Category: Bored Ape Yacht Club

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Another Bored Ape NFT Sells for $200: Costly Mistake or Tax Evasion?

Another Bored Ape NFT has been undersold, this time for just US$200. The crypto community now believes this has become a common practice to evade capital gains taxes.

A Twitter account that reports Bored Ape NFT sales shared the news of Ape #6462 being purchased for only 200 USDC. This NFT has some of the rarest traits in the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) market, and is currently priced on OpenSea at 101.75 ETH, or US$206,000:

Transaction History Inspires Suspicion

While some in the NFT community say this is just another costly mistake, most believe it was a tax evasion manoeuvre. They based this on the transaction history, which shows the buyer’s account was created this month and that the offer for Ape #6462 was accepted minutes after being listed. It also has been transferred five times between different wallets since its mint date:

Bored Ape #6462. Source: OpenSea

Whether tax evasion or just a mistake, this is not the first time a Bored Ape NT has sold for much less than its original value. A month ago, Crypto News Australia reported that a US$350,000 Bored Ape had been sold for just US$115, raising suspicions in the crypto community.

What was more intriguing is that the owner accepted a bid of only 115 DAI – an Ethereum-based stablecoin – for his NFT. Again, most in the NFT community believed the reason behind this was tax-loss harvesting.

Genuine mistakes occur, however. Five months ago, Twitter handle Manaut.eth made a rookie error by misplacing a decimal point in pricing his NFT at 0.75 ETH instead of 75 ETH.

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Australian Bored Ape NFT Investor Turns $300 into $5 Million

An Australian investor in the NFT space has managed to turn US$300 into a whopping US$5 million. Steve Morlando is the proud owner of Bored Ape #2177 (above), a particularly rare ape in the series, which he bought last year for what amounts to 0.01 percent of its current value.

Morlando acquired the Ape before NFTs took off. He says he won’t be selling it anytime soon, unless somebody quadruples their offer, and he freely admits the project could yet crash and be worth nothing. The Aussie is a seasoned online gambler and blogger and is a huge proponent of the emerging NFT market, to the point of launching his own collection.

Morlando is also a long-term investor who seeks out projects to hold for a minimum of 10 years. “In 2020 I was on Twitter and all the crypto people I followed started talking about NFTs,” he told The Sydney Morning Herald. “I got very close to buying a few but didn’t and probably researched it for three or four months before, eventually, I bought a Beeple piece called Bull Run for $1000, and then the whole space just exploded.

I had offers of $300,000 to $400,000 on that piece just two or three months after I bought it. And then May came around, and I saw a project called the Bored Apes. I had a few ethereum left in my wallet and I thought they looked cool, so I minted 10 of them, and I was lucky enough to get one of the rarest ones, a gold ape … for which I now get offers of $5 million-plus, weekly.

Steve Morlando, NFT investor

NFTs are ‘Double-Sided’

For Morlando, NFTs have two different sides. On one side, some NFTs are just beautiful art and on the other side are projects like BAYC, which is “like gambling squared”. He explains that you are gambling when you pick a project that does well, “then you are gambling if you are to get a rare one in the set, and then you gamble again if the project team can do what they say they’re going to do”.

Regulatory Clarity Needed in Australia

The NFT space in Australia is heating up with projects garnering a high degree of popularity in the country. As a result, more clarity needs to be offered regarding regulation for digital assets and artists. It has been noted that the country needs to implement policy specifically related to NFTs to stave off a potential “brain drain” on the Australian economy, according to NSW Liberal Senator and crypto proponent Andrew Bragg.

Regulatory clarity will offer greater protection to artists from Australia, such as those of the Yolngu nation in the Northern Territory who have started to digitise their work as NFTs in an effort to create a new stream of income and share their art with the global market.

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Bored Ape Yacht Club Ethereum Metaverse NFTs Polygon

ApeCoin Integrates with Polygon After NFT Mint Disaster

ApeCoin (APE) has integrated with Polygon, an Ethereum sidechain known for delivering faster and cheaper transactions, as a direct consequence of Yuga Labs’ recent Otherdeeds NFT mint disaster:

This week, Crypto News Australia reported how Yuga Labs made more than US$550 million with the minting of its virtual lands called Otherdeeds, NFTs belonging to the company’s metaverse project, Otherside.

Ethereum Blockchain Brought to its Knees

However, the hype and demand for Otherdeeds caused massive congestion on the Ethereum network, leading to a sharp increase in gas fees and practically shutting down the entire Ethereum blockchain.

