Justin Bieber Paid $1.3 Million for a Bored Ape NFT. It’s Now Worth $12K

Pop music icon Justin Bieber became one of the most famous members of the Bored Ape Yacht Club when he spent 500 ETH – or about $1.3 million – in January 2022 Ethereum-based NFT, Bored Ape #3001.

Bieber’s monkey, one of the most common in the collection in terms of visual features, is now valued at around $12,000 just four years later, now that the luster of NFTs and the Yacht Club has largely faded.

The value of any work of art can be influenced by several factors, including personal taste, provenance and even previous ownership; Bieber’s history with the NFT could potentially help it fetch a higher price if he were to put it on the market. But similar objects in the collection with similar characteristics have experienced a substantial decline in value.

The trade, which would represent a 99% loss if the singer parted with his NFT at the current floor price, or the price of the cheapest NFT listed on the market, now looks bad.

But even at the time of purchase, the NFT community chastised the star for his decision to purchase a “floor” monkey, or one without any rare features or attributes, for such an amount. Typically, only the rarest NFTs from a collection have sold for a large premium above the floor price.

“Who the hell is recommending Justin Bieber’s NFT purchases and how can I get in touch to sell them NFTs for 500 ETH,” says Farokh Sarmad, now president of Dastan, the parent company of an editorially independent company. Declutter—posted after purchase.

Still, Bored Ape Yacht Club’s floor price rose significantly in the months following Bieber’s purchase, eventually reaching to $429,000 in April 2022. And the singer’s purchase was hardly the most overwhelming purchase of the NFT frenzy, which also saw artists Beeple is selling a digital art NFT for $69.3 million the year before.

Since then, however, Apes has been embroiled in an extended NFT winter, driving rock-bottom prices of competing collections like CryptoPunks And Pudgy penguins also.

Punks also once traded above $400,000, while Pudgy Penguins nearly eclipsed $100,000 according to data from NFT price floor. The projects are now trading at starting prices of approximately $60,000 and $8,850 worth of ETH, respectively.

Users of Myriad – a prediction market run by Dastan – also don’t believe winter will thaw anytime soon. A market that jointly follows the potential comeback of Apes, Punks and Penguins gives the trio only a 16% chance of reaching a floor price of 10 ETH by July, or 50 ETH in the case of Punks.

Yet Yuga Labs, the parent company of the Bored Ape Yacht Club, continues to work on projects surrounding the collection. In October, Yuga announced that it would create a real-life Bored Ape clubhouse in Miami, Florida, where NFT holders could gather.

The other focus remains Other sidea massive multiplayer metaverse game featuring avatars from the Bored Ape Yacht Club and other NFT projects.