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BAYC NFTs Explained: What is Bored Ape Yacht Club? (2022)

Bored Ape Yacht Club is the new phenomenon in the NFT world because it has reshaped how NFT makers deliver the utilities of the NFT collection.

chungnguyen

Published Mar 18 2022

Updated Oct 20 2022

8 min read

In the maze of NFTs, there were tons of shocking NFT transactions that could value at millions of dollars. At the moment, Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) is one of the NFT projects that have been having a lucrative success. The value of all sales of the NFT project is now worth over $3B.

Let’s discover more about BAYC and how the NFT collection made it to the top in a short period of time in this article.

What is Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC)?

Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) is an NFT collection of 10,000 Bored Ape collectibles on the Ethereum blockchain. Yuba Labs, the company behind BAYC, conducted a BAYC pre-sale (0.08 ETH for a Bored Ape) during its launch in April 2023.

Thanks to blockchain technology, each Bored Ape NFT is unique. In addition, the developer team programmed to generate the BAYC collection so that no two in 10,000 Bored Ape avatars look exactly the same. The main goal of a Bored Ape is to be set as a profile picture (PFP) avatar.

Owners of Bored Apes have exclusive access to a social network where they are able to unlock memberships. It grants holders the ability to join an exclusive Discord server where they are gathered together. Furthermore, they can draw graffiti on THE BATHROOM, a community drawing board.

Mutant Apes and the Kennel Club: Exclusive to BAYC Members

Mutant Ape Yacht Club

In addition to the social channel, Bored Ape holders can upgrade their holdings using “mutant serum”. This created a whole new collection, Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) consisting of 10,000 Mutant Apes. There are 3 types of Mutant Serum and their numbers of vials:

M1 Mutant Serum (7,500)
M2 Mutant Serum (2,492)
Mega Mutant Serum (8)

M1, M2, and Mega Serum will change the appearance of the original Bored Ape. The more scarce the serum, the more exaggerated features the Mutant Ape will have. Therefore, buyers are willing to pay millions of dollars to buy Mega Mutant Serum since only eight are available.

In August 2021, investors got randomly airdropped by Yuga Labs with a “mutant serum” for each Bored Ape they have. The mutant serum NFTs can be burnt to mint new Mutant Apes. We can purchase those mutant serums at Bored Ape Chemistry Club on various NFT marketplaces.

Bored Ape Kennel Club

Before the mutant collection, Yuga Labs has airdropped Bored Ape holders with free Bored Ape Kennel Club (BAKC). Therefore, owning at least one Bored Ape can give the owners unlimited access to potential perks.

Despite a new and free Dog Club for each Bored Ape, only 9,600 Bored Apes were used to claim the same number of NFTs in the BAKC. This is why the supply of BAKC is limited to 9,600 NFTs.

During the first 6 weeks after the BAKC launch, OpenSea users had to pay a 2.5% royalty fee for trading the NFTs, even though the NFTs were free to claim by Bored Ape owners. Then Yuga Labs used the royalty fee to donate to charity for animals.

Other than Axie Infinity (GameFi), BAYC ($2.29B) and CryptoPunks ($2.29B) are going on a race to be the NFT collection with the biggest sales volume. However, BAYC (6.4k, source: Etherscan) has more owners than Cryptopunks (3.7k).

Amidst the NFT mania, there are other NFT-based PFP collections such as CryptoPunks, Cool Cats, etc. Let’s explore more about the features of Bored Apes to assess why it created a strong flywheel.

Traits of Bored Ape Yacht Club

Each Bored Ape has its own specific traits programmatically generated at the NFT genesis. There are exactly 172 traits, generating 10,000 Bored Apes in the BAYC. The NFT is more valuable than others since it might have rare traits.

To generate 10,000 different Bored Apes without any two that are exactly the same, Yuga Labs designed a pool of animated features that make up the looks of Bored Apes.

Background: Yellow, Orange, Army Green, etc.
Clothes: Dress, Shirt, Suit, Tie Dye, etc.
Earring: Silver Stud, Gold Stud, Gold Hoop, etc.
Eyes: Robot, Coins, Closed, Bored, etc.
Fur: Cream, Cheetah, Black, White, Dark Brown, etc.
Hat: King’s Crown, Fez, Safari, Beanie, etc.
Mouth: Bored Unshaven Pizza, Bored Unshaven, Phoneme Oh, Rage, Bored Cigarette, etc.

The rarer traits a Bored Ape has, the higher price it is likely to be traded. Therefore, investors should rank the Bored Apes according to the rarity levels of the traits.

What made BAYC so successful?

Yuga Labs

For every NFT enthusiast, Yuga Labs is a well-known team for creating top-notch NFT-based collections. The name “Yuga” derives from a villain in the Legend of Zelda, who can turn humans into 2D pictures. The 4-person team gained its first attention after the BAYC’s floor price skyrocketed. To know more about Yuga Labs, let’s review its product milestones:

April 2021: Launched the BAYC collection of 10,000 NFTs at the floor price of 0.08 ETH.
June 2021: The first spinoff Bored Ape Kennel Club (BAKC) for BAYC was launched.
August 2021: Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) was mintable using Bored Apes plus Mutant Serums.
March 2022: Yuba Labs acquired CyrptoPunks and Meebits. It also started a new NFT metaverse project called Otherside.

