The NFT craze has died down and even the most coveted tokens are worth a fraction of what they were just a year ago.
Justin Bieber had to learn this the hard way.
At the height of the NFT hype, the Canadian pop star bought an NFT for $1.3 million.
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In January 2022, Justin Bieber spent the equivalent of $1.3 million on an NFT from the Bored Ape Yacht Club collection.
No 3,001 of 9,999 available, the NFT depicts an ape wearing a black t-shirt and wearing a sad expression on its face.
The 29-year-old popstar owns over 2,000 NFTs (below) but this is the one that everyone is talking about because of the dramatic price drop.
Breaking down Justin Bieber’s NFT dramatic price drop
This being a Bored Ape NFT, you have to convert US dollars into Ethereum (ETH), the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency, before you buy it.
Bieber spent 500 ETH on this NFT, back when ETH was worth around $2,600.
That works out to be around $1.3 million.
However, Bieber’s NFT is only valued at around 29 ETH today.
The price of ETH is also lower now than it was back then.
When you couple these two factors, the result is shocking.
Bieber’s NFT is currently only worth $57,000.
Since all NFT transactions are permanently registered on the blockchain, you can keep track of what’s going on in the market.
This is how we know that Bieber has received about a dozen offers for his NFT in the last 24 hours alone, and the $57,000 offer is actually the highest.
A few buyers offered to buy his NFT for $39,000.
So what exactly went wrong with NFTs?
An NFT (non-fungible token) is a blockchain-verified asset that cannot be replicated or corrupted.
Ideally, there’s some utility in NFTs if you use them to verify and guarantee the authenticity of important documents or copyrighted material.
In practice, they’ve been largely marketed as a must-have investment for the mega rich.
Back in 2022, having the coolest NFT was the ultimate flex and celebrities spent a fortune on acquiring the popular ones.
But then the hype died down, several high-profile crypto firms went belly-up and crypto prices haven’t fully recovered.
No reason to feel bad about Justin Bieber, though.
With an estimated net worth in excess of $300 million, he’s doing just fine.
