Eminem Buys Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT That Looks Like Him

Eminem, one of the best-selling music artists of all time and the only rapper to ever win an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song, has joined the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) with his first monkey purchase costing 123, 45 Ether (worth $452,000 or about Rs. 3.36 crore). The rapper, who has won numerous American Music Awards and 15 Grammy Awards to date, has posted the Ethereum-based monkey as his profile picture on Twitter and has reportedly amassed at least 15 non-fungible tokens (NFTs) so far on the most popular NFT marketplace OpenSea.

The image, dubbed “EminApe,” shows the signature Bored Ape figure wearing a khaki army cap and gold chain, both often worn by Eminem in real life. The digital artwork was sold by BAYC member GeeGazza. GeeGazza later took to Twitter to announce that the sale becoming reality is “madness.” “I live in a simulation,” he added. The BAYC member has been trying to persuade Eminem to buy “EminApe” from him for months. Back in November, GeeGazza tweeted, “I still think Eminem is destined to buy my Bored Ape one day.” allowed“You don’t understand how long I’ve been manifesting that Eminem is buying my monkey.”

Meanwhile, as first reported by Decrypt, credit for the sale has been claimed by a digital agency called Six, although this isn’t Eminem’s first foray into NFTs. According to Dappradar, the rapper owns 166 NFTs from 32 collections.

Eminem released his first set of NFTs through Nifty Gateway in April 2021. The collection grossed just under $1.8 million (approximately Rs. 13.38 crore). It featured digital action figures, characters from iconic Eminem videos, original Mathers instrumental beats, and rare physical items.

The NFT space has attracted many musicians this year, and NFTs from BAYC and Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) are at the top of the popularity chart, but Eminem is arguably the biggest star to join the movement to date.

With his new monkey, Eminem has officially joined the second largest NFT project on OpenSea by volume, with names like NBA star Stephen Curry and talk show host Jimmy Fallon.

The sale also saw BAYC and MAYC NFT sales skyrocket. Statistics indicate that on the day after news of Eminem’s new monkey purchase broke, MAYC’s seven-day trading volume of $93.02 million (approximately Rs. 692.86 crore) rose 93.41 percent and BAYC’s weekly volume of $78.26 million (about Rs. 581.81 crore) is up 150.97 percent.