Category: Bored Ape Yacht Club

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Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs Scams

35 NFTs Stolen in Twitter Phishing Attacks Last Week

A Mutant Ape and a Bored Ape were among 35 NFTs stolen last week via a handful of hacked verified Twitter accounts. The combined value of the phishing attack is assumed to exceed US$900,000.

The phishing incident disguised itself off the back of a Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) airdrop that happened earlier this month. BAYC had airdropped ApeCoins to Mutant Ape and Bored Ape holders, which allowed for a copycat attack by scammers who hacked verified Twitter accounts and spread fake URLs impersonating a BAYC link:

Victims of the link who were prepared to pay 0.33 ETH to take part instead encountered code that allowed the hackers access to their wallets. Some victims claimed that, although the links appeared strange, they would nonetheless be safe as they were shared by trusted public figures.

Twitter is yet to comment on the incident, despite many users feeling the social media giant is partly to blame.

Other Recent Phishing Attacks

This isn’t the first large-scale phishing attack this year. Earlier in March, US$790,000 worth of Rare Bears were stolen. The phishing scam behind the NFT theft utilised the weakened security of Discord groups to share around a ‘corrupt’ link.

More recently, a crypto venture capitalist lost US$1.7 million worth of NFTs. Arthur Cheong, the founder of Web3 and DeFi venture capital firm Defiance Capital, had his hot wallet account hacked and 59 NFTs taken.

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Airdrop APENFT Bored Ape Yacht Club Crypto News Cryptocurrencies DAO NFTs Tokens

ApeCoin Surges and Then Dives 80% On Its Debut Trading Day

After Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) holders received an airdrop of the new ApeCoin (APE) this week, it was promptly sold off with the token dropping significantly as a result.

On March 17, ApeDAO launched the new ApeCoin linked to BAYC, one of the most valuable non-fungible token (NFT) projects in the space. The launch had a bit of a rough start after the APE token fell nearly 80 per cent in the first few trading hours, though it now seems to be steadily climbing as the accumulation phase starts for those who couldn’t get the coins for the airdrop.

ApeCoin/USD price chart. Source: CoinMarketCap

The token fell from its high of US$39.40 to a relatively stable $14.75 at the time of writing. At one stage, the coin was trading for as low as $6.48, according to CoinMarketCap. The total market cap for the token now sits at around US$4 billion, making it the 33rd-largest coin on the day of its launch.

APE was airdropped to BYAC NFT holders after the announcement that it was part of a new campaign by ApeDAO. Each holder received 10,000 coins that could be collected for a 90-day period, but users quickly sold their coins, pushing the price down considerably.

ApeCoin Airdrop Follows Familiar Pattern

If previous airdrops are anything to go by, this one might just be following a similar pattern, according to Braindrops’ co-founder, who attributes its classic price movement to a large release of tokens. This, however, remains to be proved:

According to its official website, the coin will serve as “a decentralised protocol layer for community-led initiatives that drive culture forward into the metaverse”. The token was developed by ApeCoinDAO, a different entity from Yuga Labs – the creators of BAYC – and has some heavy hitters, such as the co-founder of Reddit and the Head of Ventures and Gaming at FTX, sitting on its advisory board.

Is Coin Launch Helping the Project?

When looking at the marketplace, a consequence of the asset’s launch could have helped the average price of the BAYC collection. The project floor price rose significantly across the past seven days from 76.11 ETH on March 11, with a total volume of 913 ETH, to an average price of 110.15 ETH and a volume of 9,583 ETH in the hours following the launch.

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Bored Ape Yacht Club Metaverse NFTs Tokens

Bored Ape Start-up Plans Metaverse Project Including Virtual Land NFTs and APECoin Token

Yuga Labs, the company behind Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), has announced its intentions to sell a large quantity of virtual land. The goal of the sales is to broaden the community and raise approximately US$178 million toward the progress of Yuga’s gaming-focused metaverse project, MetaRPG:

Big Plans for Bored Apes

Yuga Labs is predicted to generate net revenues of US$455 million in 2022, with the profits from virtual land sales likely to form a large part of this sum. In phase one of its metaverse initiative, Yuga intends to sell 200,000 plots over two sales, to take place this month and in August.

Moving into the metaverse will help Yuga Labs diversify its revenue streams and move away from BAYC NFTs. Yet not everyone in the Twitter community is convinced:

Despite the scepticism of its plans, Yuga has supplied onlookers with a name for the metaverse initiative alongside some basic information. The project is called MetaRPG and will be gaming-focused and compatible with a range of NFTs. An in-game app store will allow players to create characters via NFTs and use them in games.

It’s also worth noting that APECoin is the proposed token for Yuga Labs’ metaverse. The currency will be usable in the in-game store and will encourage bartering and trading among players.

