Bowie Bonds hit the mainstream; can crypto leverage the tokenized IP model?

Both mainstream and crypto markets have played with the model of ‘Bowie Bonds’, a financial instrument tapping the value of IP ￰0￱ projects are re-emerging with the goal of tokenized IP rights, aiming to make payments and monetization ￰1￱ for yield has brought back ‘Bowie Bonds’, as funds raised $6.7B backed by the IP of top songs. Previously, Bowie Bonds only tapped the revenue streams from the albums and performances of David Bowie. Now, the concept is spreading to a wider pool of intellectual ￰2￱ new wave of IP bonds was backed by Blackstone, Carlyle and Michigan’s state pension fund, reported the ￰3￱ rights bonds expanded in 2025 The latest rounds of IP rights products show a trend of acceleration for the last few years.

Music-backed bonds raised an estimated $4.4B to $6.7B, compared to $3.3B in ￰4￱ music-backed bonds started returning in 2021, with a tentative $300M in new ￰5￱ 2020, there were virtually no music-backed ￰6￱ asset class has been known as an exotic and niche investment, but has made a return as markets are redefining the lines of investable assets in search of ￰7￱ field has expanded beyond Bowie’s 1997 deal, which raised $55M at 7.9% ￰8￱ then, the model has been taken over by some of the biggest players, issuing financial instruments for stars such as The Beatles, or newer generations of artists like Justin Bieber and Lady ￰9￱ bond market is also a way for companies that hold large IP catalogues to tap the value of those assets through bond ￰10￱ the summer of 2025, Recognition Music Group raised $372M for its IP ￰11￱ financialized a part of its music catalogue in 2022, raising $1.8M.

As significant liquidity in the global markets seeks out assets, the music bond model is a potential source of ￰12￱ music bonds are already getting rated by the leading agencies, offering a clearer estimation of risk and a shift to mainstream ￰13￱ projects attempt tokenized IP rights The same problem of artist liquidity has been solved in several crypto startups, though at a smaller ￰14￱ Web3 boom led to multiple attempts to tokenize music rights, coinciding with the NFTs ￰15￱ is no common standard on music tokenization, and the niche nature of those projects meant not all were ￰16￱ tokenization has been around in crypto space, led by Story Protocol.

Recently, the revival of IP rights narratives brought Story Protocol (IP) to a new all-time ￰17￱ Protocol (IP) rallied to a new all-time peak as the IP rights narrative revived. |