https://dirtybubblemedia.substack.com/p/justin-bieber-bought-an-nft-for-13 Dirty Bubble Media SubscribeSign in * About * Archive * Help * Sign in Share this post Justin Bieber "bought" an NFT for $1.3 million. But he didn't pay for it. dirtybubblemedia.substack.com Copy link Twitter Facebook Email Justin Bieber "bought" an NFT for $1.3 million. But he didn't pay for it. Inside the shady world of celebrity NFT shills Dirty Bubble Media [https] 5 hr ago giampiero-dalessandro-justin-bieberWill the real Bieber please stand up? A few days ago, a series of breathless media reports appeared claiming that Justin Bieber had purchased a "Bored Ape Yacht Club" (BAYC) NFT for $1.3 million (500 Ethereum). The stories focused on the huge amount of money spent, noting that Bieber had apparently paid 3-4 times more than the NFT was "worth." [https]OMG WOW This purchase was part of an NFT buying spree by Bieber, as the BAYC purchase was one of ~20 purchases he made on the OpenSea platform in the course of a few hours. In addition to BAYC, Bieber also bought NFTs from the Doodles, World of Women, Mutant Ape Yacht Club, and several other projects. However, there's a catch: Justin Bieber didn't pay for any of them! Following the Money While there are many valid criticisms of blockchain technology, there is one indisputable benefit: Since all transactions are immutably recorded and public, tracking money through the system becomes trivial. In the case of Justin Bieber's NFT purchases, it was easy to identify his wallet once he made his purchases public. Below is a diagram of the flow of Ethereum (the cryptocurrency used to buy NFTs) to, and from, Bieber's wallet: [https] On January 29th, 916 Ethereum (~$2.4 million) was transferred to Bieber's wallet (0xe21dc...) from wallet (0x51f48...). Prior to this, nearly 3000 Ethereum had been transferred to (0x51f48...) from the inBetweeners NFT project wallet. [https]Internal transactions= somebody owns both wallets These were internal transactions, demonstrating that whoever controlled (0x51f48...) also controls the InBetweeners project wallet. In turn, the Ethereum in the inBetweener's wallet came from hundreds of NFT "minting" transactions, where individuals paid Ethereum to obtain inBetweener's NFTs. Tl;dr? The money to buy Bieber's NFTs didn't come from him- it came from selling InBetweener NFTs. InBetweeners and Bieber So, what is the connection between Bieber and the InBetweeners project? Well, on December 15, 2021, Bieber announced that he had "copped his first NFTs," all of which were from the inBetweeners project: [https]"Copped":" verb, to receive or obtain Of course, he didn't pay for any of these NFTs. They were all gifted, free of charge: [https]Free community member It appears that Bieber is connected to inBetweeners via an artist named Gianpero D'Alessandro, who has designed merchandise for Bieber, Snoop Dogg, and others. [https] Not surprisingly, it turns out that wallet (0x51f48) is registered on OpenSea to Gianpero himself: [https] The inBetweeners project leans heavily on its Bieber connection. In the past, Gianpero and other team members have promised that owners of inBetweener NFTs will be given special access to Bieber's events. However, in a recent "Town Hall" meeting, the inBetweeners rep dials down the expectations, saying that: ... the best case scenario was we can get Justin Bieber to post... we are pushing him, but we don't want to be too pushy... Justin can do whatever he wants to do... Twitter avatar for @interlunations$NOCOIN enthusiast @interlunations Here's a video of the 1/30 Inbetweeners NFT "Town Hall" where they clearly explain to an investor how they're exploiting Justin Bieber's celebrity to promote their tokens. February 2nd 2022 31 Retweets119 Likes The rep also denies that the inBetweeners project is paying for Bieber's endorsement, saying that: ...what we are avoiding is paid promo, we think that dilutes our brand... we haven't paid a huge influencer to post about us. These comments contradict what we observe with Bieber's supposed wallet, as all of the money in the wallet came directly from inBetweeners sales. It is also worth noting that prior to the big Bieber news, the inBetweeners team had been heavily promoting their project on social media and group chats on Discord. At least one person reported first seeing inBetweeners mentioned by a network of obvious Twitter bot accounts: [https]Pretty shady behavior for an A-list celebrity project! Is Bieber's wallet wash-trading inBetweeners NFTs? Over the last 24 hours, wallet (0xe21dc) purchased five inBetweeners NFTs for between 1-1.5 Ethereum ($2400-3600). This is 2-3x the cost to mint an inBetweeners NFT: [https]Adding to the collection... with money from selling the collection This, despite the fact that the funds in this wallet all came from minting fees from inBetweener's NFTs. Clearly, the point is to keep the hype flowing... Is it really Bieber's wallet? Based on the above evidence, it seems unlikely that Bieber is really in control of the wallet in question. A more detailed look at this wallet's activity further suggests that Bieber is not directly running things. Wallet (0xe21dc) touches a number of NFT projects, some of which appear to be in development. Strangely, this wallet owns hundreds of NFTs from these projects: [https] Either Bieber will soon be shilling for more NFT projects, or something else is going on here... Why this matters Based on the evidence, there are two possible explanations for Justin Bieber's recent NFT "purchases:" 1. Bieber does own wallet (0xe21dc). He was paid over $2 million by the inBetweeners project. He then proceeded to spend millions on NFTs, including overpaying for a BAYC by 3-4x 2. Bieber doesn't control the wallet. The inBetweeners team (Gianpero, others) are buying and selling NFTs in wallet (0xe21dc) to generate hype and.. somehow drive up demand for inBetweener NFTs? In both cases, this spells trouble for Bieber. If (1) is true, he has never disclosed any financial relationship between himself and the inBetweeners project. This is a clear violation of FTC rules: [https] If the latter case is true, this means Bieber doesn't actually own the NFTs he's been touting on social media as his... meaning that he's lying to his fans. Which one is it? 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