .

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