Today I'm going to tell you about an NFT collection whose mint was more than 5 days and secondary sales were in the negative, but today it's the leader, ranking second in volume on OpenSea.
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All information in this article is current at the time of publication. The text contains a huge number of links to various sources, items on marketplaces, wallets, etc. If you see underlined text, feel free to click on it, for example here.
History
Team
The secret of success.
The story begins in April 2021. At that time, the bull cycle was in full swing. And just at that time, the Bored Ape Yacht Club appeared. Behind the project was a team consisting of the following funny nicknames: Gargamel, Gordon Goner, Emperor Tomato Ketchup, and No Sass.
On April 17, the first announcement from BAYK comes out.
https://twitter.com/BoredApeYC/status/1383466067419299840?s=20&t=Uobzl3jMNGv4P_lQNnNNNQ
On April 23rd at 23:13 UTC, the smart contract minted the first 30 apes. Over the next 7 days, most of these monkeys were distributed to the founders and active members of web3. Many of whom still have their monkeys and have become community leaders. Here's what BAYK #0 looks like, this NFT is now in the wallet of one of the creators of Yuga Labs.
https://opensea.io/assets/ethereum/0xbc4ca0eda7647a8ab7c2061c2e118a18a936f13d/0
On April 24, the public mint went live. And Emperor Tomato Ketchup minted the first NFT at 21:56 UTC.
https://opensea.io/assets/ethereum/0xbc4ca0eda7647a8ab7c2061c2e118a18a936f13d/30
After 2 minutes, the user known as Genomic in OpenSea created the next 10 apes. All 10 apes minted by Genomic will be sold, 7 of them below 0.6 ETH.
Of all the NFTs, this user left only one, which is still stored in one of his wallets.
https://opensea.io/assets/ethereum/0xbc4ca0eda7647a8ab7c2061c2e118a18a936f13d/6006
The first secondary sale took place on April 30, when user ShotChewie accepted an offer of 0.16 ETH from jackmaschka, who sold this NFT for 3.33 ETH a couple of months later. At the time of the sale, a week after public sale began, 373 monkeys had been minted. After the first secondary sale, all NFTs will be minted within 12 hours.
https://opensea.io/assets/ethereum/0xbc4ca0eda7647a8ab7c2061c2e118a18a936f13d/33
On May 1, the collection finally sold out, the volume began to grow, but the collection was still selling at a disadvantage on the secondary market.
https://twitter.com/BoredApeYC/status/1388438503986446337?s=20&t=Uobzl3jMNGv4P_lQNnNNNQ
On May 15, the collection is noticed by The SandBox and RTFKT, which further increases interest in BAYK.
https://twitter.com/TheSandboxGame/status/1393546483106975747?s=20&t=CXa0ZggQ6rBa6Tf4J53jCw
https://twitter.com/RTFKT/status/1393612222924984323?s=20&t=CXa0ZggQ6rBa6Tf4J53jCw
Two weeks after the sold-out the first expensive purchase of NFT number 5840 was made, it was bought by the user with the nickname PTM for 7.5 ETH.
https://opensea.io/assets/ethereum/0xbc4ca0eda7647a8ab7c2061c2e118a18a936f13d/5840
As early as May 24, the project began creating the first of its own merch for the collection's holders.
https://twitter.com/BoredApeYC/status/1396910783582416897?s=20&t=Uobzl3jMNGv4P_lQNnNNNQ
The value of the collection was growing every day, there were collaborations with famous brands, ads were bought on billboards in major cities, fans were going crazy, and it was only the first month after the sold-out.
The most important event in June was the announcement of a new collection - Bored Ape Kennel Club. Every BAYK owner got his or her dog airdrop.
https://twitter.com/BoredApeYC/status/1406008690004611076?s=20
In early August, RTFKT showed a concept pair in collaboration with BAYK, which will not be released.
https://twitter.com/RTFKT/status/1424458723548925958?s=20&t=d7kZ-wnDOrimG3Fr39R6Ng
Not even a month has passed since the Bored Ape Kennel Club airdrop, and BAYK are announcing a new collection, the Mutant Ape Yacht Club.
https://twitter.com/BoredApeYC/status/1426645054869934087?s=20
Two weeks after the announcement occurred, BAYK Holders received their NFT mutation capsules and 10,000 more mutants were sold at the public sale.
