Kings Of Leon Releasing Their New Album As NFT Crypto Currency
Kings of Leon are about to do something revolutionary. On Friday, the Grammy-winning alt-rock band will release their new album When You See Yourself as an NFT, making them the first band to ever release their album in this burgeoning cryptocurrency format.
With the recent soar of the cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin and others in the financial market, the need to know more about the virtual currencies and their various trading platforms (like Independent Reserve) have increased manifold. For those who aren’t up on their crypto lingo, NFT is an acronym for non-fungible tokens. They’re essentially a form of digital currency like Bitcoin, except instead of a monetary value, they contain art, music, or even something unique like a concert ticket. Throughout the last few months, their popularity has soared immensely in the music community – and so has their value. Over the weekend, Grimes sold a collection that contained exclusive songs and art that earned her $6 million via auction.
In addition to releasing When You See Yourself in NFT form the same day the album hits streaming services, the band will unveil a bunch of other NFTs that demonstrate the innovative possibilities of this technology. Six of them will be “golden tickets” that contain evergreen perks such as lifetime front-row seats to any Kings of Leon show, and another six will be exclusive audiovisual art pieces that “represent the band and its legacy”, according to a press statement.
According to Rolling Stone, which spoke with the company Kings of Leon are partnering with for this, YellowHeart, the NFT version of their album will be kind of like a deluxe bundle that contains a unique type of cover art, digital downloads of the music, and limited-edition vinyl. They’ll be available for $50 a pop on the NFT marketplace for two weeks, and then none of them will ever be produced again, allowing their value to grow based on how much people want to pay for them on the marketplace.
The “golden ticket” NFTs will work a little differently. YellowHeart will produce 18 of them, but they’re only auctioning off six on Friday, while keeping the other 12 in the vault for an undisclosed period of time. Anyone who manages to snag one will have four front-row tickets to any Kings of Leon show for the rest of their life. Additionally, they’ll get premier VIP treatment for each gig: a personal concierge that will drive you to and from the show, a hangout with the band before they play, access to a lounge section, and four bags filled with every item from the merch booth to take home afterwards.
Lastly, the final NFT option from the band will be six unique-looking tokens that contain elaborate visual art, which is currently one of the most common “genres” of NFT in this economy. The prices range from $95 to $2,5000 and YellowHeart will produce as many as people wish to buy until Sunday at 8 p.m. ET, at which time they’ll only be available for trading on the marketplace.
Clearly, one can see how the value for these things fluctuates based on hype and perceived worth, similar to how the value of Bitcoin changes drastically depending on how much excitement people fuel into it, or how stocks on the stock market rise and fall based on the success or name recognition of a given company. The future is here, folks.
For those who don’t want to delve into NFT world, When You See Yourself will also be available this Friday on streaming, vinyl, and CD formats. It’s Kings of Leon’s first full-length since 2016’s WALLS and one of our most anticipated albums of the year.