Ex-Barclays trader who quit to make NFTs won't get his job back. But it's okay
Ovie Faruq was a good credit trader. He liked being a credit trader, even. But eventually the boredom of using only half of your brain got to him, and he quit for the world of non-fungible tokens (NFTs). That was in 2022.
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It’s now 2026, and the NFT world has collapsed, for lack of better term. From a peak market size of $1.6bn in 2022, research from CoinLedger last year suggested it’s barely a third of that now. Bloomberg reported earlier this week that Cryptocurrency exchange Gemini was planning to close its NFT marketplace by March.
Faruq is unfazed. In the OFF SCRIPT podcast yesterday, he said that his NFT style – Rekt guy – was launched during the NFT decline anyway. People could related to the Rekt Guy, because they were also Rekt guys. It was almost a metaphysical commentary.
Despite the NFT market being Rekt, Faruq has no interest in returning to the world of trading. "I could never go [back]”, he said. “If everything failed in my life and I needed to get a normal job, so to speak, I would do something different. I couldn't go back to it."
Despite leaving finance, Faruq has fond-ish memories of the experience. He told the OFF SCRIPT podcast that he loved the excitement of taking risks and credited the bank and his mentors there for teaching him a lot – and noted that he learned a lot about ethics, regulation, macroeconomics, and risk management.
Eventually however, the risk-aversion made him quit. “If something didn’t go well for you, people would be quick to say you need to cut your losses. And it would be frustrating if you turned out to be right further down the line.”
Still, it’s not all negative. Rekt is a whole brand now. We’ve mentioned their energy drink offerings before, which once upon a time sold for £60 for a case of 12 – now only £47, but still. There’s also the Rekt Coin, the brand’s own meme coin. It currently has a market cap of around $81m, with a total supply of 420.69 trillion coins.
If you’re curious to know how Faruq’s NFTs are doing, we found an artwork in 2022 of a self-portrait (of sorts) was on sale for $3.4k (USD). It’s now on sale for $212. Just for reference.
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