Here's How Much You Would've Lost If You Bought a Bored Ape When Justin Bieber Did

Here’s How Much You Would’ve Lost If You Bought a Bored Ape When Justin Bieber Did
Musician Justin Bieber has been largely successful in nearly all of his dealings, which have ranged from music to fragrance collection. He has signed millions of dollars of partnerships with top brands such as Adidas and Balenciaga. However, one of the few areas in which Bieber has not been successful is cryptocurrency. More specifically, he has lost a significant amount of money on NFTs.

Bieber first got into NFTs in 2021, just as they were becoming extremely popular and profitable. These purchases continued to ramp up in size until Bieber bought Bored Ape #3001 for a total of 500 ETH. At the time, the price of ETH was around $2,600, so the total cost of the NFT was around $1.3 million.

At the same time, the floor price for the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT project was 85 ETH, or around $220,000. At today’s prices, 85 ETH is worth around $250,000.

Now, the floor price for the project is just over 15 ETH, which is approximately $45,000. So, if you had bought the cheapest Bored Ape at the same time that Justin Bieber did in 2022, you would have paid $220,000. In 2024, the cheapest NFT in the Bored Ape Collection is worth around $45,000, so you would have seen a loss of nearly 80%.

Justin Bieber just paid $1.29 million for a Bored Ape NFT
Additionally, the best offer on Bieber’s NFT is just over 14 ETH, which is around $40,000. So, if he were to sell the NFT today at the best offer, he would realize a loss of nearly 97%.

If you simply held ETH over the same time frame, you would have seen a gain of over 15% and over 50% when ETH hit $4,000 in early 2024. So, it is extremely unlikely that buying a Bored Ape has generated a profit over the past two years.

The music star still holds 146 ETH in his portfolio, which is currently worth around $430,000. He also holds around 12,000 ApeCoin (APE), worth around $15,000, as well as a handful of memecoins. In total, the portfolio is worth $450,000. He has not made any transactions in over two years, around the time that he bought the original Bored Ape.

However, NFTs may not be entirely dead. In early March 2024, a CryptoPunk NFT sold for 4,500 ETH, which equates to over $16 million and was the 2nd largest sale of a CryptoPunk ever. This sale could spark a move toward NFTs, which have performed poorly over the past several years.

Justin Bieber is sitting on over $1 million in paper losses on a single NFT, and it does not seem likely that the price will go back to a profitable level. Additionally, virtually anyone who bought a Bored Ape at the same time as him would likely also be sitting on significant losses.