Tag: Bored Ape Yacht CLub

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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 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.