$3,000 for a used iPhone? If maybe it has Tiktok.

For about $1,000, you can leave an Apple store with a brand new, hermetically sealed iPhone that has been personalized for you by a verified genius.

Or for hundreds or even thousands of dollars more, you can buy a used phone with a cracked screen and dirty speakers from someone on the Internet.

It all just depends on how much you love Tiktok.

When the video-sharing app stopped working in the US on Saturday night after the Supreme Court upheld a law effectively banning the app, some users deleted the app from their phones. The next day, the app began working again when President Trump said he was planning an executive order to pause enforcement of the law. But as of Thursday, Apple and Google, which had removed Tiktok from their app stores to comply with the law, had not made it available for download again.

The uncertainty over whether the app will return to the app stores has caused some people who never removed the app to see their phones as golden tickets, coveted by anyone who misses the thumb through Tiktok’s algorithm or had followers they can’t reach after They quickly quickly removed the app.

It was not immediately clear how many people deleted Tiktok and whether it will return to app stores. But people like Piotr Gustab, 37, of Queens, see opportunity in the uncertainty.

An information technology engineer, Mr. Gustab listed his iPhone 15 Pro with Tiktok downloaded to it for $3,000 on Facebook Marketplace. That’s about three times the cost of a brand new iPhone 16 Pro. On Thursday night, he had an offer for $1,200, still more than almost any brand new iPhone and almost twice as much as a renovated iPhone 15 Pro without Tiktok.

“It would be a good deal for me because I could get a few hundred dollars on it,” said Mr. Gustav. He will drop his asking price to $2,000 if he doesn’t get a better offer soon, he said.

“Unlocked with Tiktok and Capcut,” an advertisement on Poshmark reader ($3,500). “iPhone 14 Pro Unlocked! M/ tiktok, “a list of eBay calls out ($3,000). On the Facebook marketplace, sellers include screenshots in their listings to verify that Tiktok is installed on the phone.

“This Tiktok app is worth a lot, man,” said Izell Malloy, 20, a car salesman and Twitch streamer from New London, Conn. He said he was offered $5,700 through Facebook Marketplace for his iPhone with Tiktok on it.

Maybe iPhone listings ask for $30,000 are not realistic. (Trait’n Keniston, 20, of Newport News, Va., posted his phone with Tiktok for that amount, but said he wasn’t sure the five-figure bids he received were real.) Even users who went through the most severe Tiktok withdrawals would be hard pressed to buy a used phone for the price of a 2025 Toyota Prius.

But if you’re considering shelling out another few bucks for a Tiktok phone, Freddy Tran Nager, associate director of the Digital Social Media program at the University of Southern California, thinks it’s a really bad idea.

“It is very risky behavior to buy a phone that is not wiped,” said Mr. Nagger and referred to a standard reset process that would not take place on a Tiktok phone. These phones alerted Mr. Nager, “could include spyware and other viruses that could really put your privacy at risk.”

There are safer options. Tiktok is still available on web browsers and Some users On Reddit, they say they have found a workaround to download the app. Even on phones without viruses or malware, Tiktok’s uncertain future makes it difficult for Mr. Nagging to see the value in these phones. If Tiktok has a long-term future, it will be downloadable again, he thinks.

Tiktok’s absence from app stores may sound familiar. “The Western world descended into chaos,” New York Times Wrote in 2014 when Flappy Bird, an addictive game where users guided a small chicken through an obstacle course, was removed from app stores. Phones with the downloaded app was erected at astronomical prices.

Mr. Nager said Tiktok is different. Some applications like games can work just fine regardless of company ownership issues.

“The Tiktok app is just a gateway to access a website or platform,” said Mr. Nagger. If Tiktok goes dark again, the app is “just a work of art.”

But art, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. For some, Renegade and Pop-Culture Memes might be worth a few months rent.