1 – The Idea
Bored Ape Yacht Club, or simply BAYC, is an NFT collection on Ethereum of 10,000 randomly generated monkeys with different more or less rare characteristics.
The project was born soon after the NFT boom that began in February 2021, a time when Cryptopunks started being sold for record amounts.
The project was founded by 4 people known by different pseudonyms, specifically they created the site for their development team, later known as Yuga Labs.
2 – The launch and growth
The collection was officially launched in April 2021 with a presale of only 0.08 ETH per monkey (about $190 at the time).
The purpose of the founders was to create a private circle of people, a kind of intellectual club where only BAYC holders were allowed access.
The monkey artwork was a great success and the “pfp” (profile picture) phenomenon began to be created on various social media and also began to be seen as to long-term investments due to the strong community and promising roadmap that Yuga Labs was able to create.
After a few months, a second collection, the Bored Ape Kennel Club, was launched with the aim of creating a kind of larger world, bringing pets to life for these monkeys.
This collection, too, after the great success of the first one, sells out within hours, and in summer 2021 Yuga Labs announces the third collection, closely related to the BAYCs, the Mutant Ape Yacht Clubs. The latter have the distinction of being 18k (instead of 10k like the other two) because each BAYC owner can redeem the first-level mutation MAYC associated with his or her BAYC and has the option of taking a serum to be able to mutate their MAYC more.
MAYCs will then achieve great success during the fall of 2021, when the last ultra-rare serums will be sold for millions and millions of dollars, creating the rarest monkeys possible.
3 – The media case
The club, during the summer, also begins to enter the homes of the stars. In particular Snoop Dogg and Steve Aoki are among the first to purchase a bored bee. Later, names such as Paris Hilton, Stephen Curry, Jimmy Fallon, the Chainsmokers, Eminem, Justin Bieber, Post Malone, Neymar, Serena Williams, Adidas, and many others will join the club.
The Bored Ape Yacht Club becomes a full-fledged celebrity club, and this phenomenon will later lead to the Cryptopunks surpassing the floor price, remaining in the lead for over 4 years. In September 2021, lots of dozens of BAYCs and MAYCs are even sold by the famous auction house Sotheby’s for millions of dollars.
By the end of the year they will exceed 1 billion in total sales volume of the collection and reach a floor price of about 95 ETH.
With the start of the new year, the project’s roadmap begins to take hold, with the announcement of the arrival of the bee token associated with the ApeDAO, a decentralized organization created together with the Ape Foundation. Any token holder has the ability to vote for DAO decisions.
4 – The Future
Meanwhile, Larva Labs (creators of Cryptopunks) announce that Yuga labs has purchased the NFT IP of Cryptopunks and Meebits, with the aim of creating a connection between the two most famous NFT collections ever.
On March 17, 2022, the token is officially launched and 62% of the tokens are distributed among the BAYC and MAYC holders. Because of this ape suffers a sharp collapse on launch day, losing about 80% of its value in the first 24 hours due to massive sales by holders.
3 days later, on March 20, 2022 Yuga Labs officially announces a partnership with the largest NFT collections (CoolCats, Meebits, Cryptopunks, CryptoToadz, and others) to create a metaverse.
Few details are yet known about it but the development team seems to be going in the right direction, creating a kind of cult following behind their project and vision.
