LimeWire returns as a hollow NFT cash-grab marketplace

Oh, well would you look at that: The NFT industry has subsumed yet another bygone cultural reference point in the hopes of squeezing the last dribbles of juice from its pulpy remains. According to Bloomberg, two brothers are reviving the mid-2000’s dubiously legal file-sharing platform, LimeWire, explicitly leveraging the brandname “nostalgia” in the hopes of hawking official NFTs and other digital collectibles to a nebulous demographic of “Gen Z/Millennial” consumers.

Paul and Julian Zehetmayr purchased the exclusive “LimeWire” name rights last year for their new venture, LimeWire GmbH (the German equivalent of an LLC), and aim to bring the first round of products to the market later this spring. Unlike the original incarnation, the 2022 LimeWire will apparently be operating completely above board, with “safety features in place, including the incorporation of stringent anti-money laundering checks and accountancy firm EY for vetting all activities,” according to Mashable. Anyone interested is welcome to signup for the Zehetmayr brothers’ LimeWire waitlist ahead of the site’s May debut.

Or you can, like us, sit back and wait with bated breath for whatever their proposed timeline’s “official launch into film industry” entails.

Making it more accessible — If nothing else, we suppose we should credit the people behind nu-LimeWire for not solely relying on cryptocurrency transactions. According to the site, all purchases will take place in USD, sans a crypto wallet requirement. “We want to remove all those obstacles and make it easy for people to participate, while at the same time offering an exciting platform for crypto natives," Paul Zehetmayr told Bloomberg earlier today.

While crypto purchases can often be more secure for customers, the steep learning curve still prevents many people from engaging in the medium. Allowing more traditional purchasing methods should open up LimeWire to many more interested fans — emphasis on “should” here.

Big name partners — In spite of our wariness, the new LimeWire already seems to have attracted a few big names to the venture. According to the site’s advisory board and partners list, representatives from both Wu-Tang Clan and Def Jam Records are mentioned. The sight of hip-hop names attached to new NFT and crypto-related projects is nothing new: Snoop Dogg recently announced he would be taking Death Row Records into the “metaverse.”