When two aspiring literary writers met in a Miami bar, they would never have anticipated that just months later, they would join forces to co-found a blue-chip NFT collection valued in the billions of dollars. Inspired by the hardcore, punk rock and hip-hop scenes from the 1980s and 1990s, the collection of 10,000 edgy cartoon apes with crazy characteristics was born in 2021.
The core team includes Gargamel, Gordon Goner, No Sass, and Emperor Tomato Ketchup — the same four behind the Web3 company Yuga Labs. Also, they have since announced Nicole Muniz as CEO of the club!
The creators established a satirical story in which years into the future, when crypto traders are rich beyond their wildest dreams, life quickly becomes boring. So, they hang out in an everglade swamp club with a bunch of degenerate apes — the Bored Apes Yacht Club.
In less than a year, the BAYC has expanded into a recognizable NFT brand and generated over $1 billion dollars in sales. During its presale launch in May, BAYC initially struggled to sell out, a radio station and a collaborative online canvas named “BAYC Bathroom” were its only advertised utilities. Fast-forward a week later, and all 10,000 primates had sold, and soon after, the BAYC became the most-used smart contract on the Ethereum network. The team kicked off a deluge of profile-picture NFT projects, igniting precedence for everything to follow.
Eight months on, the BAYC has fulfilled its first roadmap, for which it established secondary membership tiers through the Mutant Ape Yacht Club, and exciting claim drops such as the Bored Ape Kennel Club that both helped to expand the community and ecosystem. The apes have also landed at iconic real-life auction houses such as Sotheby’s and Christie’s, selling for millions of dollars.
As of Sept. 21, the BAYC’s second roadmap was announced, and has quickly come into fruition, with the NFTs reaching a floor price of over 70 ETH. The sense of community is why so many have aped in, as the BAYC has inspired collectors to create their own identity, representing the personas of the collectors who own them.
The community also innovated upon the BAYC architecture, creating derivative collections such as Jenkins the Valet, The Boring Ape Chronicles, and Ape-In Productions — all leveraging the full commercial rights that Yuga Labs has entrusted to owners.
The Bored Ape Yacht Club project has collaborated with Adidas for its first NFT and partnered with Animoca Brands for its upcoming blockchain game. With its highly anticipated APE token on the way, BAYC is swiftly becoming a world-renowned brand. Toward the end of the year, apes flipped punks, as BAYC’s floor price surpassed that of CryptoPunks.
As 2022 unfolds, the BAYC will seek to fulfill all of its second roadmap milestones, including an app store game, a blockchain game, access to the Metaverse, a DAO, a token and even a real-life Miami club bar.
It is anticipated that the BAYC will attract more mainstream brands and high-profile celebrities as it cements its position in a rapidly expanding NFT sector. With floor prices skyrocketing at the start of 2022, and both Bored Ape Kennel Club and Mutant Ape Yacht Club NFTs following the trade volume surges, the year is likely to see a few new records for BAYC.
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