Can LimeWire Brand Juice Adoption of New NFT-based Music Marketplace?

A pair of entrepreneurs has bought the rights to the defunct file-sharing service and plans to launch a new site in May

article-image

LimeWire co-CEOs Julian and Paul Zehetmayr | Source: LimeWire

share

key takeaways

  • LimeWire, launched in 2000, was a popular peer-to-peer file-sharing service until it was sued out of existence by the Recording Industry Association of America in 2010
  • The NFT marketplace will be an artist’s alternative to Spotify, which pays out notoriously small royalties

Any music fan born before, say, 1990, probably remembers LimeWire, which grew to prominence in the days of the free MP3-swapping services Napster and BitTorrent.

But music labels considered the service an enabler of wholesale intellectual property theft and sued. After a four-year court battle that ended with a “permanent injunction” in New York, the company pulled the peer-to-peer plug on 50 million monthly users.

Now, a pair of Austrian entrepreneurs — brothers Julian and Paul Zehetmayr —  are bringing back LimeWire with a crypto twist. The Zehetmayrs purchased LimeWire’s intellectual property in 2021 for an undisclosed sum, hoping to juice the launch of a new music-focused NFT marketplace. 

The project — which is otherwise entirely unrelated to its namesake — is slated to launch in May and allows fans and music collectors to trade music-related assets using NFTs (non-fungible tokens).

The platform differs from major players in the NFT marketplace business today, such as OpenSea and Rarible, in that it is custodial, allowing customers to purchase NFTs with fiat currencies, according to Julian Zehetmayr, LimeWire’s co-CEO. 

“To be clear, we are big fans of decentralization,” Zehetmayr told Blockworks. “At the same time, we believe the market just isn’t ready yet for fully decentralized platforms to be appealing and usable for the mainstream.”

NFTs will be minted on a blockchain — the company declined to specify which until it’s announced later this month — and can be withdrawn to noncustodial wallets.

“We are actually combining the best of both worlds, allowing users to trade decentralized collectibles on an easy-to-use, custodial platform offering fiat payments, easy signup without a wallet, and a very simple and clean user experience,” Zehetmayr said.

The plan is to share 90% of primary sales revenue with artists, while LimeWire will take a 10% cut. The platform commission on secondary sales will be lower and earn artists royalty payouts.

There will also be a token, LMWR, issued in the fourth quarter that will allow users to cut down on commission fees, participate in a rewards program and engage in voting and moderation of initiatives.

When LimeWire was shut down in 2010, a US District Court judge called its service “a massive piracy machine.” (Incidentally, Napster suffered a similar fate in 2002, while BitTorrent survived as a decentralized network, eventually acquired by Justin Sun in 2018 as part of an effort to boost the Tron ecosystem.)

“Web2” successors, such as Spotify, cut record companies in on the action, but pay artists a small fraction of sales revenues. NFT-based music services are designed to establish the provenance of media assets while equitably distributing revenues, including royalties, to creators.

This story was updated on March 9, 2022 at 1:13 p.m. ET


Update: March 14, 2022 10:30 a.m. ET:

Limewire announced the NFTs will be minted on the Algorand blockchain.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

  • Blockworks Daily: The newsletter that helps thousands of investors understand crypto and the markets, by Byron Gilliam.
  • Empire: Start your morning with the top news and analysis to inform your day in crypto.
  • Forward Guidance: Reporting and analysis on the growing intersection of crypto and macroeconomics, policy and finance.
  • 0xResearch: Alpha directly in your inbox. Market highlights, data, degen trade ideas, governance updates, token performance and more.
  • Lightspeed: Built for Solana investors, developers and community members. The latest from one of crypto’s hottest networks.
  • The Drop: For crypto collectors and traders, covering apps, games, memes and more.
Tags

Upcoming Events

Javits Center North | 445 11th Ave

Tues - Thurs, March 18 - 20, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

Industry City | Brooklyn, NY

TUES - THURS, JUNE 24 - 26, 2025

Permissionless IV serves as the definitive gathering for crypto’s technical founders, developers, and builders to come together and create the future.If you’re ready to shape the future of crypto, Permissionless IV is where it happens.

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Unlocked by Template Presentation.jpg

Research

The Solana validator landscape has changed drastically over the past year. The chain now has 1,332 active validators with 380.9 million SOL staked (63.9% of supply) as of February 2025. Validator revenue had diversified beyond inflationary rewards (still making up 55%) to include Jito tips (30%), priority fees (24%), and base fees (<1%), in January, especially with the increased activity on Solana. Since then, issuance has become dominant again (76%), while Jito tips (14%), priority fees (9%), and base fees (less than 1%) have reduced in share of February 2025. There has been a strong shift towards non-inflationary revenue sources, which have become more central to validator economics as priority fees and off-chain blockspace auctions gain traction. Client diversity has also improved drastically, with implementations such as Agave, Jito-Solana, and Frankendancer already in use, and upcoming clients like Firedancer and Sig expected to further strengthen resilience and reduce reliance on a single codebase.

article-image

BWR analyst Carlos Gonzalez Campo explains the consequences of SOL inflation and transfers lost to “leaky buckets”

article-image

Empire co-host Santiago Santos makes the case that memecoins have actually helped push infra forward…just not in the way you think

article-image

A16z Crypto lists seven buckets for tokens and recommendations for how to regulate them, in a filing submitted to the SEC

article-image

New model aims to resolve trading inefficiencies with a single execution layer and market maker changes

article-image

Investors navigating BTC face short-term unpredictability, influence from other markets

article-image

The GENIUS Act aims to establish regulatory guidelines for stablecoins