Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs explained

NFTs have been around for five years, but the non-fungible token boom didn’t really start until 2021. It coincided almost perfectly with the launch of the Bored Ape Yacht Club, a collection of 10,000 NFTs featuring cartoon monkeys that came to embody the entire industry. Over the past year, BAYC has become the leader of NFTs, just as Bitcoin is for the crypto market as a whole.

When NFTs Were Hottest, in Aprilthe entry price for the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT was $400,000. After the crypto crash, caused by the Federal Reserve raising inflation rates to deal with inflationthat’s down to close to $150,000. Far from an all-time high, but crazy considering these NFTs were selling for around $200 apiece last April.

You’ve probably seen BAYC, even if you didn’t realize you were watching one.

Bored Ape owners currently using their NFT as their Twitter profile picture include Timbaland (1.6 million followers), Eminem (22.6 million followers), and football player Neyman Jr. (55 million followers). Jimmy Fallon and Paris Hilton also host BAYC, discussing their monkeys in (lilies) A segment of the show tonight. Justin Bieber made headlines with the purchase of a $1.29M Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT in February.

Yuga Labs, the company behind the NFT collection, has now expanded the ecosystem to include cryptocurrency (Ape Coin). More importantly, it is developing a “metaverse” MMORPG called “Otherside.” People owning Bored Ape NFT are betting that the brand will completely break through and become mainstream. He has already collaborated with brands such as Adidas and Gucci, and last year Bored Ape graces the cover of Rolling Stone magazine.

Like everything else NFT-related, the Bored Ape Yacht Club is controversial. Monkeys inspire jealousy among those who own and trade NFT art, but confusion and suspicion among people who don’t. Their value is inextricably linked to Ether, the second largest cryptocurrency. This means that NFTs like BAYC will likely lose their luster if crypto crashes – something critics have been predicting for years.

Here’s what you need to know about the collection.

Why are there 10,000 bored monkeys?

Broadly speaking, there are two types of NFT art. First, you have one-off visuals that are sold as irreplaceable tokens, just like paintings in real life. Think about Beeple NFT which were sold at Christie’s for as much as $69 million. Second, you have NFT collections like Bored Ape Yacht Club, which are mostly meant to be used as social media profile pictures. The latter have become the dominant style where most money is spent.

First created by CryptoPunks in 2017, NFT collections are a bit like Pokemon cards. You have a set amount — usually between 5,000 and 10,000 — they all have the same template, but each has different attributes that make them unique. In BAYC’s case, there are 10,000 apes, each with a different type of fur, facial expression, clothing, accessories, and more. Each attribute has a rarity component, making some much more valuable than others.

These properties are displayed on OpenSea, the main platform where NFTs are traded. On a given NFT page, its properties will be listed, as well as the percentage of NFTs in the collection that share ownership. Generally, anything under 1% is considered rare. For example, out of 10,000 great apes, only 46 have solid golden fur, which makes them particularly valuable.

As noted, the “minimum price” for the project – what you’ll pay for a monkey with common traits – is currently around $150,000 (85 Ether). Monkeys with golden fur are rare and therefore sell for much more. one sold in January for $1.3 million. Another with golden fur and laser eyestwo strokes under 1%, went for $3 million.

BAYC is the largest NFT project of its kind that recently eclipsed CryptoPunks, which is considered the first “pfp” (profile picture) collections. Other notable sets include CyberKongz, Doodles and Cool Cats.

What makes Bored Ape Yacht Club valuable?

This is a complicated question. The short answer is that they are status symbols, and like all status symbols, their value comes from perception and brand, not utility. Just as a CEO might try to communicate business acumen with a Rolex or a fancy suit, people who trade NFTs show their NFT success to the Bored Ape Yacht Club. Their argument is that NFTs are better status symbols than real-world objects because when used as profile pictures, they can be seen by millions of people on Twitter and Instagram.

Let’s start over. Bored Ape Yacht Club launched last April. It took 12 hours to sell all 10,000 at $190 (0.08 Ether). The Bored Ape NFT price rose steadily until July, when it spiked and the collection became a blue-chip set.

What makes an NFT collection successful is highly subjective. Broadly, it’s a combination of four things: influencer or celebrity involvement, mainstream potential, usefulness to members, and community appeal.

The first and second are obvious. When famous people own an NFT, it makes others want to own one too. When celebrities like Jimmy Fallon and Justin Bieber bought Bored Ape, it caused a spike in sales and publicity – and publicity is what the NFT market is all about. People who buy BAYC today, at a hefty price tag of over $150,000, are likely to believe that the brand could one day grace more than celebrity social media accounts: Netflix shows, popular games and Hollywood movies are the target.

