Tiger Global Cuts Stakes on Bored Ape Yacht Club and OpenSea Holdings

The investment firm Tiger Global has reportedly reduced the valuation of its holdings in Bored Ape Yacht Club and OpenSea. Per a Bloomberg report, the company marked down the value of its investment in Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) by 69% and its stake in the NFT marketplace OpenSea by 94%.

The move follows Tiger Global’s decision to write down its $38 million investment in FTX to zero.

Tiger Global Investors Experience Losses

The Tiger Global’s Private Investment Partners 15 fund, with nearly $13 billion in assets, has also reportedly devalued AI-powered email company Superhuman by 45% and reduced the valuation of the privacy-focused search engine platform DuckDuckGo by 72%.

According to anonymous sources, investors in the Private Investment Partners 15 fund experienced an 18% paper loss at the end of September. The move to mark down the valuations of Superhuman and DuckDuckGo is perceived as an effort to mitigate risks associated with further declines in value.

Meanwhile, the Bored Ape Yacht Club collection, whose stake has been marked down 69% by Tiger Global, has been facing challenges. The current BAYC price floor is down 77% from its all-time high in May 2022, according to data from NFT Price Floor.

Another investment firm, Coatue Management, made a similar decision in early November 2023 to reduce the valuation of its investment in the NFT marketplace OpenSea by 90%. Reports indicate that Coatue Management cut its stake from an initial $120 million to $13 million amid the harsh market conditions for NFTs.

NFT Market Might Face a Resurgence

NFTs, unique crypto assets verifying ownership of items, have not been immune to the extended bear market impacting the broader crypto industry this year. On November 3, OpenSea, a prominent NFT marketplace, announced a significant workforce reduction of 50%, a strategic move aligned with the shift towards OpenSea 2.0.

Devin Fizner, the CEO, emphasized that this restructuring aims to enhance technological capabilities, emphasizing performance and quality while maintaining agility and responsiveness.

JPMorgan highlighted on Thursday that there is a resurgence in the decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-fungible token (NFT) sectors. This revival is linked to the growing anticipation of a U.S.-based spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF), positively influencing the overall cryptocurrency market sentiment.

Despite this positive trend, the report, led by analyst Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou, exercised cautious optimism, stating it is too early to become overly excited about the revival.