Key Notes
- Musician Jonathan Mann made $3 million from selling his songs as NFTs in January 2022.
- As the Ethereum price crashed in the same year, so did the value of his earnings.
- Still, the Internal Revenue Service office taxed him on the basis of the price he paid for the holding when he first received it.
Jonathan Mann, an American singer and songwriter, recently experienced a notable crypto loss due to the market crash. The musician behind the “Song A Day” project lost the $3 million he earned from the sales of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) in part to crypto tax.
From $3 Million Win to $1.1 Million Tax
Consequently, Mann has turned his ordeal into a musical tale, advising other investors to be cautious. He shared his new track on X, recounting how he made the $3 million.
According to the thread on the social media platform, the songwriter confirmed that he sold his entire back catalog as digital collectibles. Then, it vanished when the crypto landscape crashed during the Terra ecosystem collapse.
“This is the story of how I made three million dollars and lost it,” Mann sings. “And how I owed the IRS more money than I made in 10 previous years.”
Three years ago, Mann sold 3,700 songs at $800 each, generating roughly $3 million in Ethereum (ETH) from these sales. With so much excitement and a lack of preparation, the singer and his wife chose to HODL Ethereum. They expected the largest altcoin by market capitalization to surge in price.
6000 days.
6000 songs.A story that almost broke me:
The $3 million I made and lost.
My $1.1 million tax bill.
The Autoglyph that saved meThis is SONG A DAY #6000
🌩️CRYPTO TAX NIGHTMARE🌩️
The journey continues below👇 pic.twitter.com/ufUKNPiMIH
— 17 years of song a day (@songadaymann) June 5, 2025
Instead of increasing as the couple had expected, the ETH price followed a downtrend pattern in January 2022. While the couple was still trying to figure out their next course of action—how much to sell or when to sell—the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) came after them.
The IRS taxed his earnings from the sales of the NFTs as income, valuing the ETH at the price it was when Mann first received it. This was an unfortunate situation, considering that the price of ETH had significantly dropped since then.
While the $3 million in ETH has gone down in value, the tax due remained the same.
Rare Autoglyph Saves Mann From IRS Tax
Mann and his wife were trying to avoid losses. Hence, they took a loan from Aave, a prominent lending protocol, and used the ETH as collateral, rather than selling it. When Terraform Labs crashed in 2022, more disaster struck for the American musician, as massive crypto liquidations occurred. In the blink of an eye, Mann’s $3 million vanished.
He and his wife ended up with a debt of $1,095,171.79. Mann sold a rare Autoglyph NFT he purchased in crypto’s early days to save the day. After some setbacks, he found a broker who was willing to pay $1.1 million for the NFT. Mann said that he accepted the deal because it was sufficient to cover the taxes.
After this unpleasant ordeal, the American singer has not stopped writing songs and selling them as NFTs. He hopes to make as much as $3 million in another sale soon. Notably, the NFT ecosystem is not receiving as much traction as it used to.
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Benjamin Godfrey is a blockchain enthusiast and journalist who relishes writing about the real life applications of blockchain technology and innovations to drive general acceptance and worldwide integration of the emerging technology. His desire to educate people about cryptocurrencies inspires his contributions to renowned blockchain media and sites.
