Grimes Made More Money From NFTs Than From Her Entire Music Career: Wired

Grimes’ big bet on non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, in 2021 turned out to be one of her largest source of income.

In an interview with technology magazine Wired, the Canadian musician and producer, whose real name is Claire Elise Boucher, was asked if she made more money off of NFTs than she has across her entire music career. She responded with a simple “yeah.”

During the hype cycle of 2021, Grimes sold her “War Nymph” NFTs on platform Nifty Gateway, earning roughly $6 million in revenue. The collection featured a series of digital artworks set to her music, as well as a one-of-one music video that sold for almost $400,000.

NFTs have taken a back seat in pop culture, as their trading volume has fallen nearly 50% since the beginning of the year. Grimes, however, told Wired that she’s hopeful the tokens can return to help artists earn profits on their work.

“I’m sad about what happened to NFTs and crypto, because it got polluted fast with people trying to make as much money as possible,” Grimes said. “But I do want to think about compensating artists, especially digital artists."

Beyond just NFTs, Grimes is bullish on Web3. In October 2021, Grimes, artist Lil Nas X and influencer Bella Poarch contributed videos to social-media platform TikTok’s “Top Moments” NFT collection. In March 2022, she spoke at the Avalanche Summit in Spain, explaining her plans to create a metaverse children’s book with support from Web3 artificial-intelligence platform OP3N and Avalanche’s $100 million fund to fuel development on the network.

She’s also bullish on AI generally. She invited fans to use an AI version of her voice to make new music, offering a 50/50 split on any royalties, and was impressed by the work produced from the experiment.