At this very early stage, there are little to no details of how exactly users may be able to participate in Yuga Labs’ latest venture.

Bored Apes: Rights and Partnerships

The Bored Ape Yacht Club has always been a notable presence within the NFT and crypto community. However, the creative minds behind BAYC have been busy over the past year expanding its horizons. In late 2021, the project announced a partnership with Adidas to enter the metaverse after the sports apparel brand paid US$156,000 for a single Ape.

More recently, Yuga Labs acquired the rights to two other hit NFT collections – CryptoPunks and Meebits. The company purchased both the commercial rights and intellectual property rights and has plans to award full commercial rights to NFT holders.

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Bored Ape Creators Buy IP and Commercial Rights to NFT Rival CryptoPunks

Yuga Labs, the creator behind popular non-fungible token (NFT) project Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), has just acquired commercial rights to two of the most popular collections on the market, CryptoPunks and Meebits.

Rivals No Longer

After rumours spread like wildfire, Yuga Labs confirmed on the weekend that it had acquired the intellectual property rights, as well as all commercial rights, to CryptoPunks and Meebits.

This means that we now own the brands, copyright in the art, and other IP rights for both collections, along with 423 CryptoPunks and 1711 Meebits.

Yuga Labs announcement

The deal was said to have originated “organically” in conversations between one Yuga Labs partner and the Larva Labs founders. Apparently “one call led to another and here we are at this historic moment”.

The Larva Labs co-founders highlighted their view that Yuga Labs would be the ideal custodian of their creation, saying:

Yuga Labs are the innovators of the modern profile picture project, and the best in the world at operating these projects. They are the ideal stewards of the CryptoPunks and Meebits. In their hands, we are confident that they will continue to be vital, thriving projects in the emerging decentralised web.

Matt Hall and John Watkinson, co-founders of Larva Labs, CryptoPunks and Meebits

Two Different Approaches

In tracing the stories of the two most valuable NFT projects, it’s clear that BAYC and CryptoPunks chose very different paths. Whereas CryptoPunks took a more hands-off approach, the BAYC has come to resemble an exclusive membership club with an ever-increasing array of perks.

Aside from exclusivity of holding the NFT itself, BAYC holders seem to believe that part of its value lies in its ability to commercialise the Bored Ape image. This has translated into real-world events, partnerships, and even a play-to-earn game. And despite the proliferation of copycat projects, high-profile associations with the likes of Adidas have seen the BAYC take some of the shine away from the NFT OGs, the CryptoPunks.

Last month, CryptoPunk #5822 sold for US$24 million. Source: OpenSea

While some holders of CryptoPunks will no doubt be concerned about the direction of the project post-acquisition, others may well be looking at it as an opportunity to not only commercialise, but increase the exposure and publicity of the NFT OG. One prospect that appeared to gain support on Twitter was @Gee_Gazza’s take:

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Bitcoin Bored Ape Yacht Club Charity Crypto News Kraken NFTs

Crypto Donations to Ukraine Exceed $100 Million as Kraken and BAYC Join In

Two weeks into the Russia-Ukraine War, total crypto donations across Ukrainian government wallet addresses, charities and relief efforts have passed US$108 million.

Ukrainian Clients of Kraken to Receive $1,000 in BTC

On March 9, Kraken announced it would distribute over US$10 million for relief efforts to clients who created an account from Ukraine prior to that date. Those clients will each receive US$1,000 in bitcoin during the first tranche of funds disbursement, which can be withdrawn immediately. The exchange also waived currency exchange fees for withdrawals of up to US$1,000.

BAYC Developers Match Contribution

Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) has also pitched in on the fundraising effort. After collecting nearly US$1 million in ETH from wallets containing a BAYC non-fungible token (NFT), the developers behind BAYC said it would match the contribution with a US$1 million ETH donation of their own.

Good News Follows Bad

Both these pieces of good news come after the cancellation of a planned airdrop from the Ukrainian government earlier this week, accompanied by a spate of scams looking to capitalise on the crypto community’s generosity.

Last week, an NFT of the Ukrainian flag was sold for 2,258 ether – about US$6.75 million – with the proceeds directed to ‘Come Back Alive’, an organisation that donates supplies to Ukrainian civilians and members of the military.

In other donations news, Binance’s Ukraine Emergency Relief Fund has received over US$11.3 million in various cryptocurrencies since its inception. Kuna’s Crypto Fund of Ukraine has also accepted over US$14 million in major altcoins such as Polkadot, Tether, Candle, USD Coin and Dai.

Alex Bornyakov, Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation, says that cryptocurrencies have been “essential in this conflict, in terms of helping our army”. 

In a situation like this where the national bank is not really operating, crypto is helping to perform fast transfers, to make it very quick and get results almost immediately.

Alex Bornyakov, Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation