NFT craze: Justin Bieber is now the proud owner of a $1.3 million BAYC

A non-fungible token [NFT] from the Bored Ape Yacht Club [BAYC] collection was bought by award-winning pop singer Justin Bieber for an eye-popping $1.3 million worth of Ethereum [ETH] on the world’s biggest nft marketplace OpenSea. The popular singer whose songs smashed records recently achieved another milestone.

A few days ago, Bieber became the first artist to score ten tracks with over a billion streams on leading streaming platform Spotify. But he isn’t the only one to join the famous Bored Ape Yacht Club. Last December, rapper Eminem purchased a BAYC NFT for $462,000, joining the list of growing celebrities such as Steph Curry and Post Malone.

Having said that some Twitter users felt that the digital token market had a significantly lower floor price since it has no rare traits, which is why they argue that the “Stay” hitmaker got “finessed.” On the other hand, some celebrities who are too jumping to test the water end up being a subject of mockery.   

For instance, earlier this week, a deeply awkward clip of socialite Paris Hilton and talk show host Jimmy Fallon showing off their NFTs in the dullest way possible went viral and were trolled on Twitter. Even cryptocurrency proponents couldn’t help but find the segment extremely obnoxious.

Yuga Labs, the firm behind the BAYC collection, is reportedly eyeing a $5 billion valuation, which would make it one of the biggest web3 brands.

Major companies such as Walmart and YouTube are also preparing to jump into the NFT craze, but there are also some big-name skeptics of the likes of Tesla CEO Elon Musk

Celebrities join the NFT mania

The biggest A-list celebrities in town now own a Bored Ape. Popular show host Jimmy Fallon too became the owner of one ape and rapper Post Malone dropped over $700,000 to buy two of them. Soccer star Neymar recently dropped another Ape to his collection, one that is actually pink in color! It’s been reported, Neymar’s collection is worth well over a million dollars.

Openseas, the trading platform where most purchases are held, reveals that sales of NFT’s have surpassed $4 Billion in trading volume in the month of December.

Lipika Deka: Lipika is a crypto-journalist at TWJ. A graduate in economics and finance, she has a keen interest in the political and socio-economic facets of blockchain technology and the cryptocurrency industry.