Celebrity NFTs Risk 'Catastrophic Failure.' Just Ask John Cena

Tokens from several celebrities have fallen in value in recent weeks, leaving buyers with losses. From a report: Celebrities like the musician Grimes have been quick to cash in on nonfungible tokens, making millions from minting collections of their own digital art. For buyers, however, the payoff has been far less rewarding. Consider "Earth" -- one of several NFTs issued by Grimes in February. Depicting a cherub spearing the globe, perhaps in a reference to her baby with SpaceX's Elon Musk, it was part of a collection that netted the artist (whose real name is Claire Elise Boucher) about $5.8 million after selling out in 20 minutes. While the cost to originally own one of the 303 limited editions was $7,500, one unit recently resold for just $1,200 in a stunning 84% drop. Likewise, a piece rapper A$AP Rocky sold for $2,000, showing him spinning around in space, in April just traded for about $900. The list goes on. After seeing artists like Beeple make tens of millions from selling nonfungible tokens, a slew of celebrities including singer Shawn Mendes, socialite Paris Hilton and wrestler John Cena have jumped on the bandwagon to create their own digital art tied to blockchains. However, the prices of many of these art pieces have declined precipitously since their release. The resale market outside of fans appears to be small, with long-time NFT investors shunning the category as a money grab. Certainly there are more profitable corners of the NFT market, which hit a record of more than $300 million in daily sales at the end of August, according to tracker NonFungible. CryptoPunk #561, which initially sold for about $8,000, recently fetched more than $2.4 million. Bored Ape Yacht Club #2224 also recently traded for more than $335,000, up from less than $10,000 five months ago, per NonFungible.

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