In just a half-year after the BAYC launch, Yuga Labs released 3 NFT collections, including BAKC, MAYC, and Mutant Serums. They all boosted the demand for Bored Apes, increasing the floor price of BAYC. The team had a lucrative year in 2021 because its gross revenue was around $138M.

The success of BAYC was forged by Yuga Labs’ well-planned strategies.

Celebrities who favor BAYC

To accelerate the success of the BAYC, celebrities play as the key driver to boost the traction. Justin Bieber, Steph Curry, Eminem, Post Malone, Mark Cuban, and many other celebrities have purchased Bored Apes and set them as their PFPs s. This increased the exposure of the BAYC to the non-crypto community.

One of the latest media coverage of the BAYC is that Yuga Labs collaborated with Eminem and Snoop Dog in a music video called “From the D 2 the LBC”. The animated avatars of Bored Apes continuously pop up while the two rappers spit their lyrics. At the time of writing, the hit received 20M views on Youtube.

Celebrities have undeniable impacts on spreading out the coverage of the BAYC. The collection is going mainstream. More and more people will be curious about NFTs, driving the adoption of the community.

Partnerships and events

Adidas x BAYC: In December 2021, Adidas announced the enter-metaverse plan in partnership with BAYC.
Animoca Brands x BAYC: In December 2021, a GameFi-focused venture capital, Animoca Brands, formed a partnership with BAYC to create a Play-to-earn game.
Ape Fest 2021 in NYC was a place where all Bored Apes owners gathered together.

ApeCoin (APE)

In March 2022, Yuga Labs released ApeCoin DAO and its governance $APE token. The new token release is the next lego part of the BAYC ecosystem. APE token holders are able to join the voting governance of ApeCoin DAO on matters such as rule changes, funding, etc.

APE token achieved its ATH at a market cap of over $6B, which was a ground-breaking record in the NFT space at that time. After the launch, it was immediately listed on the two largest centralized exchanges, Coinbase and Binance.

After the token release, Yuga Labs went a step ahead of other following NFT collections.

Should we buy BAYC NFT?

At the moment, the entry price to own any Bored Apes of BAYC is so high that it might cost a fortune. Many perks are going along with the BAYC such as the exclusive access to the private social community where there are others who own multi-million dollar Bored Apes.

But should we buy Bored Apes? Here are a few notes that we will discuss on this matter.

10,000 Bored Apes with various traits: The rarity levels of 172 traits of Bored Apes are a key factor that affects the price of the NFT. Therefore, it is quite a challenge to value each Bored Ape at a reasonable price.

NFT acquisitions and the token release: In addition to the APE token release, Yuga Labs acquired CryptoPunks and Meebits after having a lucrative success with BAYC. It has taken actions to build a metaverse using NFT collections such as the BAYC, BAKC, MAYC, CryptoPunks, etc. However, there are many other competitors who are building blockchain-based metaverse. Metaverse remains an unfinished lego part of the crypto space.

Who will pay the money next? Unlike fungible tokens, NFTs are illiquid. In the bull run, the NFTs can be exaggeratedly overvalued and investors can flip them in short periods of time, increasing the price. In contrast, during market selloffs, the buying stream evaporates, and NFT owners can invest at a mindful pace.

Roadmap 2.0

Yuga Labs released the roadmap 2.0 describing what will come next for the top-notch NFT collection, Bored Ape Yacht Club. Bored Ape holders are informed of what might come next after the Apecoin token launch with billions of dollars in market cap.

The final milestone of roadmap 2.0 is The DAO, BAYC Ecosystem. Since the beginning, every action of Yuga Labs has been contributing to capturing value for the BAYC. The BAYC is the gateway for its owners to access the private social club where there are other Bored Ape holders, including celebrities, KOLs, etc. They are willing to pay hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars to join the club.

Risks of BAYC

Bored Ape holders are potential targets for hackers since it is one of the most valuable collections at the moment. Besides the exploits of the smart contract platform, NFT holders are vulnerable to phishing attacks if they do not stay alert.

FAQs about BAYC

How does Yuga Labs make money?

Yuga Labs is a team behind the launch and the success of BAYC and other related side projects such as BAKC, MAYC, etc.

In 2021, it had gross revenue of $138M mostly from royalty fees extracted from Bored Apes sales. Other than that, Yuga Labs gained revenue from minting apes. For example, at the BAYC launch, each Bored Ape is for sale at 0.08 ETH.

Is BAYC an NFT?

The BAYC is an Ethereum-based NFT collection of 10,000 programmatically generated Bored Apes. It uses the ERC721 standard to program the NFTs. For deeper analysis, investors can go to Etherscan to look for the BAYC collection.

Otherwise, Bored Apes are for sale by their owners on NFT marketplaces such as NFTexp, OpenSea or Rarity.

Conclusion

Bored Ape Yacht Club is the leading NFT project that received lots of traction in the world of crypto. Its intellectual property owner, Yuga Labs, is trying to build an ecosystem surrounding BAYC by releasing exclusive perks for the Bored Ape owners.

In addition, roadmap 2.0 solidifies the viable future of the BAYC. In crypto, there are also hackers who are trying to steal valuable crypto assets or NFTs from owners. To reiterate, BAYC contains like-minded people who join the membership-only group and we should take into account every possible risk before “aping” into BAYC.