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As with the CryptoPunks, we could say that the publish cointelegraph news have reached the Olympus of NFTs and have gone from being simple digital collectibles to becoming true status symbols. And it is that in a world in which everything tends to be digitized, the ostentation mechanisms end up suffering the same fate. Bored Apes have been documented by the media as one of the more prominent NFTs. In December 2021, the Bored Ape Yacht Club overtook CryptoPunks as the highest-priced NFTs. Universal Music Group has signed a band composed of three Bored Apes and one Mutant Ape. BAYC is a collection of 10,000 Bored Ape NFTs—unique digital collectibles living on the Ethereum blockchain.
At the time of launch, each Bored Ape Yacht Club token cost 0.08 Ether , equivalent to $220, but in mid-October 2022, they were priced at a minimum of 76 ETH, worth approximately $100,418. Like everything else to do with NFTs, the Bored Ape Yacht Club is contentious. Apes inspire jealousy among those who own and trade NFT art but confusion and suspicion among people who don’t. Their value is instrinsically tied to ether, the second biggest cryptocurrency. That means NFTs like BAYC are likely to lose their lustre if crypto collapses — something critics have prophesized for years. In June 2022, Yuga Labs launched a lawsuit against Ryder Ripps on the grounds of him selling NFTs that infringe on the company’s copyright.
A key factor in the promotion and viralization of the project has been the adoption of an IP model that guarantees a commercial license to each holder of an ape. Having a license that allows the commercial exploitation of the NFT is an intelligent economic incentive of the first magnitude that manages to transform the commercialization and marketing of the project into a collective effort. CryptoPunks are non-fungible tokens that can sell for millions of dollars.
Adidas launched “Into the Metaverse,” its native digital collectible, in partnership with xtrade broker, Gmoney, and PUNKS Comic. Following the partnership, BAYC uploaded an image of a Bored Ape wearing an Adidas jacket on Twitter; Gmoney also tweeted a silhouette picture that had an Adidas sweatshirt on; PUNKS Comic tweeted a picture of a character wearing a shirt with the Adidas logo imprinted on it. The collection exists on the Ethereum blockchain and contains 10,000 unique NFTs derived from 172 unique assets. Membership to the club includes access to THE BATHROOM , a digital graffiti board where users commonly “draw dicks,” according to the founder. The NFTs were originally sold for 0.08 ether each, around $190 at the time of their April 2021 launch and were sold out in 12 hours. DeveloperYuga Labs LLCPlatformEthereumReleaseApril 30, 2021GenreCollectableBored Ape Yacht Club, often colloquially called Bored Apes, Bored Ape or BAYC, is a non-fungible token collection built on the Ethereum blockchain.
Hackers stole about 30 Bored Ape tokens from owners who approved a transfer using a fake “mint” link. The athletic outfitter plans to cast a 3D Bored Ape character in its upcoming metaverse game. The goal is to foster 3D interaction among internet users through collectibles.
Bored Ape Yacht Club Community Stats
The Yuga Labs team raised $450 million in a fundraising round led by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, it was reported in March 2022, to be valued at $4 billion. The capital is set to be used to expand Yuga Labs’ activities and accelerate brand growth. Other NFT collections that Yuga Labs have started are Mutant Ape Yacht Club —a spinoff of BAYC—and Bored Ape Kennel Club. Both were trading at volumes of 457,000 ETH and 110,000 ETH, respectively, on OpenSea in mid-October 2022. BAYC is considered a status symbol, and celebrities like National Basketball Association star Stephen Curry, singers Eminem and Snoop Dogg, and late-night show host Jimmy Fallon own one. Bored Ape Yacht Club, also known as BAYC, is a non-fungible token collection of 10,000 cartoon-like apes.
The OpenSea NFT marketplace banned both projects in December 2021. In February 2022, Bored Wukong was accused of copycat NFT avatars. Solano and Aronow went to Twitter, commenting they were doxxed and uploaded images of themselves next to their Bored Ape profile pictures. Solano is a writer and editor, while No Sass and Emperor Tomato Ketchup are programmers. Aronow, the son of boat tycoon Donald Aronow, has been documented as planning to attend an MFA program, before falling ill and becoming a cryptocurrency day trader.
