TLDR:

  • Justin Bieber bought two Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFTs for over $1.7 million in January 2022.

  • The NFTs are now worth less than $120,000 combined, a 93% loss.

  • BAYC is an NFT collection that peaked in April 2022, but has since lost most of its value and liquidity.

  • Bieber and other celebrities invested in MoonPay, a crypto company that may have promoted BAYC as a marketing strategy.

Justin Bieber, the famous singer, has lost a fortune after joining the NFT craze of Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) last year.

NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are unique digital collectibles that run on blockchain technology. They became very popular in 2021 as a way for fans and creators to interact and speculate on crypto assets.

Bieber bought two BAYC NFTs in January 2022, spending 500 ETH ($1.3 million) on Ape #3001 and 166 ETH ($470,000) on Ape #3850. Today, those NFTs are worth only 29.95 WETH ($58,610) and 30.06 WETH ($58,898.56), respectively, according to OpenSea, a marketplace for NFTs. That’s a 93% drop in value.

BAYC is a collection of 10,000 NFTs that feature cartoon apes with different traits and accessories. The collection reached its peak in April 2022, when it had a total market cap of over 1.4 million ETH and a floor price of 153 ETH, per OpenSea and CoinGecko data. Since then, the collection has crashed to just 322,930 ETH and 31.4 ETH, respectively, as the NFT hype faded.

Bieber was not the only celebrity who invested in BAYC. Other stars like Snoop Dawg, Drake, and Eminem also bought and promoted the NFTs. They also participated in an $87 million funding round for MoonPay, a crypto company that enables users to buy NFTs with fiat currency.

Some Twitter users have accused MoonPay of using celebrities to pump up the value of BAYC as a promotional tactic. “Justin Bieber was gifted that NFT by the company MoonPay as a promotional tactic so they could use his clout to pump the value of their scam,” tweeted Autism Capital on Tuesday.

BAYC holders have faced more pain this month, as the floor price of the collection fell by 16% in the last few days. The NFT market also saw a sharp decline in trading volume, which dropped by 50% in June.