On September 9, a historic moment occurred. 101 NFT BAYKs were sold at a Sothebys auction for $24,393,000.
On September 21, the company is releasing a finished version of the roadmap, promising to create a fest for holders, collaboration with The SandBox, and so on.
A week after the roadmap was announced, the famous DJ Marshmello bought himself NFT number 4808 for 75 ETH.
https://opensea.io/assets/ethereum/0xbc4ca0eda7647a8ab7c2061c2e118a18a936f13d/4808
On Oct. 1, BAYK announced five events for holdovers, including Bright Moments Gallery, Ape Fest Yacht Party, Ape Fest Merch Pop-Up, Ape Fest Warehouse Party and Ape Fest VIP Charity Dinner.
That same month, it was decided to create its own token for the BAYK ecosystem. A legal entity was necessary to enter into partnerships with the real financial sector. The creation of Yuga Labs allowed BAYC to start a partnership with MoonPay, a service for fast purchase of cryptocurrency from a card. A team of lawyers from FenwickWest helped with the legalization of the blockchain project.
The cooperation with MoonPay has opened new promotion opportunities for BAYK. At the end of October, a new merchandise and festival were announced with the support of MoonPay.
https://twitter.com/BoredApeYC/status/1451359546149163008?s=20
https://twitter.com/BoredApeYC/status/1453911020137816068?s=20
Yuga Labs kicked off November with popular American magazine Rolling Stone putting Bored Ape Yacht Club on the cover of the new issue of NFT. The magazine sold a limited edition of 2,500 pieces.
On November 10, at the SuperRare auction, Yuga Labs partnered with Rolling Stone to launch a collectible cover sale in variations with MAYK and BAYK. The mutant cover was purchased by user jmogul21 for 47 ETH and is now in that user's vault wallet. The cover with the usual monkey was purchased by user saintbayview for 100 ETH. And now it is also in his vault.
https://opensea.io/assets/ethereum/0xb932a70a57673d89f4acffbe830e8ed7f75fb9e0/30248
https://opensea.io/assets/ethereum/0xb932a70a57673d89f4acffbe830e8ed7f75fb9e0/30247
At the end of November, Yuga shows a monkey in a suit from Adidas, it was another collaboration with the biggest brand.
December didn't turn out to be as busy, with BAYK trying to have a competition in their own mobile game, but encountering difficulties from Apple. The only important event of December was the release of NFT Adidas x BAYK. These NFTs provided holdovers to exclusive merch.
https://twitter.com/adidasoriginals/status/1471909577658675204?s=20&t=Kyfx5pqC2oSo6q6ksSbj0w
Another high-profile event in the history of Yuga Labs was the acquisition of CryptoPunks and Meebits collections. In the same way, all commercial rights for NFT were transferred to their holders.
On March 17, Yuga Labs will announce details of the $APE token. 15% of the total token saplay has been sent to holders of Bored Ape Kennel Club, Bored Ape Yacht Club and Mutant Ape Yacht Club collections. NFT BAYC holders claim an Airdrop of about 10,094 ApeCoin ($APE) + 846 tokens for BAKC, MAYC holders for 2,042 coins.
https://twitter.com/apecoin/status/1504201556165644298?s=20&t=TGlWJQlbGeWxRPE0_tUhOA
At the end of March, Yuga posted a link to doing KYC in their future metaverse.
https://twitter.com/BoredApeYC/status/1502056861624946688?s=20&t=Z8QRmBvsA9VMFfaR0_OX3g
KYC closes and BAYK announces information about their land sale. There will be a total of 100k lands, 30k of which will go to MAYC/BAYC holders and 70k to the public sale. At the end of April, Yuga will begin pre-assembly of participants' wallets.
https://twitter.com/OthersideMeta/status/1520391607815753730?s=20&t=wEqRllu0dBycAXuA2ENsIA
On the night of April 31 the minting of the Otherside lands began. All NFTs were sold out in less than three hours.
