Justin Bieber
Although cryptocurrency started out as a way to decentralize wealth, it has turned into a wild west of financial fraud where fraudulent crypto projects get away with investors’ precious savings. Over the last few years, we’ve seen numerous crypto endorsements by celebrities, many of which have no experience in investment.
These include popular personalities in the entertainment, sport, and music worlds. Just when you think the world of crypto couldn’t get any weirder, you see another scam involving some famous personality who has nothing to do with the domain. This time, it’s Justin Bieber and the whole NFT fiasco. Let’s discuss whether or not Bieber promoted a crypto scam.
Claimed to Have Bought an NFT
The entire debacle of Justin Bieber and the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT project starts with a class action lawsuit. In December 2022, multiple celebrities including Justin Bieber, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Jimmy Fallon were accused of promoting fraudulent NFTs.
According to the lawsuit, the celebrities misled their fans and followers, encouraging them to purchase NFTs and other unregistered securities by Yuga Labs.
The aim of promoting the NFT was to increase its value and drive up its price. Because of this, many investors bought NFTs at inflated prices. Moreover, he posted about the NFT while claiming that he had bought a bored ape NFT.
This was inaccurate because various online sleuths and financial investigators found that he had, in fact, been gifted the NFT. Online sleuths tracked Bieber’s potential crypto wallet and found that there had been a massive influx of cryptocurrency, which was then used to purchase the NFT.
Didn’t Disclose His Relationship With the Project
There’s still a lack of clarity as to whether Bieber actually purchased the NFT or not. And to add to the confusion, it could be either of two cases.
It’s possible that Bieber does own the wallet that is connected to the NFT purchases. If that’s the case, then it means that the inBetweeners project paid him over $2 million in cryptocurrencies. Then, he used this money and spent it on NFTs, which includes his overpriced Bored Ape Yacht Club purchase.
If this turns out to be true, it could land Bieber in even more hot water since he didn’t disclose his financial relationship with the inBetweeners project.
This is a complete violation of the rules set by the trade commission, which states that a disclosure is required if you are making a post as part of sponsored campaign. But if it turns out that Bieber doesn’t actually own the wallet that bought the NFTs, it means that he lied about the whole thing.
Value of BAYC NFT Drops to $69K
The lawsuit states that the company relies on a shady business model that involves using misleading promotional and marketing strategies. These usually have the face of a popular celebrity who get heavily compensated but never reveal the fact.
This serves the purpose of driving up the demand of NFTs and manipulating potential investors into thinking that the price will increase as well.
Many NFT enthusiasts claimed that Bieber paid three times the price for a Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT that didn’t have any special features. Although Bieber claims to have paid $1.3 million, the value dropped to $69K, which indicates shady business practices.
Bottom Line
Considering all the facts, it can be concluded that Justin Bieber did promote a crypto scam. It’s true that he failed to disclose his financial relationship with the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT project, even though the entire project is very much real. Numerous people ended up buying Bored Ape NFTs, many of which dropped in value.
The issue here is that Bieber falsely claimed to have bought the NFTs, which he didn’t. Rather, he was gifted them or paid to buy them. Either way, there was some incentive involved. Moreover, he overpaid for a simple NFT, the price of which eventually dropped. This shows the makings of a typical pump and dump scheme.