BAYC Is More Than an NFT Collection
For instance out of 10,000 apes only 46 have solid gold fur, making these particularly valuable. Pioneered by CryptoPunks in 2017, NFT collections are a little like Pokemon cards. You have a set amount — usually between 5,000 and 10, which all have the same template, but each has different attributes that make them unique. In the case of BAYC, there are 10,000 apes, each with varying fur types, facial expressions, clothing, accessories and more. Each attribute has a rarity component, which makes some much more valuable than others.
Your Bored Ape doubles as your Yacht Club membership card, and grants access to members-only benefits, the first of which is access to THE BATHROOM, a collaborative graffiti board. Future areas and perks can be unlocked by the community through roadmap activation. The Bored Ape Yacht Club is a collection of 10,000 unique Bored Ape NFTs— unique digital collectibles living on the Ethereum blockchain. Bored Ape Yacht Club is a collection of NFTs on Ethereum, made up of 10,000 unique avatars with varying levels of rarity determined by a combination of randomly generated attributes. As we have already explained, one of the characteristics that differentiate this Yuga Labs project from previous ones such as CryptoPunks is that the NFTs work as membership tokens of an exclusive club. Being a Bored Ape holder opens the door for you to participate in events, access airdrops such as the $APE token, and many other advantages.
This is due in large part to the sales of the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection totalling over US$1 billion. Various celebrities have purchased these non-fungible tokens, including Justin Bieber, Jimmy Fallon, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Gwyneth Paltrow, Madonna, Neymar, Paris Hilton, Timbaland, and Steve Aoki. Remember that on our website we calculate the floor price aggregating price data feeds from the main marketplaces. In the “floor price” field you will always have a link that will redirect you to the market with the lowest ask price – so that you can acquire the cheapest Bored Ape seamlessly and easily at any moment.
Yuga Labs stated they were granting complete commercial rights to CryptoPunks owners. Aronow clarified that apes were chosen as a mascot for the NFT because of the cryptocurrency phrase aping in, meaning to buy into a new currency or NFT with abandon, risking a significant amount of money. Solano and Aronow brought in two friends of theirs, No Sass libertex trading bot and Emperor Tomato Ketchup, programmers who could handle the blockchain coding. The latter two were knowledgeable in computer science, having studied the field at the same university Solano attended; however, they “were not crypto-savvy,” having both written their first lines of Solidity code, a language used for smart contracts, in February 2021.
But in any case, their value is individual, the CryptoPunks can be appreciated without the need to take into account the larger group of which they are a part. The pseudonym of the founders of Yuga Labs, together with the fact of opting for a generous intellectual property license system with the owners of the NFTs that make up the collection, would be one of the main hallmarks of the project. The 4 original members of the team would manage to maintain their anonymity until February 2022, when their identities would end up being revealed -without their prior consent- by the digital media BuzzFeed. If CryptoPunks can be considered the genesis of the PFP concept applied to collectible digital assets that take the form of non-fungible tokens, Bored Ape Yacht Club represents the refinement of this concept through a series of innovations. To buy a Bored Ape token and be part of the exclusive club, visit a platform where the BAYC collection is listed, such as OpenSea. Once that’s done, search “Bored Ape Yacht Club,” filter out the ape of your choice, and place an order.
Are Bored Apes losing value?
All Seeing Seneca, or simply Seneca, an Asian-American artist is credited as the lead designer of the artwork featured in Bored Ape NFTs. Seneca clarified that she was not the sole illustrator of the artwork, but the “lead artist of the original collection” and that the ape’s body is “exactly line-for-line” her drawing. As BAYC “has made it clear that NFT holders have full commercialization rights to their ape,” Bored Apes differ from other NFTs in that “whoever owns a Bored Ape can spin it into whatever film, music, TV, book, or media project they want.” Gargamel and Gordon Goner, the two co-founders, would turn out to be Greg Solano and Wylie Aaronow, two thirtysomething lovers of literature and philosophy -especially the works of David Foster Wallace and the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. Coincheck is a Tokyo-based cryptocurrency exchange and digital wallet founded in 2012. In April 2022, the official Instagram account and Discord server of Bored Ape Yacht Club were hacked, and a phishing link was posted on both BAYC platforms.
