Steve Aoki Goes Full Exit Liquidity: Dumps $30K in SHIB and ETH While His $800K Bored Ape Bag Becomes a 98% Discount Bummer

Grammy-nominated DJ Steve Aoki is apparently done with crypto. According to Arkham Intelligence, the producer recently sold off roughly $30,000 worth of Shiba Inu and Ethereum, transferring the proceeds to Gemini exchange. The sell-off isn't massive, but it marks a quiet goodbye from a former NFT bull—less a dramatic rug pull, more a polite "I'm gonna go ahead and exit this group chat now."

Aoki still holds 7 Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs—tokens he scooped up at the peak of 2021 madness for over $800,000 combined. Those same Apes now trade at a soul-crushing $13,800 each. That's a 98% wipeout. Nearly $1 million, gone. Just vibes left. The only thing dropping faster than BAYC floor prices is the collective IQ of everyone who thought JPEG monkeys were the future of finance.

The rest of his on-chain portfolio? Small unknown tokens—the kind that linger in wallets long after the bull run's afterparty ends, like that one friend who won't leave your apartment even though the party moved to a different bar three hours ago.

Aoki was genuinely all-in during the NFT summer. He threw Ape-themed raves, launched his own collections, and flexed blockchain credentials in interviews like it was part of his DJ set. Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Justin Bieber—all piling into pixelated primates that supposedly represented exclusive access and blue-chip status. The celebrity parade was so thick you needed a floor pass just to watch them buy jpegs.

Now the floor has collapsed. BAYC's peak prices above $400,000 ETH equivalent are a distant memory. The broader NFT market has cratered 90%+ since those glory days, with trading volumes limping along in the low millions monthly instead of the billions we once saw. Remember when NFT sales hit billions in a single week? Good times. Simpler times. Times when we thought monkey pictures would fund our retirement.

The Psychology of Broken Illusions

Crypto analyst waleswoosh argues this is exactly why old NFT metas never recover. Once the illusion of endless upside shatters, it's nearly impossible to rebuild. The collective mindset flips from "to the moon" to "if it ever gets close to my entry, I'm out." It's like that moment in a relationship when you realize you're the only one still trying—time to stop scrolling through old photos and accept it's over.

And that's precisely why it never reaches those heights again—every pump faces a wall of former believers ready to sell. Price discovery, in his view, becomes final. What remains is a market full of participants waiting to exit, not chase higher ground. The exit door has become a revolving door, but everyone's trying to leave at once.

This dynamic isn't unique to BAYC. Collections like Azuki and Doodles face the same gravity. Any return to ATH would likely trigger mass selling rather than renewed hype. It's basically a coordinated "sell the news" event before the news even happens.

Aoki's exit is a snapshot of where we are. The NFT dream is dead, the Apes are asleep, and even celebrity-endorsed collections can't escape gravity when sentiment turns. The music stopped, and the DJ already left the building.