Son Of Wu-Tang Clan’s ODB To Launch Own Coin Via ICO To Support Music, Brand

Hip Hop artist Young Dirty Bastard, the son of late rapper and producer Ol’ Dirty Bastard of the Wu-Tang Clan, is launching his own cryptocurrency in an Initial Coin Offering (ICO), he announced in an interview with Yahoo Finance Tuesday, March 6.

Bar-Sun Unique Jones, originally from Brooklyn and better known by his stage name Young Dirty Bastard, claimed in the interview that he decided to launch his Dirty Coin (ODB) to fund his next album and to support music projects and other ventures, including books and video games. Dirty added that he plans to use ODB coins as payment for concerts, merchandise, and music from Ol’ Dirty Bastard and himself.

The artist noted that the move is not the influence of other celebrities jumping onto the crypto bandwagon, but rather is inspired by the overall rise of crypto and Blockchain technology. Young Dirty explained what he sees as the importance being part of Blockchain development while the industry is still just taking off, commenting “[y]ou’re going to ride the boat when Noah is boarding, or you’re going to miss it, and you’re going to sink.”

“Crypto is very big. The blockchain is one of the biggest inventions of our time. And I don’t want to be out of the party, I want to come in to the party,” said Young Dirty.

Dirty Coin ICO will be issued by the Ol’ Dirty Bastard (ODB) Estate in partnership with Link Media Partners, a music A&R firm. The ODB token will be launched on the TAO Network Blockchain platform and will trade on the AltMarket cryptocurrency trading platform, which is set to be launched together with Dirty Coin.

Tokens issuers have been the subject of increased scrutiny by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) since Jay Clayton, chairman of the SEC, announced further investigation of ICO projects during the SEC and CFTC hearings on Feb. 6. Later the same month, the SEC reportedly launched a probe into cryptocurrency businesses over concern that the structure of sales and pre-sales of many ICOs violated US securities laws.

Meanwhile, Pavel and Nikolai Durov, the creators of encrypted messenger service Telegram, filed a “Notice of Exempt Offering of Securities” with the SEC on Feb. 13. The exemption allowed them to not register with the SEC and still raise money from US citizens for their Telegram Open Network (TON) ICO by selling tokens only to accredited investors.