Cryptocurrency

"Justin Bieber "bought" an NFT for $1.3 million. But he didn't pay for it."

2022-01-29 [vendor] Justin Bieber acquires Bored Ape [chain] ethereum
Primary Source ↗
Blockchain(s) Ethereum

Incident Details

The media went a bit nuts when Justin Bieber reportedly bought a Bored Ape (for several times what it was “worth”, for some reason). This served to generate hype for several NFT projects, including Bored Apes, that Bieber has reportedly bought. However, some investigation by @interlunations and Dirty Bubble Media showed that something shady is going on, and neither possibility looks great for Bieber. Either Bieber does own the wallet that spent millions on the Bored Ape NFT and hundreds of others, in which case he was paid more than $2 million by the inBetweeners project — this would mean that inBetweeners lied about not paying influencers to promote their projects, and it would mean that Bieber never disclosed the financial relationship (in violation of FTC rules). If Bieber doesn’t own the wallet, then Bieber has lied about owning the Bored Ape he supposedly “bought”, as have the projects (though possibly unknowingly) who are generating hype by telling everyone Bieber owns one of their NFTs. The full investigation by Dirty Bubble Media is worth a read.

Technical Details

Vendor / Product
Justin Bieber acquires Bored Ape

Timeline

  1. 2022-01-29 Breach occurred
  2. 2022-01-29 Publicly disclosed