Celebrity NFT Projects from Grimes and Pro-China John Cena Have Been a ‘Catastrophic Failure’

Lucas NolanNovember 18, 2021

In recent months, many celebrities have attempted to cash in on the recent NFT craze, but for some, it has turned out to be less than profitable. Pro-China actor and wrestler John Cena described an NFT project he was involved in as a “catastrophic failure.”

Bloomberg reports that many celebrities have attempted to profit off the recent craze of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), with many selling their art, music, or various other pieces of content as digital collector items. But while some have seen huge profits from digital tokens, many have lost money.

Bloomberg notes that singer Grimes – real name Claire Elise Boucher – successfully sold a collection of NFTs for $5.8 million in February. But while the cost to buy one of the 303 NFTs in the collection was initially around $7,500, some recently traded for as little as $1,200, an 84 percent drop in value.

PHILADELPHIA, PA – AUGUST 31: Singer Claire Boucher of Grimes and American Eagle Outfitters Celebrate the Budweiser Made in America Music Festival on August 31, 2014 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images for American Eagle)

LONDON, ENGLAND – DECEMBER 05: John Cena attends a special screening of Paramount Pictures’ film ‘Bumblebee’ at Cineworld Leicester Square on December 5, 2018 in London, United Kingdom. (Photo by John Phillips/Getty Images for Paramount Pictures)

Gauthier Zuppinger, the chief operating officer of NonFungible, commented on the trend of celebrities losing money on NFTs stating: “From what we’ve seen so far, most of these collections don’t have much liquidity, which is one of the two ways for NFT collections to die: lose value or get frozen. It’s probably too soon to draw any conclusion for now, but it looks like these were more experiments than truly valuable collections.”

WhaleShark, one of the world’s largest NFT collectors, commented: “There are some that are done tastefully i.e. Paris Hilton’s drop with Nifty Gateway, and there are some with poor design, poor launch partners and poor execution. The latter tend to come across as money grabs, rather than a true leveraging of one’s fan base to drive NFT mainstream adoption.”

Pro-Chinese Communist actor and wrestler John Cena recently commented on the failure of his NFT sale, stating: “Myself and the folks in the WWE thought $1,000 was a fair price point: We were wrong. We were absolutely wrong. I’m like, man, with a value like that, the 500 of them will be gone. We sold 37 of them. It was a catastrophic failure.”