The Bored Ape Boom - TokenSmart NFT Humpday Report #36
Welcome to the 36th issue of the NFT Humpday Report, a weekly column covering and providing embedded analysis on the NFT economy’s biggest topics du jour. Brought to you by WIP meetup collaborators and nft42 community hub TokenSmart.
People in the NFT ecosystem are going bananas for Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), an NFT project that’s quickly charmed collectors and is now acutely commanding more 7-day trade volume than CryptoPunks after only launching in late April 2021.
What BAYC is: In short, BAYC is a collectibles and membership project composed of 10,000 Bored Ape NFTs. A quick break down ...
Via Ethereum, every Bored Ape is “programmatically generated from over 170 possible traits, including expression, headwear, clothing, and more.”
All Bored Apes were mintable for 0.08 ETH during the project’s initial sale, which concluded relatively quickly after kicking off on April 23rd, 2021. Apes can now only be acquired on the secondary marketplace, e.g. OpenSea.
Bored Apes exist as ERC-721 tokens and host their metadata via IPFS.
These NFTs aren’t only unique cryptoart collectibles, they also function as a membership to the actual Bored Ape Yacht Club -- a “swamp club for apes.”
In this way, every Ape is also a Yacht Club membership that offers holders access to various members-only perks that are also slated to increase over time.
Out of the gate, Yacht Club members have exclusive access to THE BATHROOM, a communal graffiti board open to anyone who holds one or more Bored Apes.
The BAYC website is created to Yuga Labs, and there are four pseudonymous members on the BAYC team: Gargamel, Gordon Goner, Emperor Tomato Ketchup, and No Sass.
By the numbers: BAYC’s approachable “fair distribution” style and iconic art has led to trade volume exploding around Bored Apes in recent weeks, and particularly in recent days. Check out the image below to get a sense for the incredible activity surge. You’ll see that BAYC’s total volume is now nearly 6,500 ETH and its 7-day trade volume boomed nearly 580% to +2,100 ETH — handily over CryptoPunk’s 1,966 ETH volume over the last week!
Why it matters: It’s not everyday that an NFT project gains this much traction this fast, so BAYC simply can’t be ignored at this point. The virality of the project on social media has inspired more than a few people to update their profile pics to Bored Apes and also the beginning of a friendly rivalry between elements of the BAYC and Meebits communities. The rivalry’s already been commemorated by the famous Everydays artist Beeple in rather splendorous fashion!
What’s next: BAYC just launched a matter of weeks ago, so the project essentially has its whole roadmap in front of it. The main point of business going forward, then, appears to be rolling out more members-only benefits to Bored Ape holders over time. As the NFT ecosystem continues to evolve, the possibilities around these perks can go in many different directions and the project’s lore can evolve in kind.
Thanks for reading the 36th NFT Humpday Report! Check back this time next week for more excellent NFT ecosystem coverage! Cheers 🌠