Some users reported paying up to US$10k to $14k in gas fees to obtain their Otherdeeds NFTs, but some others weren’t so lucky as they paid the gas fee but the transaction still failed. Yuga Labs said it would refund users who had experienced failed transactions for their gas:

‘You Messed Up,’ Says Community

Yuga Labs remarked that the demand was higher than expected, and that Ethereum’s capacity failed to meet the project’s size. However, the community started speculating that this was just a marketing stunt to show that ApeCoin needs its own chain.

ApeCoin DAO board member Yat Siu dismissed the allegations, saying Yuga Labs encourages its DAO to propose ideas for a new chain. Yet it seems the community is not buying it:

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Bored Ape Yacht Club Ethereum Metaverse NFTs

Yuga Labs To Offer Gas Refunds After ‘Otherside’ NFT Mint Burned $157 Million in ETH

ApeCoin (APE), the governance token of the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), has plunged as much as 11 percent after a catastrophic NFT sale by Yuga Labs.

Single NFT Collection Shuts Down Ethereum

The price drop came shortly after Yuga Labs (the company behind BAYC) made over US$550 million with the sale of “Otherdeeds“, a new Ethereum-based NFT collection that’s part of the Otherside metaverse.

However, the sale came with a few problems. The NFTs sold at a fixed price of 305 ApeCoin, or roughly US$7,000 each, but the high demand congested the Ethereum network to the point of rendering it practically useless:

Up to $14k in Gas Fees

Users reported paying gas fees from up to US$9,000 to $14,000, while others saw their transactions declined as a result of high network traffic. Yuga Labs said it would refund gas to affected users, but didn’t disclose when:

Over 71,000 ETH – approximately US$200 million at time of writing – was paid in gas fees, a new record for the Ethereum network. Fees were burned or destroyed, taking $200 million in liquidity out of the market.

While Ethereum gas fees are back to their usual levels, the price of ApeCoin dropped sharply after the event. At press time APE was trading at $14.19, down 4 percent from its recent weekly high, and trading volumes are still in the red with a 34.81 percent drop.

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Bored Ape Yacht Club Crypto News Ethereum Metaverse NFTs

Bored Apes Metaverse Project ‘Otherside’ Tops $561 Million in 24 Hours

Yuga Labs, creators of the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) series, has witnessed US$561 million in Otherside NFT sales within a matter of 24 hours. The craze led to the crash of Etherscan, and Ethereum gas fees blew out to thousands of dollars per transaction.

The highly anticipated Otherside metaverse mint on April 30 clogged the Ethereum mainnet, catapulting gas fees to shocking new heights. In less than a day, Yuga Labs generated most of its sales from just the Otherside’s “Otherdeed” NFT, intended as “the key to claiming land in Otherside”, Yuga’s upcoming metaverse game.

A total of 55,000 NFTs were minted at 305 APE each, which translates to about US$5,800 per Otherdeed, given Apecoin’s price at the time of the mint. From this mint alone, Yuga Labs raked in over US$318.7 million.

According to data from CryptoSlam, Otherdeed has already seen over US$242 million in secondary volume traded, and US$190 million of that was on OpenSea. APE pumped 55 percent last month following rumours of a land drop going viral.

High Demand Causes Etherscan Crash

Given the high number of NFTs and higher demand, the Otherdeed mint immediately caused a massive surge in Ethereum gas fees. Traffic on block explorer Etherscan also led to the site crashing. Gas wars, such as experienced in this mint, can occur on proof-of-work chains such as Ethereum when a sudden increase in demand for fast transactions clogs a network, sending fees soaring:

Gas fees on Ethereum saw extreme spikes up to thousands of dollars per transaction. While some were able to get their transactions processed within a few hours for a couple of hundred dollars in gas fees, others reported paying upwards of US$4,000 for a single transaction.

Given the context, the average price of Ethereum gas over the course of the night was more than US$6,000, about 100 to 200 times the normal fee. Data from Etherscan shows that users have paid around 64,000 ETH in gas fees, equalling in excess of US$175 million in 24 hours in relation to Otherside.

Gas Fees Could Have Been Averted

Will Papper, the co-founder of Syndicate DAO, has said that the contract had “nearly zero optimisations” and provided a few “tricks” that could have “saved many millions”:

Yuga Labs has addressed the gas fees issue, noting that the mint was “so large that Etherscan crashed”, and apologised for “turning off the lights on Ethereum for a while”:

There has been a lot of concern regarding Ethereum’s high gas fees, and many Ethereum layer 2 NFT marketplaces are aiming to effect reductions.