The advent of this second collection last August is when the Bored Ape brand really popped. Seen as doing innovative things with NFT technology, and coinciding with a huge amount of money entering the space that month, Bored Ape Yacht Club started to be seen as the premiere NFT brand. The most ubiquitous criticism of NFTs is that they’re useless because pictures can simply be right-clicked and saved for free. The point of NFT technology is that it makes public who the owner of an asset is.
- Each ape is a non-fungible token that, unlike CryptoPunks, adopts the ERC-721 token standard -which makes it easy to integrate into all kinds of marketplaces without the need for wrappers.
- In the BAYC collection, there are more than 160 traits, and each ape may have four to seven trait categories.
- Specifically, the exponents of golden skin and psychedelic are the ones that have reached the highest valuations .
- Already it’s collaborated with brands like Adidas and Gucci, and last year a Bored Apegraced the cover of Rolling Stone magazine.
- This collection of 10,000 cartoon apes has become the poster child of NFTs.
- Being a Bored Ape holder opens the door for you to participate in events, access airdrops such as the $APE token, and many other advantages.
The term “rarity” gauges how unusual an NFT is within a collection with an assigned number. In the BAYC collection, there are more than 160 traits, and each ape may have four to seven trait categories. These traits are background, clothes, earrings, eyes, fur, hat, and mouth. Whether the Bored Ape collection is truly worth millions of dollars has been hotly debated. But, in fact, rarity, celebrity endorsements, and utilities and perks have driven the collection’s value up.
In December 2021, the Bored Ape Yacht Club partnered with Animoca, a blockchain gaming firm, to launch a play-to-earn game using the BAYC NFT. The exclusivity that comes with the token’s perks makes Bored Ape Yacht Club much more valuable in price than many other NFTs. Other celebrities who bought BAYC beyond those mentioned include billionaire Mark Cuban, prominent Twitter personality and DJ Steve Aoki, Twitter personalities and musicians Post Malone and Mike Shinoda, and producer and songwriter Timbaland. Rarity, utilities, and celebrity endorsement drive the high price of the BAYC collection. The actual art was created by freelance artist Seneca, who’s not part of Yuga Labs. All four went exclusively by their pseudonyms until February, when BuzzFeed reported the identities of Gordon Goner and Gargamel.
Justin Bieber’s $1.3 Million USD Bored Ape NFT Is Now Worth Only $69K USD
The collection features profile pictures of cartoon apes that are procedurally generated by an algorithm. Last but not least is the community that’s built around a collection. The more valuable people find belonging to that community, the less they’ll want to sell their NFT.
On April 25, 2022, the official Instagram account of the company was hacked and a phishing link was posted on it. As a result, four Bored Ape NFTs, along with ten more from related collections by Yuga Labs, were stolen with a total estimated worth of approximately $3 million. $1 million worth of funds were transferred into the hacker’s account. On March 16, 2022, ApeCoin DAO launched its own token separate from Yuga Labs known as “ApeCoin” ($APE), which was used to build tokenomics for their products.
Anotherwith gold fur and laser eyes, two sub-1% traits, went for $3 million. In some cases of celebrities owning Bored Ape NFTs, such as with Justin Bieber, it has been reported that the actual purchase of the NFT may not have been made by the celebrity themselves. Yuga Labs would take a very different approach to Bored Ape Yacht Club than Larva Labs did with the CryptoPunks.
But what both collections do share is the fact that they belong to the PFP category which, as the name suggests, are perfect for being used as a profile picture on social networks. BAYC has enticed several celebrities and brands to own pieces of its NFT collection. Adidas is one of the brands contributing to the hype surrounding the NFT collection.
