The worst influencer and celebrity NFT money in 2022
Mainstream hype for the NFT (nonfungible token) market cooled significantly in 2022, but that didn’t stop a number of popular and wealthy figures from stinking up the space with dreadful collections last year.
In the 2022 edition of NFT’s Worst Influencer and Celebrity, Cointelegraph takes a look at four projects seemingly designed to milk capital out of fans’ pockets while delivering very little.
Tai Lopez – OG (Original Garage) Social Club
First on the list is quirky entrepreneur Tai Lopez, best known for his cheeky marketing campaigns that used to plague YouTube not too long ago.
Lopez’s most famous video is his “here in my garage” business promo from 2015, where he first shows off the Lambo before shifting gears and noting that he’s more proud of the thousands of books he owns because of “ the knowledge” they give him .
As a tribute to the video, Lopez launched a collection called “OG (Original Garage) Social Club” in March.
The NFTs came in three rare tiers, from anywhere between $150 on the low end to $50,000 for the premium tokens that offered exclusive perks like a one-on-one basketball game with Lopez, watching a movie or dinner together and private mentoring sessions.
Tai Lopez is selling an NFT that gives you a CHANCE to win $10,000 if you beat him at 1v1 basketball.
The price? $50,000. pic.twitter.com/ySJc52PItu— Coffeezilla (@coffeebreak_YT) March 5, 2022
However, the current data on OpenSea now paints a bleak picture, with the floor price for all NFTs regardless of rarity sitting at 0.08 Ether (ETH) or $97 at the time of writing.
Looking at the premium NFTs, the basketball-related token is on sale for as low as 0.880 ETH ($1069), while an NFT that grants access to a one-on-one dinner with Lopez is now on sale for 1 ETH ( $1,214) despite first selling for around $30,000.
Donald Trump – Trump Digital Trading Cards
Despite historically being a vocal crypto-hater, former President Donald Trump announced a strange licensed NFT project in December that consisted of 45,000 self-themed trading cards.
The NFT’s rogue and potentially plagiarized artwork depicted Trump in various guises as a superhero, hunter, cowboy and golfer. The NFTs offered buyers a chance to win a series of one-on-one experiences with the 45th president via contests.
Originally selling for $99 each, the NFTs quickly sold out on December 16, and the floor price quickly rose to 0.83 ETH ($1008) on OpenSea within two days. However, since then the price has dropped significantly to 0.164 ETH ($199).
While people who bought in first will likely still be in the green, the Trump NFT project is doing well regardless, as it got around $4.5 million from its first sale, with an ongoing 10% creator fee also coming back to it via sales on secondary markets.
Floyd Mayweather Jr. – The Mayweverse
Boxing icon Floyd Mayweather Jr. also makes the 2022 list for an NFT project that appears to have been completely abandoned at the time of writing.
Mayweather tweeted on March 22nd announcing the “Mayweverse” consisting of 5,000 NFT collectibles.
“If you’re in the NFT world and you bet on me, you’ll never lose,” he said.
Here before the project slow rugs. Don’t you have a reputation for promoting fraud? pic.twitter.com/szJQmwqTkT
— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) March 21, 2022
The NFTs initially went for a low price of roughly $900 on April 13, giving hodlers the chance to win cash prizes from $5,000 to $30,000 and exclusive experiences like joining Mayweather in an upcoming Metaverse called “Floyd’s Gym.”
Since its inception, the Mayweverse Twitter account has been dormant without a single follow-up tweet throughout 2022. It is unclear if anyone has received any prizes or when the Metaverse will be broadcast.
The site’s roadmap also remains undated despite initially announcing that other “future benefits” would be announced soon.
OpenSea data also makes it difficult to find out what is happening with the project.
A Maywevere collection listed on the marketplace contains 73 tokens that are not for sale with no price history. Another contains five NFTs that all last sold for less than 0.050 Wrapped ETH ($60) but have a floor price of 0.1 ETH ($121).
Lana Rhoades — CryptoSis.
Last on the list is popular influencer and former adult movie star Lana Rhoades who launched the now defunct Crypto Sis NFT project in February 2022.
Crypto Sis consists of 6,069 Rhoades-themed cartoon avatars with the number originally intended to be 6,969 which it did not reach due to lack of demand.
The NFTs went for a new price of about $261, but the value is now essentially $0 on OpenSea, as there has been less than 1 ETH worth of total trading activity since the February 2022 launch. The project’s Twitter page is also currently suspended.
Rhoades reportedly pocketed $1.5 million from the sale, then immediately withdrew the money from her Ethereum wallet before walking away from the project entirely, saying her community was too negative.
Related: Crypto Adoption in 2022: What Events Moved the Industry Forward?
In now-deleted social media posts, Rhoades initially claimed that the avatars would be usable in the Metaverse along with offering a variety of tools such as whitelist access to future drops, inclusion in a Metaverse community, signed merchandise, and virtual meet and greets.
Rhoades claimed that she worked hard to make the project a “lucrative investment for holders that they can sell for more than they paid to make.”
However, none of this has come to fruition, which has led to people in the community accusing her of running a racket. Rhoades countered that the project flopped and there was nothing she could do to fix it.
