The hype around non-fungible tokens (NFT) and the desire to make money from them has led to the emergence of a huge variety of NFTs, both singles and collections. Only a few of them have managed to become really popular. In this article, we'll take a closer look at one of the most successful NFT projects, the Bored Ape Yacht Club.

What is a Bored Ape NFT?

The Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), sometimes called the Bored Apes Yacht Club, is one of the best-known and most popular NFT collections at the moment, comparable in popularity to CryptoPunks.

Bored Ape NFT owners include many celebrities such as TV show host Jimmy Fallon, musicians Justin Bieber and Madonna, rappers Lil Baby, Post Malone, Eminem and Snoop Dogg, sportsmen Neymar Jr, Ben Simmons and Stephen Curry, and many more.

We got into NFTs because we think digital property rights matter. It's a tricky dichotomy where there is true ownership and scarcity, but we can make it as inclusive a thing as possible. Owning more can give you more access, but we are not capping the number of people to access the full experience. — Greg Solano, Co-founder of Yuga Labs.

Register on StormGain Now
 

Bored Ape NFT explained

The Bored Ape Yacht Club is a collection of 10,000 unique collectable images of apes, also called ape avatars, minted in NFT format on the Ethereum blockchain. The tokens are created using the Ethereum network's ERC-721 standard.

As the name of the collection suggests, these apes have bored facial expressions. However, each image is randomly generated from a set of traits and is unique. There are seven main traits in total. Each is available in different variations:

1. Background colour
2. Eyes
3. Mouth
4. Fur
5. Clothing
6. Headgear
7. Earring

Some varieties of traits are rarer than others, which gives these monkeys greater collector's value. In total, there are more than 170 varieties of these traits.

The distinctive feature of Bored Ape NFT is that apart from the ownership and commercial use rights of the ape avatar itself, it gives its owner access to a club, membership of which gives additional benefits. One such benefit is The Bathroom, a members-only online graffiti tool. It's a canvas available only to wallet holders with at least 1 ape in it. On the canvas, members can draw or write whatever they like, but only 1 pixel per 15 minutes.

In addition, owning a Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT gives you access to additional NFT collectables. For example, BAYC members have already been allowed to get the Mutant Ape Yacht Club and Bored Ape Kennel Club NFTs for free.

Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) is a collection of apes similar to the original BAYC but with a zombie and mutant theme. Special serums have been distributed between the holders of the original BAYC NFTs, allowing them to turn ordinary monkeys into mutants. 

The Bored Ape Kennel Club was another NFT collection that was distributed exclusively to Bored Ape NFT owners. They could mint an NFT image of the dog with various traits and rarity.

The developers plan to expand the list of membership benefits in the future. In particular, one area of expansion of Bored Ape NFTs utility should be Otherside. This is a new metaverse in development, which, according to the creators, will be an MMORPG set in a 3D virtual world based on the Bored Ape Yacht Club project.

Register on StormGain Now
 

Bored Ape NFT creator

The collection was created by Miami-based start-up Yuga Labs in the spring of 2021 amidst the hype surrounding the NFT industry. At the initial launch, the Bored Ape Yacht Club made around $2,000,000, and from then on, prices went up.

There are four creators of the project who were originally known only by their pseudonyms: Gargamel, Gordon Goner, Emperor tomato ketchup and No sass. However, on 4 February 2022, Buzzfeed published an investigation revealing the identities of two of the four developers, Gargamel and Gordon Goner. It turned out that two Florida residents, Wylie Aronow and Greg Solano, who are both enthusiasts of cryptography, were behind these pseudonyms.

The de-anonymised developers then posted photos of themselves on Twitter. Three days later, the other two developers, Kerem Atalay and Zeshan Ali, did the same.

Bored Ape NFT history

The Bored Ape Yacht Club project emerged in April 2021. Being active members of online communities, the developers managed to create a buzz around their NFT collection fairly quickly.

In June 2021, the Bored Ape Kennel Club NFT collection was launched, followed by the Mutant Ape Yacht Club collection in August 2021. In September 2021, a collection of 101 Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs was sold at Sotheby's for $24.4 million. From 31 October to 6 November 2021, the developers organised the first annual Ape Fest. The festival schedule included gallery, yacht and warehouse parties, as well as a charity dinner in New York.

ApeCoin (APE), the governance and utility token in the APE ecosystem, was launched on 17 March 2022. 15% of the tokens were distributed to holders of BAYC and MAYC NFTs.

Also in March 2022, the developers announced the creation of the Otherside metaverse.

On 8 December 2022, a class action lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California against a number of celebrities, including Jimmy Fallon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Madonna, and Justin Bieber, who were involved in promoting BAYC NFTs. The suit accuses the celebrities of fraud by convincing retail investors that BAYC NFTs will rise in value.

Register on StormGain Now
 

Bored Ape NFT price

When initially sold, NFTs could be purchased for 0.8 ETH, meaning the distribution was fair. However, within 12 hours of the collection's release, all the NFT apes were sold out and are now only available on the secondary market.

How much is a Bored Ape NFT?

As each NFT is unique, their prices differ. Prices for BAYC NFTs sold in the last 30 days (14 November 2022 to 13 December 2022) ranged from $61,818 to $934,000.

BAYC NFT price statistics (as of 13/12/22)

Register on StormGain Now
 

Bored Ape Yacht Club most expensive NFT

Bored Ape #8817 has become the most expensive NFT in the Bored Ape collection and was sold on 26 October 2021 at Sotheby's for $3.4 million.

The second most expensive token is Bored Ape #3749. It was sold on 7 September 2021 for 740 ETH (about $2.92 million at the time of purchase).

The third highest-priced token, Bored Ape #8585, was sold on 20 October 2021 for 696,969 ETH (about $2.7 million at the time of purchase).

Cheapest Bored Ape NFT

The lowest price for Bored Ape tokens was at the time of the initial sale. At the time, all BAYC NFTs were worth 0.8 ETH. The cheapest BAYC token sold on 13 December 2022 was Bored Ape #1579, which sold for 65.50 ETH (approximately $83,905.50).

Register on StormGain Now
 

How to buy a Bored Ape NFT

Bored Ape NFTs are predominantly traded on the OpenSea NFT marketplace. To buy, you need to log in via one of the Ethereum wallets, such as MetaMask. You will need enough ETH to cover both the purchase price and the transaction fee.

Are Bored Ape NFTs a good investment?

The NFT assets market is a very young and risky one where the main price driver is hype. Now the NFT hype has started waning, which, coupled with the ongoing crypto winter, has caused the prices of many expensive NFTs to drop dramatically. Bored Ape NFTs are no exception. Despite the developers' attempts to build an ecosystem around their NFT collection, it's impossible to say at this point whether prices will rise.

At this stage of the NFT market, investing in NFT assets is very risky, even compared to crypto investments. Therefore, it's worth engaging in this type of investment only if you really know what you are doing.

Register on StormGain Now