Tag: BAYC

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Bored Ape Defies NFT Downturn, Sells for $1.5 Million

A cashed-up Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) enthusiast has just paid a huge 777 ETH (US$1.5 million) for a single Ape, defying the current market downturn.

Crypto millionaire and BAYC superfan Vis.eth purchased Bored Ape #5383 for its gold fur, after already spending millions on Otherdeeds:

https://opensea.io/assets/ethereum/0xbc4ca0eda7647a8ab7c2061c2e118a18a936f13d/5383
Bored Ape #5383.

Median Price Hits Two-Month High

The Ape purchased this week by Vis.eth is the 285th rarest in the BAYC collection, notable for its gold fur and red checked shirt. The purchase pumped the median price for the collection, pushing it to a new two-month high of 441 ETH.

Vis.eth’s purchase of Ape #5383 netted a 500 percent profit for its previous owner, who originally bought it for 95 ETH. The “metaverse mogul” is no stranger to these purchases, having already spent millions on Otherdeeds from Yuga Labs’ Otherside project, and some CryptoPunks:  

The monthly volume for the NFT marketplace has been at abysmally low levels during the crypto winter. Total sales for July were a meagre US$675.53 million in comparison to January’s US$5.63 billion:

https://www.theblockresearch.com/data/nft-non-fungible-tokens/marketplaces
The difference a crypto winter makes to NFT sales.

Eventful Year for Yuga Labs

Yuga Labs has been stuck between a rock and a hard place of late, with both the media and the courts snapping at its heels. In late July, a class-action lawsuit was filed by international law firm Scott+Scott over allegations that it falsely promoted Bored Ape NFTs and ApeCoins as securities with guaranteed returns, despite their value actually plummeting in the subsequent three months.

Prior to the lawsuit, Yuga Labs faced damning allegations of racism which rocked the industry. Philip Rusnack, aka Philion, posted a lengthy YouTube video identifying supposed alt-right connotations among the memes, language and symbols used in Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) collections. This led to the trending ‘BURNBAYC’ hashtag, which was circulating on Twitter at the time.

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Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs Social media

Bored Ape Yacht Club Rocked by Video Claiming ‘Racist’ Ties

Philip Rusnack, aka Philion, has released an hour-long investigation on his Philion YouTube channel alleging racist and alt-right connotations among the memes, language and symbols used in Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) collections.

Many of Philion’s points are supported by prior evidence uncovered by anti-BAYC NFT commentator Ryder Ripps.

Anti-BAYC Hashtag Trends on Twitter

The ‘BURNBAYC’ hashtag is trending on Twitter as the Bored Ape Yacht Club – a giant of the NFT world – faces its accusers. BAYC has been condemned by Philion as “one massive alt-right inside joke”, with comparisons drawn between Bored Ape caricatures and Asian and black people, alongside the identification of Nazi symbolism.

This isn’t the first accusation made against BAYC over claimed racist undertones. Ryder Ripps lit the coals earlier this year after publishing a Twitter thread and creating the domain gordongoner.com specifically to highlight this problematic imagery:

Yuga Labs, the creator of BAYC, has responded by stating that the project logo (a monkey’s skull) merely suggests that the project’s Apes are “bored to death”, and that the term “Apes” refers to its team, not humans in general. However, the sheer quantity of alt-right and racist imagery and symbolism found across its collections adds up to a potentially compelling case against BAYC.

What Goes Up Must Come Down

Bored Ape Yacht Club has been a gold mine for many an investor in the past, with one Aussie chancer reportedly turning US$300 into US$5 million in May this year. However, BAYC has not escaped the crypto collapse, with its floor price plunging below US$100k this month. As at June 16, the Bored Apes floor price stood at US$88,000.

In light of the concurrent crypto market downturn, it is possible that BAYC may find it difficult to recover from such lows in the wake of these latest negative allegations.

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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.