Prominent NFT collector and crypto trader Machi Big Brother reportedly sold one of his Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFTs at a steep loss, in a transaction that underscored the sharp reversal in valuations across the once-booming NFT market.

According to on-chain data, Machi sold Bored Ape #6801 for 8.61 ETH roughly three years after buying it for 23.5 ETH during the height of the NFT craze. The sale resulted in a loss of 14.89 ETH, worth about $16,000 at current prices.

The collection had been valued at more than 70 ETH at its peak.

The transaction came shortly after reports that the trader had again been liquidated on a leveraged Ethereum position. The NFT sale appeared to be an effort to raise additional capital to support his long position on ETH.

The episode highlights how much the NFT market has changed since the 2021–2022 bull market, when collections such as Bored Ape Yacht Club became status symbols among celebrities, crypto entrepreneurs, and investors.

At the height of the frenzy, individual Bored Apes routinely sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars, with many buyers expecting so-called blue-chip NFTs to retain or increase their value over time. Around $57 billion worth of NFTs were traded during the 2022 boom. NFT trading reached an all-time high of approximately $6 billion to $7 billion in January 2022, driven by collections including Bored Ape Yacht Club, CloneX, Azuki, and Otherside land sales.

Since then, the market has gone through a prolonged decline, with estimates placing NFT valuations about 95% below their peak levels.

Floor prices across most major NFT collections have fallen sharply as speculative demand faded, liquidity declined, and investor attention shifted toward other crypto narratives, including Bitcoin ETFs, tokenized real-world assets, stablecoins, artificial intelligence, and memecoins. In NFT markets, the floor price is typically used as a shorthand for the lowest listed price in a collection, but actual realized prices can vary depending on a token’s traits, rarity, buyer demand, and available liquidity at the time of sale.

Machi’s sale illustrates a recurring feature of previous crypto cycles: assets bought during periods of intense hype can become difficult to sell without significant losses, particularly when holders need liquidity for other positions.

Although blue-chip NFT collections remain culturally significant within parts of the crypto sector, they no longer command the premiums they once did. Many collectors continue to hold unrealized losses years after the market’s peak.

The NFT boom became one of the largest speculative cycles in crypto history. At its peak, investors believed NFTs could reshape digital ownership, gaming, art, music, and even real estate. While the technology continues to find niche uses in areas such as gaming assets, ticketing, digital identity, and tokenized collectibles, the speculative frenzy that pushed valuations into the tens of billions of dollars has largely subsided.

The rise and fall of NFTs is often cited alongside the ICO boom of 2017–2018 as an example of how blockchain technology can enable genuine innovation while periods of extreme hype can drive asset prices far beyond sustainable levels.