The sale was completed on August 26, 2015, at a price "in the millions" to a "private American collector". A legal agreement stipulated that the album cannot be commercially exploited until 2103, although it can be released free or played at listening parties. On December 9, "Bloomberg Businessweek" identified the buyer as Turing Pharmaceuticals CEO Martin Shkreli, who had paid $2 million. RZA said that the sale was agreed before Shkreli's controversial price hike of the anti-infective agent Daraprim. He said that the Wu-Tang Clan had donated a "significant portion" of the proceeds to charity upon learning the buyer's identity, including the Children's Literacy Society, the Hip Hop Chess Federation and TTAC, an institution focused on showcasing alternative cures for cancer. In January 2016, Shkreli told "Vice" that he had considered destroying the record or "installing it in some remote place so that people have to make a spiritual quest to listen". He promised to release the album free if Donald Trump won the 2016 US presidential election. After Trump was elected, Shkreli streamed excerpts of the album online. In September 2017, Shkreli attempted to sell "Once Upon a Time in Shaolin" on eBay, with the winning bid passing $1m. He was incarcerated on unrelated fraud counts before the sale could be completed. RZA said he disapproved of the sale: "I didn't like the idea of him putting it on eBay. I think he could have got more than what he paid. I was actually impressed that within eight days he got up to $1m in bidding ... If it had been left a bit longer, no telling how far it would have gone." RZA hoped to buy it himself, but was contractually unable to. In March 2018, following Shkreli's conviction for fraud, a federal court seized assets belonging to him worth $7.36m, including "Once Upon a Time in Shaolin". Shkreli's lawyer Benjamin Brafman said the album was now "probably worthless". According to "Complex", reporting from the exhibition in Queens, "Once Upon a Time in Shaolin" is "rich, layered, and sonically bombastic", with a "rugged, hard-hitting sound" reminiscent of early Wu-Tang Clan albums. It begins with "ominous, foreboding" sounds of rain and thunder, before rapper Raekwon begins the first verse. Other sounds include fire sirens, crowd applause, and a marching drum beat.