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Bored Ape Yacht Club Hackers Illegal NFTs Scams

Bored Ape Yacht Club’s Instagram Compromised in $2.8 Million NFT Phishing Scam

Bored Ape Yacht Club’s (BAYC) Instagram account has been hacked in a phishing scam resulting in an exploit of US$2.8 million worth of NFTs:

Yuga Labs, the creator of BAYC, is investigating the attack, tweeting followers not to click on links or mint new tokens. The attacker stole 133 NFTs after using BAYC’s Instagram account to promote a fake “airdrop”. The scam promised people free tokens if they connected their MetaMask wallets to the site linked through the post.

No Compensation As Yet

It is not yet known how the hacker accessed the Instagram account, and Yuga Labs has yet to announce whether it will compensate those affected by the scam:

According to Yuga Labs, “At the time of the hack, two-factor authentication was enabled and security surrounding the Instagram (IG) account followed best practices.” It added: “We’ve regained control of the account, and are investigating how the hacker gained access with IG’s team.”

According to blockchain data, the hacker’s wallet, which has been identified in connection with the attack, holds 91 NFTs and is said to be worth US$2.8 million based on the floor prices of the respective collections. The attack has seen 24 Bored Apes and 30 Mutant Apes stolen.

Yet Another Attack on BAYC

The news of this latest attack comes only weeks after the BAYC Discord servers suffered a phishing scam which led its governance token to plunge by 20 percent. Another possible hack was witnessed a couple of weeks ago when a BAYC NFT worth US$350,000 was sold for just US$115. Many question whether it was an exploit or just a massive error.

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Bored Ape Yacht Club Markets Mutant Ape Yacht Club Tokens

APE Token Pumps 55% Following Rumours of Land Drop Going Viral

The price of ApeCoin (APE) has exploded 55 percent following Twitter speculation that holders of the token would be able to purchase land in the Otherside metaverse MMORPG via a Dutch auction land sale.

Since the morning of April 18, APE has surged from its recent low of US$11.05 to a high of US$17.30 on April 21. According to CoinGecko, at the time of writing APE had retraced its gains slightly and was trading at US$15.95.

A Tale of Two Tweets

The APE buying frenzy has been driven by speculation that holders will have access to land in the Otherside metaverse MMORPG, which is currently being developed by the creators of the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), Yuga Labs.

Rumours had been circulating online since April 18, but two tweets in particular sparked investor interest. The first, tweeted a day later by a user known as ‘WillyTheDegen’, suggested that holders of the Yuga Labs-created NFTs BAYC and Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) would be airdropped land in Otherside:

The second tweet, posted on April 20 by ‘renegademasterr’, stated that Yuga Labs would be running a Dutch auction – where the starting price is high and bids get gradually lower – to sell Otherside land using APE as the purchasing currency:

This surge illustrates just how fickle the crypto market can sometimes be, driven by social media chatter and a healthy dose of FOMO.

APE Has Had a Turbulent Time

Since launching in March 2022, APE has been quite a volatile asset, even by crypto standards. On its first day of trading the token plunged 80 percent from its all-time high of US$39.40, and early this month it fell 20 percent following a hack on the related BAYC Discord servers.

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Coinbase Set to Launch 3 Animated Bored Ape-Themed Short Films

Crypto exchange Coinbase has issued a casting call to all Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT holders who’d like to see their simians featured in an upcoming animated series of short films.

The production, a three-part series titled The Degen Trilogy, designed to tie in with the exchange’s long-rumoured NFT marketplace, has called for submissions up until April 13.

Missed Out? There’s Always Part Two or Three

Ape owners who make the casting cut will receive a licensing fee of US$10,000 in ApeCoin or bitcoin, according to the film’s website, and those who miss out may be eligible for the remaining instalments of the proposed trilogy:

The film is set in the 2020s in a “chaotic” New York City where “for the first time, digital goods and services have outpaced all other indicators as a measure of value in the market”, according to the prologue.

As the old system crumbles, whole new realms spring forth from the ashes. (…) Enter the Degens. A new class of social adept, versed in the constantly re-invented tools of an ever accelerating economy.

Prologue, The Degen Trilogy

Coinbase Admits Project May Not Make Any Money

While Coinbase has said that it is unlikely to profit from the series, any proceeds would be donated to an as-yet unnamed non-profit organisation. The company added that the point of the trilogy is to “reward and connect with our communities through projects that bring the ethos of Web3 to life: collaboration, transparency, and opportunity”.

