From NFTs to dinosaurs, a shift in crypto elite’s tastes

A group of four owns a 69-million-year-old triceratops skeleton kept in a S’pore vault

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Singapore crypto investor Chaw Wai Yang, Mr Yoann Turpin, co-founder of crypto market maker Wintermute, and his wife Alice Jeon posing with the triceratops skeleton they own at Le Freeport's vault in Singapore. Mr Turpin says part of the appeal is that, like Bitcoin, only a finite number of such fossils are left.

(PHOTO: BLOOMBERG)

Deep inside a Singapore vault that has been dubbed “Asia’s Fort Knox”, nestled alongside fine wines and priceless paintings, is a fully formed, 69-million-year-old triceratops skeleton - one of only 24 known specimens.

Its owners? A group of collectors including Mr Yoann Turpin, co-founder of crypto market maker Wintermute.

The trading executive and his co-investors paid about US$5 million (S$6.5 million) for the more than 5m-long fossil, which was shipped from Wyoming to Singapore’s Le Freeport earlier in 2025.

All four of its owners invest in crypto, including Singaporean Chaw Wei Yang, who runs a platform called Co-Museum focused on collectibles.

The purchase is indicative of the transitioning tastes of the crypto elite, whose fascination with digital artworks known as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) petered out after a 2022 boom. In those heady days, entrepreneur Vignesh Sundaresan made headlines splashing US$69 million on a single NFT made by the artist known as Beeple.