The business behind the 'Bored Ape' series of NFTs has raised over $285 million in cryptocurrencies by selling tokens that represent land in a virtual world game that it claims to be developing.
Yuga Labs, a startup headquartered in the United States, produced the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs last year, which are blockchain-based tokens that represent a group of 10,000 computer-generated cartoon apes.
Bored Ape prices soared to hundreds of thousands of dollars per as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) - crypto assets that represent digital data such as photos, video, or goods in an online game - grew in prominence.
Apes were auctioned at major auction houses and owned by celebrities such as Paris Hilton and Madonna, making them one of the most well-known NFT products.
Yuga Labs, which secured $450 million in a fundraising round headed by Andreessen Horowitz in March, has now turned its attention to the so-called "metaverse."
Yuga Labs sold "Otherdeeds" NFTs in an online sale on April 30 that it stated could be swapped for plots of virtual property in a future Bored Ape-themed online world dubbed "Otherside."
The "Otherdeeds" could only be purchased using ApeCoin, the project's connected cryptocurrency that launched in March.
Otherdeeds were available for purchase for 305 ApeCoin apiece, and the firm announced on Twitter that they had sold out.
The Otherdeed NFT mint is sold out - we are awestruck at the demand shown tonight. Apes and Mutants, the opening of the 21-day claim period is being delayed until the price of gas drops to reasonable levels. We’ll tweet when the claim opens. https://t.co/iRz64lklbv
— OthersideMeta (@OthersideMeta) May 1, 2022
According to Reuters calculations based on the price of ApeCoin on cryptocurrency platform Coinbase at 1210 GMT on Sunday, the sale netted 16,775,000 ApeCoin, valued roughly $285 million.
Although the corporation stated that the ApeCoin would be "locked up" for one year, it was unclear how the monies would be dispersed.
BAYC and MAYC holders, you’ll be able to claim an NFT for 21 days after the auction. You don’t need to be KYC-approved to claim, but you DO need to be KYC-approved to mint in the auction.
— OthersideMeta (@OthersideMeta) April 25, 2022
The transaction demonstrates that speculative, high-risk crypto assets tied to online virtual worlds continue to be in great demand. Because NFTs are mostly unregulated, frauds, forgeries, and market manipulation are prevalent.
While many people are perplexed by the concept of paying real money for land that does not exist, some virtual land NFTs have already sold for millions of dollars.
According to its website, the Otherside metaverse will be a multi-player game environment that is presently under development.
Yuga Labs will not reveal how many people were working on Otherside or when it would be released.
Yuga Labs' Otherdeeds sale comes after the official Instagram account of the Bored Ape Yacht Club was hacked and a phishing link was released, allowing fraudsters to take victims' NFTs.
This morning, the official BAYC Instagram account was hacked. The hacker posted a fraudulent link to a copycat of the BAYC website with a fake Airdrop, where users were prompted to sign a ‘safeTransferFrom’ transaction. This transferred their assets to the scammer's wallet.
— Bored Ape Yacht Club (@BoredApeYC) April 25, 2022
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