The first episode will be released at the NFT.NYC conference, scheduled to take place from June 20-23, with parts two and three to follow over the subsequent year. A Coinbase wallet is required to access the film’s website, although not to view the films.

Last week, director Kevin Smith was excoriated on Twitter after announcing his next film would be launched as an NFT. And late last year, BlockbusterDAO announced its intention to relaunch the Blockbuster brand as a film streaming service with future plans for movie financing and production.

With signs of NFT fatigue beginning to set in, it will be interesting to see whether any of these projects gets off the ground:

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Bored Ape Yacht Club Crypto News Mutant Ape Yacht Club NFTs

Bored Ape NFT Owners Launch ‘Bored & Hungry’ Pop-Up Restaurant

Curious punters queued around the block as the world’s first Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC)-themed pop-up restaurant opened in Southern California, US, on the weekend.

Bored & Hungry, on 7th Street in Long Beach, Southern California. Source: tubefilter.com

In partnership with Houston rapper Bun B’s Trill Burgers and Belief Burgers, Bored & Hungry calls itself a “smash burger-themed concept” where customers can buy fast food using Ethereum or ApeCoin.

As the proud owner of BAYC #6184, which he bought for US$267,000 on March 1, food entrepreneur Andy Nguyen used his Ape’s IP to create the restaurant’s brand:

NFTs ‘More Than Just a JPEG’

“The goal is to give back to the growing Web3 community and open the doors to those who want to learn more about the NFT world,” Nguyen said. “Our job is to […] show people that you can create a brand/business out of this IP, taking away the stigma of, ‘It’s just a JPEG’.”

Filled with Bored Ape and Mutant Ape images (Nguyen now owns four Apes), Bored & Hungry is on busy 7th Street in Long Beach and will compete with several other fast-food franchises. The grand opening attracted people of various ages, colours and genders, all looking to experience what’s claimed to be the world’s first NFT restaurant (that title actually belongs to New York’s Flyfish Club, founded by Gary Vee).

The commotion also piqued the curiosity of several passersby, some of whom asked what it was about. One wag standing in line was quick to respond with the following soundbite:

Crypto, capitalism, and hamburgers – what could be more American than that?

Bored & Hungry customer

In December, Bored Ape creators Yuga Labs joined forces with Adidas to enter the metaverse, the sports apparel giant having bought its own BAYC NFT in a show of good faith. And what are we to make of last month’s decision by Yuga to acquire the commercial rights to two of the most popular NFT collections on the market, CryptoPunks and Meebits? Watch the NFT space to find out.

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Bored Ape Yacht Club Hackers Illegal NFTs Scams Tokens

$APE Drops 20% Following Bored Ape Yacht Club Discord Hack

ApeCoin has dropped 8 percent after the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) Discord servers suffered a phishing scam. The governance token behind the world’s largest NFT collection has plunged after news of the phishing attack was confirmed.

APE Witnesses Massive Fluctuations

APE fell from roughly US$14 on March 31 and at some point reached US$12.8, according to CoinMarketCap. The tokens were airdropped to Bored Ape and Mutant Ape NFT holders on March 16 and will serve as the governance token for the project’s newly launched decentralised autonomous organisation (DAO). APE will allow its holders to vote on the project’s roadmap and upcoming proposals.

Since the token launched, the price action has been rather volatile with APE going as high as US$39.4, before settling at a range between US$14 and $16.  

An unknown hacker gained access to the official Discord meant to host members of BAYC, Mutant Ape Yacht Club, and Mutant Ape Kennel Club, three NFTs from Yuga Labs. The attackers posted a phishing link in the Mutant Ape Kennel channel disguised as a “stealth NFT mint”, which was used to steal Mutant Ape Yacht Club #8662 from one user:

No ‘April Fools Stealth Mints’

The team at BAYC indicated in a tweet that it had “caught” the issue immediately but cautioned users not to mint any NFT using a link posted on its Discord, and indicated to users that it had no April Fools stealth mints. According to several reports, clicking on the link would result in losing the respective holders’ NFTs. It has been reported that the hacker may have carried out the attacker via Ticket Tool, a popular Discord bot that automatically generates support tickets:

Twitter users have also warned of a similar exploit on the Discord server of Doodles, another NFT collection, but at the time of writing this had not yet been confirmed: