Why celebrities are buying Bored Ape NFTs

polygon.com:

Jimmy Fallon has officially bought an NFT, and he showed it off on national television. On Monday night’s episode of The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Paris Hilton and Jimmy Fallon shared their new Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs — or rather, the physical, printed out copies of them. Fallon’s is decked out in nautical gear, with a captain’s hat and striped shirt. Hilton’s has shaggier red fur and a black pair of shades. The segment was deeply awkward, with tepid audience reactions at best. Mostly it felt bizarre compared to Fallon’s typical fare of promoting celebrity shows and movies, or doing silly games like karaoke. Why were these celebrities talking about crypto on late-night?

Hilton and Fallon might seem like an odd pair to chat blockchain, but Hilton is actually really into NFTs. She’s the reason Fallon even knows what they are. “You taught me what’s up, and then I bought an ape,” Fallon said, as a kind of brag that read a little more like a mea culpa. And if you’ve taken a peek at Hilton’s social media lately, you’ll notice she’s increasingly styled herself as a crypto influencer-evangelist, as well as an early adopter of the metaverse trend (true Hilton devotees might recall that in 2021, she launched “Paris World” in Roblox). The Tonight Show episode capped off with Hilton announcing her own NFT collection, a collage of GIFs largely about her and her husband called “My Forever Fairytale.” Every audience member got one for free, and we can only assume they all thought it was definitely a better live-audience goodie than a flat screen TV or whatever Ellen likes to give out.

The short segment is yet another mainstream recognition of non-fungible tokens by celebrities — and not just those involved heavily in tech. So,