The NFT marketplace has become so rich with collections that it is becoming difficult to keep track. One of the most popular projects to come out of this boom is Bored Ape Yacht Club. In this guide, we explain what makes it tick as an NFT asset.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
► Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) is a collection of unique ape-themed NFTs that skyrocketed in popularity shortly after its April 2021 launch.
► Owning a Bored Ape NFT offers exclusive perks like access to a private club, intellectual property rights, and participation in unique events.
► Bored Ape Kennel Club (BAKC) is a companion NFT collection offering dog NFTs exclusively to BAYC owners.
► ApeCoin (APE) is the native cryptocurrency of the BAYC ecosystem; it is used for governance in the ApeCoin DAO and other purposes like in-game purchases or staking.
What is Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC)?
Bored Ape Yacht Club is a 10,000-strong NFT collection of ape avatars. As you can imagine, within that range, the artistic freedom to create every kind of styled ape under the sun shines through.
Some are working slackers, some are cyborgs, some wear rainbow fur, while others shoot laser beams out of their eyes. It is safe to say there are more BAYC types than there are human personality types. Predictably, this drove their sales through the roof in record time.
A few days after Bored Ape Yacht Club launched at the end of April 2021, all 10,000 apes were sold out for $24.3 million in total, about $200 per ape.
Headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, Yuga Labs created Bored Apes by drawing inspiration from the famous Planet Of The Apes movie trilogy. Specifically, the meme “Apes together strong” uttered by Caesar in the first movie, the Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011).
The Yuga Labs team consists of four pseudonymous core members hiding behind their cartoon ape creations:
- Gargamel: Starcraft obsessed. Eats smurfs.
- Gordon Goner: Reformed leverage addict.
- Emperor Tomato Ketchup: Spent all their money on first presses and Pet-Nat.
- No Sass: Here for the apes. Not for the sass.
Hosted on the Ethereum blockchain, each Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT is built on the ERC-721 token standard. Therefore, the currency in which Bored Apes Yacht Club trades is typically Ethereum (ETH).
The Bored Ape Yacht Club comes with perks
Outside of using these as digital avatars, the NFTs serve another purpose. Each BAYC NFT holder gains lifetime membership to a secret apes-only club. One of the more famous Bored Ape owners is the NFT star Stephen Curry, who paid $180,000 for a tweed-wearing Bored Ape NFT.
At its start, membership perks were exceedingly profitable. For instance, the Yuga Labs team launched a second ape series in a creative manner. Instead of a new series, they released 10,000 Mutant Ape serum vials. Each lifetime member got one free.
The serum consists of three tiers — M1, M2, and Mega Mutant. When injected into a regular Bored Ape, the serum generates a Mutant Ape Yacht Club NFT. Moreover, another 10,000 were then released to the public, all selling out for about $10,000 each, or about 3 ETH at the time.
As far as Yuga Labs’ roadmap goes, it bears noting its BAYC Bathroom milestone. Those with at least one ape in their crypto wallet will gain access to a canvas. Then, every fifteen minutes, ape-holders can paint a single pixel on the bathroom wall, thus creating a collaborative artwork.
As you can tell, Yuga Labs has an ambitious goal in mind to create an entire ecosystem derived from apes, with Bored Ape Kennel Club being the first one.
What is the Bored Ape Kennel Club?
Diverging from Bored and Mutant Apes, an offshoot comes in the form of Bored Ape Kennel Club (BAKC), also numbering 10,000. This was an exclusive, one-time-only offering that ended on June 25th, 2021.
During that week, club members were eligible to receive one Club Dog NFT for each Bored Ape that they held. The features of each dog stem from a set of 170 possible traits, with various tiers of rarity.
Initially free, buyers only had to pay the gas fees to obtain the hounds. The twist is that after they enter the secondary market, the BAKC collection will have a 2.5% royalty fee attached to each sale. Then, those proceeds go to no-kill animal shelters. Among them is The Giving Block and the Wright-Way Rescue.
