Pop star Justin Bieber started off the year purchasing his first Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT for 500 ethereum, a blockchain currency, equivalent to $1.3 million.
But the market value, or “price floor,” of individual NFTs from the Bored Ape collection has tanked to 58 ethereum, or $70,0000, as of Thursday morning — a 95% drop in value, according to data from NFT Price Floor.
Sinking NFT prices follow the collapse of crypto exchange giant FTX earlier this month as the Sam Bankman-Fried scandal reportedly lowered overall crypto prices and hurt Bored Ape Yacht Club’s NFT valuations. That’s because NFT owners panic-sold them to avoid prices from dropping even further, according to a report from crypto news site Decrypt.
Bored Ape, which comprises more than 10,000 NFTs depicting cartoon monkeys wearing different outfits, is one of the most successful NFT art collections, valued at more than $1 billion.
Before the crypto crash, Bored Ape’s NFT prices peaked at $429,999 in late April in response to hype around the use of NFT land plots for its personal metaverse platform Otherside. But since NFT sales have dipped, its prices have fallen by 82% as of this month, reported Decrypt.
In addition to Bored Ape, some top ethereum NFT collections are also facing lower values this month. DeGods prices have fallen by 68%; CryptoPunks’ dropped by 37%; and DeGods’ by 66%, according to Forbes.
While Bieber never specified why he purchased an NFT, some critics speculate that celebrities buy NFTs as a status symbol, a way to flaunt their wealth and exclusive purchases.
Talk show host Jimmy Fallon, model Paris Hilton, and rappers Snoop Dogg and Eminem also own Bored Ape NFTs.
Read next
Listen to The Refresh, Insider’s real-time news show
Listen to The Refresh, Insider’s real-time news show
