Maybe it was because covid gave them too much time to think, or maybe it was because celebrities can be straight-up dumb to begin with, but from 2020 to 2022 way too many public figures decided that the best way to spend their millions was by buying stupid pixilated drawings of apes. Bored Apes, to be exact.
Any sane person could have predicted that the NFT craze wouldn't last long, but celebrities aren't normal people. Tons of the biggest names in sports, music and pop-culture dumped their somewhat hard-earned money into these nonfungible tokens, while others invested big in cryptocurrencies. While it's true that smart crypto investments have proven a real way to make money, the entire market has all but collapsed since 2022, and the price of celebrity Bored Apes along with them. We have the benefit of hindsight in 2024, but really these celebrities shouldn't have needed it.
Here are 13 celebs who lost big time on crypto and NFTs.
1
Neymar Jr.
Soccer star Neymar Jr. spent $569,531 on Bored Ape #5269. It’s currently valued around $122,000. The few other dozen in his collection have lost him almost $1 million as well.
3
Eminem
Eminem bought Bored Ape #9055 for $453,776, and has since lost about $365,000 on it. He also has a collection of over 100 NFTs.
4
Serena Williams
In 2021 Serena Williams bought CryptoPunk #2950 for $177,123. She also owns around 65 others, all of which have presumably lost value.
6
DJ Marshmellow
DJ Marshmellow paid $1.4 million for the NFT KajuKing #1680. It’s now about $1,000.
7
Gary Vaynerchuk
Gary Vaynerchuk has a collection of around 6,800 NFTs. His biggest singular loss comes in the form of CryptoPunk #2140, which has decreased in value by around $2 million, but his total losses on crypto are undoubtedly way more.
8
Madonna
Believe it or not Madonna is a player in the celebrity NFT circles, with around 30 to her name. She also lost almost $400k on a Board Ape.
9
Trevor Lawrence
The 2021 NFL #1 overall draft pick Trevor Lawrence signed a deal with Blockfolio to convert his signing bonus, estimated at $22,630,055, into cryptocurrency. That would have lost an estimated $13 million by now.
10
Steve Aoki
Steve Aoki is big in the NFT space, and has lost millions of dollars on many of them, including eight bored apes. However, the DJ claimed in 2022 that he has made more money from NFTs than he has from ten years of music royalties.
11
Russell Okung
Carolina Panthers Tackle Russell Okung converted half of his 2020 $13 million salary to bitcoin. That $6.5 million could now be worth $2.7 million.
12
Snoop Dogg
Snoop Dogg spent a celebrity record $7.09 million on an NFT called Right-click and Save as Guy. The NFT still has the same price in Ethereum, but that currency has lost two thirds of its value. Snoop also lost around $400k on a Crypto Punk NFT.
13
Saquon Barkley
Former Giants running back Saquon Barkley just got paid by the Eagles. It’s a good thing he did too, because his $10 million investment into crypto has lost more than half its value.
