Featured Image Credit: UPI/Alamy Live News. OpenSea
Topics: News, Celebrity, Justin Bieber, Money, Cryptocurrency
Charisa Bossinakis
Topics: News, Celebrity, Justin Bieber, Money, Cryptocurrency
Justin Bieber’s Bored Ape NFT, which he bought for USD $1.3 million (AUD $1.9m or £1.09m), is now worth around USD $67,000 (AUD $99,910 or £56,310).
Yikes. Talk about a bad investment.
Business Insider reported that in January, the pop star purchased his first Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT for a hefty 500 Ethereum, the equivalent to $1.3 million.
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NFTs were all the rage this year, with the world’s most powerful purchasing them left, right and centre. They stand for non-fungible tokens and they are essentially a digital piece of content that the owner can hold.
But fast forward to today, and Bieber's Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT stands at around USD $67,340 at the time of writing, according to the OpenSea marketplace.
And it seems the ship (or yacht, I should say) is continuing to sink.
According to Decrypt, the once-popular NFTs have fallen by 33 per cent since the start of November.
The decreasing prices of NFTs come after the downfall of crypto exchange giant FTX due to its liquidity crisis, which lowered crypto prices and, in turn, made Bored Ape Yacht Club plummet.
According to Business Insider, before the rapid demise of crypto, Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs were valued at around USD $429,999 (AUD $642,989 or £362,521) in April.
In other words, it looks like Bieber might have to put out another Christmas album before the year wraps up.
However, according to Forbes, Bored Ape Yacht Club isn’t the only NFT losing popularity, as DeGods prices have fallen by 68 per cent; CryptoPunks' decreased by 37 per cent; and DeGods' by 66 per cent.
But why is crypto collapsing so quickly right in front of our eyes?
Stephen Diehl, co-founder of the Center for Emerging Technology Policy and co-author of the new book Popping the Crypto Bubble, believes it’s due to the lack of regulatory framework protecting investors.
He told MSNBC: “Crypto exchanges don’t trade regulated financial products like stocks or bonds; they trade unregulated financial assets, which are crypto tokens.
“And these tokens are not subject to the same level of regulation as most other products in the market.
“A lot of the problems that arose out of the recent catastrophe are due to the lack of regulation of these products.”
He said of the FTX collapse: “This was one of the most credible entities in the entire crypto space. It exploded in 48 hours. I’ve never seen a week like this in markets and I look at this stuff all the time.”