https://twitter.com/OthersideMeta/status/1520568874609127425?s=20&t=kOQU2ti9onZEg8EETGLMOg
In June, BAYK held another festival in New York and made special merch that you can only get at the festival.
https://twitter.com/BoredApeYC/status/1538693521917501441?s=20
In the same month another collaboration between BAYK and Rolling Stone took place. Two more 1/1 covers sold in mutated and classic versions. The mutated version was purchased by user brandonkangfilms for 22,696 $APE tokens. The classic version was purchased by an anonymous user for 42,106 $APE tokens.
Another high-profile event took place the same month at ApeFest, Eminem and Snoop Dogg presented their joint track right on stage at the festival.
https://twitter.com/BoredApeYC/status/1540153474851246080?s=20
On October 8, during season 3 of The SandBox, the BAYK MIAMI 2035 map was released. Also in collaboration with the game were created avatars of BAYK holders and special events for them.
https://twitter.com/BoredApeYC/status/1578742507600740353?s=20
The original founders, Greg Solano and Wylie Aronow, met out of a shared love of literature - they were supposedly brought together by a heated discussion about the work of writer David Foster Wallace.
No NFT project is without programmers and here Emperor Tomato Ketchup and No Sass came to the rescue. The two coders were capable of coding on blockchain, but neither of them had worked on NFT projects before, let alone on such large-scale projects.
Although each monkey was not drawn individually - there are 10,000 of them - each element was created with great care by artist and designer Seneca.
One of the most important partnerships was with MoonPay. It is this partnership that will play a big role in the promotion of BAYC, MAYC, and BAKC. MoonPay had connections with the artist's managers to buy him NFT BAYC. In return, the artist would post on Twitter/Instagram and put the purchased NFT on his avatar.
MoonPay was almost always mentioned and that they helped Eminem, Post Malone, Madonna, Lil Baby and others become members of the Bored Ape Yacht Club community.
MoonPay even sponsored a music video of Post Malone and The Weekend where he buys NFT.
https://twitter.com/lilbaby4PF/status/1456130223012032516?s=20&t=J_RsUpVrpxnw2SOp_Lqs4Q
https://twitter.com/Madonna/status/1507183071551971330?s=20&t=3bdK88geX8KioxM9Ys6CXg
https://twitter.com/GwynethPaltrow/status/1486482496883625984?s=20&t=OH_T7Mh8OwyVM5L2znWFmA
Also, the collaboration with Rolling Stone allowed the collection to go beyond the blockchain and become a fashion brand.
Aside from the community buying NFTs and raising the price of the collection, tell me, have you ever seen someone with a BAYK who fliping an NFT on Solana for a $10 profit? No. Every BAYK Community member is a wealthy person, which means....why am I telling it......just look at these photos....
https://twitter.com/theboredcafe/status/1590841435427082240?s=20&t=nmBUEWEvyw6POOzgNeuLHw
https://twitter.com/babyape113/status/1584460869601497088?s=20&t=nmBUEWEvyw6POOzgNeuLHw
https://twitter.com/MutantDave/status/1575847527500300289?s=20&t=nmBUEWEvyw6POOzgNeuLHw
https://twitter.com/friesframe/status/1567903932994797568?s=20&t=nmBUEWEvyw6POOzgNeuLHw
https://twitter.com/StonedAbu/status/1563667842603573248?s=20&t=nmBUEWEvyw6POOzgNeuLHw
Let's imagine that you bought BAYK at the start for 0.08 ETH.
You get:
Bored Ape Kennel Club ~ 6 ETH
Mutant Ape Yacht Club ~ 20 ETH
ApeCoin Airdrop (10000 for BAYK, 2000 for MAYK, 850 for BACK)
By doing the math, you can see that the collection holders got between $200,000 and $300,000 airdrop, not taking into account the increase in value of the main BAYK collection. It is the team's attention to the community that makes people believe and go crazy with their NFT.
Thank you for reading to the end. I hope this article has given you some new insights into this beautiful project.
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