Singer and global superstar Justin Bieber has been in the red since joining the NFT world’s infamous Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) last year.
In January 2022, the celeb famously bought Ape #3001 for 500 ETH, worth $1.3 million at the time. Today, that same collectible is worth just 29.95 WETH ($58,610) according to Open sea. That’s a 95% reduction.
Meanwhile, Ape #3850, which Bieber bought for 166 ETH ($470,000) less than a week later, is now bidding for 30.06 WETH ($58,898.56).
Short for “non-fungible tokens,” NFTs rose in popularity in 2021 as a vehicle for speculation amid a heated crypto market and a way for celebrities and creators to connect with their audiences through a new type of digital collectible.
None of Bieber’s NFTs were particularly weird, leaving him widely criticized by crypto-influencers last year for spending such an exorbitant amount to acquire a “floor monkey”.
The “floor price” refers to the lowest offer price of an NFT within a particular collection.
Although each NFT represents a uniquely identifiable blockchain token, many are sold as part of large collections with slight variations between their associated images or videos.
At its all-time high in April 2022, the 10,000-piece BAYC collection boasted a total market capitalization of more than 1,448,475 ETH per share. open sea data and a minimum price of 153 ETH per CoinGecko data. Each of these values has since dropped to just 322,930 ETH and 31.4 ETH, respectively, after the NFT hype slowly faded over the past 18 months.
The MoonPay offer
April 2022 happened to be the same month that MoonPay announced an $87 million investment round led by various celebrities, including Bieber, Snoop Dawg, Drake, and others. Rappers like Snoop Dawg and Eminem they have also been involved in the promotion and purchase of BAYC.
Some Twitter Skeptics say there may be a connection between MoonPay’s fundraising and the wave of celebrity investment in NFTs at the time.
“Justin Bieber received that NFT from the MoonPay company as a promotional tactic so they could use their influence to increase the value of their scam.” tweeted Autism Capital on Tuesday.
This month has been particularly tough for BAYC holders, with the collection price rocking dripping 16% only in the last days. This is coupled with a significant decrease in NFT liquidity, as NFT trading volume collapsed by 50% in June.