However, the 2.5% royalty fee had been set to expire after six weeks. Predictably, at the end of that period, there was a boom in sale, as shown on the trading volume below.
What makes Bored Apes Yacht Club different?
By now, you may be wondering how is it possible to create so many NFTs with only four people? If we count Bored Apes, Mutant Apes x2, and Kennel club, that amounts to 40,000 different artworks. If the mutant serum didn’t clue you in already, it turns out, it’s all about employing the power of programmable graphics.
This means that if you set a number of traits, their possible combinations algorithmically increase sky-high as they are randomly generated. From the set below, it is easy to see that each Bored Apes Yacht Club NFT holds seven traits.
Accordingly, when they were generated, Bored Apes each gained their unique look based on:
- Background color
- Clothes style
- Earring
- Eyes
- Fur
- Hat
- Mouth
Of course, because rarity is the name of the game in the world of speculative art, the combo that results in the rarest traits tends to gain the highest bids. For example, only 108 Bored Apes have cyborg eyes.
Rarer still, only 49 have bored dagger mouths out of 10,000. If each of the seven traits holds a rarity count within these ranges, then those NFTs are high in demand.
Bored Ape IP
Owning a Bored Ape means that it becomes your own intellectual property (IP). In other words, you can take that specific NFT and create a product, service, or brand with it. During its height, quite a few businesses and celebrities made use of this feature.
- AriZona Iced Tea was already a popular brand. However, even this company jumped on the BAYC bandwagon. The company rolled out an Arizona Aped NFT comic.
- Adidas used the BAYC IP to create exclusive NFT drops and clothing collections. It integrated the Bored Ape imagery into their “Into the Metaverse” project
- Timbaland, the famous super producer, created a music project called “Ape-In Productions,” where Bored Ape characters are featured in music videos and songs.
- Diamond Supply Co. also used the BAYC IP on a limited edition collection in partnership with Zumiez, which featured some of the Bored Ape characters on clothing.
- Eminem and Snoop Dogg featured their Bored Apes in music videos, such as “From the D 2 The LBC,” using animated versions.
To legitimize this aspect of owning a Bored Ape IP, the Yuga Labs team built a blockchain-based certification platform. With it, you can certify the authenticity of the NFT holder-made brands and products with on-chain license numbers and directory listings.
ApeCoin (APE)
The native cryptocurrency of the BAYC ecosystem is ApeCoin (APE). It was launched in March 2022 and serves as both a utility token and a governance token for the ApeCoin DAO.
The governance functionality allows users to vote on Ape Improvement Proposals (AIPs), which include core functionalities, processes, or informational changes. Holders can also use it for in-game purchases where applicable, staking, and accessing exclusive content.
Tokenomics
The tokenomics for ApeCoin is quite simple. Firstly, it launched with a maximum supply of 1,000,000,000 APE. The ApeCoin DAO community received 62% of the distribution. The APE Foundation distributed 15% to BAYC and MAYC holders, who could claim 10,094 APE per NFT for BAYC holders and 2,042 APE per NFT for MAYC members.
16% of tokens went to Yuga Labs. Additionally, Yuga Labs pledged a percentage of its earnings to Jane Goodall’s charity, which supports monkeys living in the wild. The remaining funds were released into the DAO‘s ecosystem fund.
14% of the tokens, or 140 million, went to the launch contributors. These are companies and people that contributed to the project’s success. Lastly, 8% went to the BAYC founders.
Should you buy an ape?
It goes without saying that many NFT investors have made fortunes from selling these NFTs on the secondary market. Therefore, it probably wouldn’t be a bad idea if you wanted to join the fold of secret apes club for future drops.
However, it should be noted that personal finance is, as the name suggests, personal. Meaning that it is up to you to determine your personal situation and goals. You should also keep in mind that cryptocurrency and NFTs are volatile and you could lose money. Remember always to do your own research.
Frequently asked questions
What are Bored Apes?
How can I own a Bored Ape?
What makes Bored Apes popular?
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