Understanding Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs
The crypto world has gained significant growth in the past few years. For this reason, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Dogecoin were at an all-time high in November 2021. However, 2021 was the year of NFTs (nonfungible-tokens). More than 25 billion dollars was spent on NFTs in 2021. Many people are still confused about NFTs and why they fetch so much money.
For this reason, many people are convinced that NFTs are an elaborate scam waiting for collapse. However, this is far from the truth. NFTs are legitimate products, although complex for newcomers in the crypto or digital market.
What are NFTs?
NFTs are digital creations of existing assets. They are one-of-a-king assets in the digital world that can be sold and bought. However, they have no tangible form. Instead, NFTs contain a piece of identifying information that distinguishes them from other products. It is also worth mentioning that every NFT is unique, and they cannot be exchanged at an equivalent rate or broken down into smaller units like currencies.
The NFT market currently features a wide range of collections. One of the most famous ones is the Bored Ape Yacht NFT Collection. Bored Ape Yach Club is one of the most influential NFT projects globally. It has specially made a name for itself in the profile picture NFT market. This is where users can use NFTs as profile pictures on their social media. Twitter currently allows this application, and Instagram announced its plans to follow suit. The Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT project is second only to CryptoPunks.
Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection
The collection features 10,000 unique NFTs. These are unique digital collectibles based on the Ethereum blockchain. The collection launched in April 2021 for around 200 dollars per item. However, its prices have risen significantly in the past several months. For example, the cheapest item on the Bored Ape Yacht NFT collection on the OpenSea marketplace is 300,000 dollars. For this reason, The creators of the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection, Yuga Labs, recently announced a valuation of 4 billion dollars. This news comes after the company raised 450 million dollars for creating a metaverse.
Why are Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs expensive?
As mentioned before, the cheapest BAYC NFT currently goes for 300,000 dollars. This is because the items are like trading cards. Like, exclusive trading cards, they can get very expensive. While few people will be willing to pay for them, the company only needs the right people. In simpler terms, it is not about attracting the overall crowd but a few of the right people.
For this reason, NFTs are especially popular among celebrities. When a celebrity shows interest in the products, its popularity will automatically increase. For example, in May 2021, Pranksy and J1mmy.eth, popular NFT traders, collaboratively acquired a lot of apes. Additionally, a tweet from their account to their large following caused BAYC to sell out within half a day. It is almost similar to using influencers to drive up the sales of a product.
The launch of Ape Coins by Bored Ape Yacht Club
Yuga Labs recently launched Ape Coin. Ape Coin is a cryptocurrency by Bored Ape Yacht Club. Following the launch, the company awarded Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT owners 10,094 free Ape Coin tokens for each BAYC NFT they owned. This move took the market by surprise, considering the current value of 10,094 Ape Coin tokens is around 128,627.84 dollars. However, the company intends to make the tokens popular using unconventional strategies. The current market cap of the Ape Coin cryptocurrency is 11 billion dollars. This means that Yuga Lab is creating an ecosystem where there is a lot of money to be spent in.
Final Words
Bored Ape Yacht Club is also responsible for starting the 2021 NFT avatar craze. BAYC NFTs are Yuga Labs’ first step towards achieving their goal of building a media empire entirely centred around NFTs. Perhaps one of the motivators for the success of Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs is that it has allowed collectors a suitable alternative to existing NFT products. Members of Bored Ape Yacht Club can access member-only benefits. For instance, they get first access to THE BATHROOM, a collaborative graffiti board. Through roadmap activation, they can also unlock future perks and areas.
