Jonathan Mann, the musician behind the long-running “Song A Day” project, has turned a harrowing crypto tax ordeal into a musical cautionary tale. Mann, who made headlines in early 2022 for selling his entire back catalog of songs as NFTs, shared a new track on social media platform X, detailing how he made—and lost—$3 million in Ether (ETH), while also racking up a staggering $1.1 million tax bill from the IRS.
“It’s the story of how I made three million dollars and lost it,” Mann sings in the autobiographical song. On January 1, 2022, he sold 3,700 songs as NFTs, each priced at $800. Excited by the windfall, Mann and his wife decided to hold onto the ETH, hoping the value would rise. “We didn’t have a plan,” he admits in the lyrics.
However, when ETH prices plummeted following the Terra ecosystem collapse later that year, their fortunes reversed. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) taxed the income based on ETH’s value at the time of receipt—not its lower market value months later. Left with an enormous tax bill, Mann attempted to preserve his crypto by borrowing against it through the Aave lending protocol.
But the crash triggered widespread liquidations, including Mann’s loan, wiping out 300 ETH. “A lifetime of work erased in a moment,” he laments in the song. After months of tracing transactions with his accountant, the total IRS bill came to $1,095,171.79.
To cover the debt and avoid further financial ruin, Mann sold a rare Autoglyph NFT, which he had purchased early in his crypto journey. Though the sale didn’t attract much attention on social media, a broker eventually connected him with a buyer who paid $1.1 million—just enough to settle the IRS bill. Thanks to losses from the Aave liquidation, Mann avoided capital gains taxes on the sale.
Despite the setback, Mann continues to write and sell songs daily as NFTs. “Still hopeful I’ll earn another $3 million,” he ends, resilient as ever.