Third, utility. Most NFT projects claim to offer some utility, meaning it does something other than act as a profile picture. This could be access to play-to-earn games or an option to bet NFTs in exchange for an associated cryptocurrency.

Bored Ape Yacht Club did a few things to keep owners interested. First, create Kennel Club Bored Ape, offering owners the chance to “adopt” an NFT dog with traits that mimic those of Bored Apes. In August 2021, another free offering appeared: Digital Vials of Mutant Serum. Owners can mix their Bored Ape with the serum to create the Mutant Ape Yacht Club NFT (see below).

With the release of this second collection last August, the Bored Ape brand really came into its own. Seen as doing innovative things with NFT technology and coinciding with the huge amount of money entering the space this month, Bored Ape Yacht Club has come to be seen as on a premier NFT brand.

Both Kennel Club and Mutant Ape NFTs are now selling heavily. The entry point for collecting Mutant Ape Yacht Club is about $30,000, while Bored Ape Kennel Clubs sell for about half that. (Remember, these were Free of charge to BAYC holders.)

Last but not least is the community built around a collection. NFTs double as membership cards for groups of holders. The more valuable people think they belong to this community, the less they will want to sell their NFTs. The Bored Ape Yacht Club has meetings in New York and California, and there have also been Bored Ape meetings in Hong Kong and the UK. Last June, BAYC holders were treated to “Ape Fest,” a festival featuring performances by Eminem, Snoop Dogg, LCD Soundsystem and Amy Schumer.

But “community value” also extends to financial self-interest. The higher the minimum price per collection, the more crypto-rich traders you can expect to be holders. These savvy investors trade information within locked Discord groups, providing valuable (sometimes insanely valuable) advice to each other. Sell ​​your NFTs and you will no longer be familiar with such advice.

Who is behind Bored Ape Yacht Club?

Bored Ape Yacht Club is developed by Yuga Labs. At the time, Yuga Labs consisted of four people, all with pseudonyms. There’s Gordon Goner and Gargamel, who are the two co-founders, and two friends who helped develop it, No Sass and Emperor Tomato Ketchup.

All four used their pseudonyms exclusively until February, when BuzzFeed reported the identity of Gordon Goner and Gargamel. Gargamel is Greg Solano, a writer and book critic, and Gordon Goner is 35-year-old Wiley Aronov. Both posted photos of themselves on Twitter along with their Bored Apes. Emperor Tomato Ketchup and Sass then “doxed” — that is, revealed their identities — by doing the same.

The real thing the art was created by freelance artist Senecawhich is not part of Yuga Labs.

What next?

Yuga Labs has big plans for its Bored Ape Yacht Club brand, plans that are both on and off the circuit. (That is, both in the blockchain and in the real world.)

Start with more blockchain stuff. In March, Yuga Labs launched Ape Coin, its own cryptocurrency. All Bored Ape holders were airdropped just over 10,000 Ape Coins at launch, worth about $100,000 at the time (now about $70,000). Ape Coin will be the main currency in Otherside, the metaverse that Yuga Labs is building.

Metaverses are large virtual spaces shared by hundreds or thousands of people simultaneously. They have been around for a long time, think Second Life or even Fortnite. Blockchain-integrated metauniverses are only different in the sense that the land, building, and objects in the world are owned by users as NFTs. Yuga Labs already sold land for the metaverse, making over $300 million in just a few hours of sales.

In the physical world, Bored Apes integrate into fashion. Adidas launched its first NFT project, Into The Metaverse, in collaboration with several NFT brands, Bored Ape Yacht Club chief among them. Adidas and BAYC virtual and physical apparel collaboration coming soon.

The Bored Ape Yacht Club brand has appeared in other industries as well. Literally in the case of the food: A pop-up restaurant in Los Angeles recently turned into a permanent burger spot. In January mobile game, Apes vs Mutants, launched on both the App Store and Google Play Store. (Reviews were bad.) Another mobile game is in production, scheduled for Q2. Bored Ape figures from Super Plastic are also on the way.

More unusual, however, is what humans do with their monkeys. Owning a Bored Ape NFT gives you full commercial rights to it, and holders are taking advantage of this in some creative ways. One owner of Bored Ape created a Twitter account for his monkey where he creates a backstory, turning him into Jenkins, a valet who works for the yacht club. Jenkins is now signed to a real-world agency and has a biography written by New York Times bestseller Neil Strauss. Universal Music Group has invested from signing a group consisting of three Bored Apes and one Mutant Ape.

You might think NFTs are stupid – and terrible for the environment – ​​but don’t expect Bored Apes to go away anytime soon.