Aoki's Great Portfolio Purge: SHIB, ETH, and PEPE Out the Door, Apes? Those Stay. Forever.

Steve Aoki—the EDM legend who once declared NFTs would be "part of culture" within five years—is quietly liquidating what's left of his crypto holdings. The man who once dropkicked his way through crypto conferences is now doing what every degen does when the music stops: frantically grabbing whatever chips remain on the table.

Arkham Intelligence data shows his wallet dumped 1.785 billion SHIB for roughly $10,300 and swapped 7.25 ETH for approximately $15,900 on Monday, routing $29,650 in USDT to Gemini. Two weeks prior, the same wallet unloaded 4.155 billion PEPE through 1inch for $14,700. Smaller stablecoin movements between $600 and $1,700 through MetaMask filled the gaps between these larger exits. In crypto terms, this is what happens when your portfolio becomes a sad little cleanup crew after the main event has already left the building.

These sales are pocket change. The losses are not. When you're down 88% on seven figures, selling your SHIB bag for enough to buy a decent used car feels less like profit and more like a participation trophy for showing up to the massacre.

Aoki paid over $800,000 for seven Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs during the 2021 bull run, when he was one of the most visible celebrity advocates for the space. Those seven Apes are now worth approximately $13,800 each—roughly $97,000 total. That's an 88% decline from his purchase price. He hasn't sold them. At current floor prices, there's little left to recover. The Apes sit in his wallet like digital furniture you can't bring yourself to throw out because someone famous once touched it.

At the peak of NFT mania, Aoki also secured financing for "Dominion X," an NFT TV show produced in collaboration with Seth Green's Stoopid Buddy Stoodios. The show sold 500 NFTs in 30 seconds on Nifty Gateway. His manager told CoinDesk the sale "barely covered" production costs but demonstrated a market for "original IP on the blockchain." The show never reached broadcast. Turns out "original IP on the blockchain" wasn't quite the pitch that networks were looking for when they wanted to fill 22 minutes of primetime.

The broader NFT market confirms the pattern. Bored Ape floor prices have plummeted from over $400,000 in early 2022 to under $14,000 today. The 2023–2025 bull market, which sent Bitcoin to all-time highs above $126,000, largely bypassed NFTs entirely. Unlike previous cycles, capital has increasingly favored projects with clear utility and portfolio value over purely narrative-driven or speculative assets. The NFT market basically pulled a disappearing act while Bitcoin was off setting new ATHs, like a friend who suddenly has somewhere else to be when the check comes.

Aoki still holds the seven Apes. Everything else is going