Celebrities and NFTs

The NFT hype started in 2021 and hasn't shown any signs of slowing down since then to this day. In the spring of 2021, interest in selling digital art using NFT tokens increased: the two oldest auction houses Sotheby's and Christie's, which together own 90% of the global antiques auction market, joined this process. On March 11, a digital mosaic by Mike Winkelman, who works under the pseudonym Beeple, was sold at Christie's auction for $69,3 million, and already on April 12-14, at Sotheby's auction, two NFT art objects by artist Park - The Switch and The Pixel - were sold for $1,4 million and $1,36 million, respectively, although trading started at $50.

But despite the popularity of digital art, the CryptoPunks collection has gained great popularity. CryptoPunks, funny 24x24 pixel images of "punks", started a new trend in collecting virtual objects. The monthly trading volume of these tokens, issued in the amount of 10,000 back in 2017, is estimated at tens of millions of dollars. Celebrities like Snoop Dogg and Jay-Z have featured punks as avatars on their Twitter profiles.

But from the latest news it became known that celebrities are in fashion with NFTs from another collection - Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC). BAYC is of course not the only thing that celebrities have invested in, then let's take a look at which of the popular personalities have already acquired NFTs and which have started their own collections.

On January 26, 2022, on the popular late-night show "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" - host Jimmy Fallon and guest Paris Hilton showed off their NFT Bored Ape Yacht Club on national television.

And while Hilton and Fallon may seem like an odd couple to talk about blockchain, It is known that Hilton is really interested in NFT after all. The Tonight Show episode ended with Hilton announcing her own NFT collection, a collage of GIFs mostly dedicated to her and her husband called “My Forever Fairytale”.

Billionaire investor Mark Cuban, Shark Tank star and owner of the NBA basketball team, the Dallas Mavericks, became the first celebrity member of BAYC.

He received his monkey as a gift from another member of the BAYC club back in May 2021. Since then, he has kept it and has no intention of selling it - even after the price of NFTs from this collection has increased ten times compared to the value at the time of the gift.

Stephen Curry is a three-time NBA champion, co-creator of the TV show Holey Moley and a Subway Ambassador. Though not the first athlete to become a member of the BAYC club, Stephen is by far the most famous current athlete. In August 2021, he purchased his NFT for 55 ETH.

YouTube star rapper KSI purchased an NFT from the BAYC collection in August 2021. Now he periodically posts comments on Twitter about their steady increase in price. Ricky Banks, the co-founder of esports organization Faze Clan and avid NFT collector, is happy to help him with this.

The legendary hip-hop producer is not limited to releasing music samples in NFT format, which can be combined and mixed with each other. At the end of 2021, he also joined the monkey owners club. TIMBALAND announced the formation of Ape-In Productions, which will produce virtual music bands and animated films using NFTs from the MAYC and BAYC collections.

Canadian pop-R&B singer Justin Bieber took to his Instagram to showcase his NFT collection called inBetweeners; Thus, the singer showed his love for a variety of colorful illustrations of bears. The recently minted collection of 10,777 images created by artist Gianpiero has also seen interest from other celebrities such as Tom Holland and Snoop Dogg.

Stoner Cats is both a collection and an NFT-supported animated series featuring celebrities such as Mila Kunis, Jane Fonda, Ashton Kutcher, Seth MacFarlane and Chris Rock. In this case, the NFTs grant the owner access to watch the series, and the issued NFTs are used to fund filming. 10,420 tokenized cats by Mila Kunis sold out in just 35 minutes.

Stephen Curry is not only the owner of the monkey NFT, but also personally released his collection of 2,974 NFTs. Curry's collection features digital replicas of his Genesis Curry Flows shoe line, showcasing the exact pairs he wore during his incredible feats. Since the collection is already sold out, the virtual sneakers promise their fans to use and showcase them in several metaverses and virtual games.

Lionel Messi, the man many call the best footballer in the world, unveiled his NFT collection in August 2021. The collection includes three digital artworks: "Man from the Future", "Worth the Weight" and "The King Piece", created by artist BossLogic and depicting historical moments from the career of a football player. Its stardom was evident as NFT sales reached $3.4 million on the first day of launch.

Snoop Dogg has been inspired by NFT for a long time and decided to present his collection called "A Journey with the Dogg '' to the public. The collection will include the rapper's journey and his most vivid memories captured in photographs. The collection will also include an original track called "NFT" and "Snoop Dogge Coins" cryptocurrency inspired by Dogecoin. The artist expressed his interest in launching the album, saying: 

In 2021, NFTs blew up the cryptocurrency market. Some users only wanted to make money, others wanted to turn the new trend into good. There were those who aspired primarily to the development of this movement.

Even if NFTs are called "million-dollar pictures", they will definitely go down in the history of the industry and continue to develop in 2022.

Celebrities, various collectives, and teams will undoubtedly continue to earn from their fans, but only time will tell if NFT can become a real art or an object of speculation.