Guide to the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT ecosystem

Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), an NFT collection of 10,000 “Bored Apes,” was launched and revealed to the public on April 30, 2021, as the first project by the now-famous Yuga Labs. The price of their first BAYC NFT was 0.08 ETH (then worth about $190).

About 12 hours after they went live, Yuga Labs’ NFTs went viral. This led to one of the most famous late-night segments between Jimmy Fallon and Paris Hilton, helping boost the visibility of BAYC. Celebrities like Stephen Curry, Gwyneth Paltrow and Post Malone started purchasing these profile-pic NFTs as status symbols.

The popularity of BAYC NFTs has made them a trendy item to showcase on social media among the rich.

The most expensive BAYC item was #2087, bought for 769 ETH in September 2021, $2,307,638 at the time.

Despite the explosive hype about BAYC in spring 2021, the project has sustained itself as one of the most prized NFTs in the digital collectible world, especially during this year’s crypto bear market.

This was in large part due to Yuga Labs successfully expanding the scope of the project well beyond the original NFT collection into an ecosystem with NFT add-ons, a future metaverse, and a token that ties the whole company’s portfolio of projects, which it calls the “Yugaverse”, together.

On August 15, 2021, the floor price or the lowest price among all items in the collection, was 13 ETH compared to its all-time high floor price of 303.15 ETH on February 17, 2022.

What makes BAYC so special?

Owning a BAYC NFT makes you a “Bored Ape Yacht Club member”. Some of the benefits are:

• An invitation to a private Discord server for BAYC members only.
• Airdrops of NFT collectibles into members’ wallets that can be sold for profit.
• The option to transform apes into “mutants” by using free airdropped serums. Like with airdropped NFTs, these mutants can also be sold.
• Airdrop promotions of BAYC’s new cryptocurrency, ApeCoin, are offered to Bored Ape NFT holders with a 90-day grace period for claiming.

The data has shown that BAYC transactions have not stalled despite the crypto winter of 2022. From February to May 2022, there were three spikes in trading volume and trade count. In each of these spikes, there were at least 45 transactions totaling at least $35 million.

On the other side, the lowest transaction number to date is two, totaling a little over $529,000 on February 19, 2022.

BAYC-adjacent NFT Collections

The BAYC founders launched a secondary collection of NFTs to incentivize its community with rewards and freebies. The collections include the following:

Mutant Ape Yacht Club

The Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) NFT collection is a reward for BAYC holders. Although a BAYC holder does not directly receive a MAYC NFT in their wallet, BAYC holders receive a “special serum” NFT asset. This “special serum” gives the option to a BAYC holder to create a variation of their current BAYC NFT.

Much like BAYC NFTs, there is also high demand for MAYC. Gauging the MAYC floor price over time measures the demand for these digital assets. From August 29, 2021, the floor price of MAYC started at around 4 ETH. The floor price shot up to 1878.75% on April 29, 2022, which was 79.15 ETH.

If you compare the highest MAYC’s floor price of 79.15 with BAYC’s highest floor price of 303.15 ETH, you can see that BAYC digital collectibles are more sought after. However, MAYC’s floor price trajectory during the bear market of 2022 proved its demand to be recession-proof. Simply put, MAYC never reached a floor price of 0 ETH from its inception until present time.

Bored Ape Kennel Club

This NFT collection is another reward for BAYC holders. The Bored Ape Kennel Club (BAKC) collection introduces dogs to be the best friend of your BAYC NFT. In fact, this NFT collection has become an essential part of the Bored Ape NFT ecosystem. Among the four notable NFT collections in the BAYC ecosystem, BAKC has the lowest market cap at 111.68 ETH.

Though there are 9602 NFTs compared to 19,425 MAYC NFTs, the scarcity of BAKC has not made it more valuable than MAYC. It only has the second-lowest floor price at 7.3 among its peers in the BAYC ecosystem. These numbers show that the BAKC has a middle-tier price in comparison with BAYC, MAYC, and Otherdeed for Otherside.

Otherdeed for Otherside

Launched on April 30, 2022, Otherdeed for Otherside NFTs let users buy real estate in a future metaverse—Otherside—in development by Yuga Labs. As of August 18, the floor price is 1.7 ETH (about $3,184). Each Otherside plot has different characteristics and resource production capabilities, the specific uses of which are still unknown.

The cinematic trailer for the project features Bored Apes inhabiting the land of Otherside, among other Yuga NFT collections. The teasers and images all feature Bored Apes prominently, so even though Yuga has not explicitly stated it, they are teasing that they will play a critical part within this world.

Though BAYC collections traditionally have a high price tag, Otherdeed for Otherside has the lowest floor price among the collections in the BAYC ecosystem as of August 15, 2022. Currently, the floor price is 1.749 ETH compared to BAYC, MAYC, and BAKC.

There are 100,000 NFTs, making it less exclusive than other collections in the BAYC ecosystem. Though the Otherdeed NFT collection is a few months old, there are over 34,000 landowners, according to OpenSea. The number of Otherdeed NFT holders currently outnumbers the holders of BAYC, MAYC, and BAKC altogether.

Although it is the newest NFT collection in the BAYC ecosystem, it is ranked third in largest market cap among all NFT collections.

ApeCoin

ApeCoin is an Ethereum-based governance and utility token used throughout the Yugaverse to incentivize a decentralized community. ApeCoin holders govern the ecosystem using a decentralized governance framework and decide how the ApeCoin DAO Ecosystem Fund should be utilized.

Since its inception during the crypto bear market, there have been a growing number of unique wallets containing ApeCoin.

The chart above shows that there are over 85,000 unique holders. This implies that some people want to be part of the BAYC community even if they cannot afford to buy the expensive NFTs.

The chart below shows that the top 100 holders only account for 51% of the market cap of ApeCoin. In other words, ApeCoin is not monopolized by the ultra-rich or whales, unlike BAYC NFT collections. It is evident that retail investors also make a significant fraction of the ApeCoin market cap.

Projections for Bored Ape Yacht Club

The BAYC NFT collection and Apecoin are showing promising numbers in terms of trading volume in U.S. dollars and unique wallets for the past several months. From December 2021 to August 2022, the market capitalization for the BAYC collection grew from 114,302.53 ETH to 759,917.38, a 564.8% increase within nine months. This increase can be seen below in the chart.

The BAYC’s trajectory of market capitalization is a positive sign for two elements in the BAYC collection. Increasing market capitalization signifies that items in the BAYC collections have increased prices over time. Additionally, increasing market capitalization indicates a sustainable demand for these exclusive NFTs for the foreseeable future.

As of August 15, 2022, Bored Ape Yacht Club still ranks number one with the largest market capitalization. Furthermore, it is also worth noting that there are only 6446 items owned out of the 10,000 total items in the collection. This implies that NFT scarcity in the BAYC collection is also a driving factor for price increase and floor price increase since its inception.

The NFT space is still young, and it is highly speculative as prices can still fluctuate regardless of supply and demand. It is critical to do your research before making a large investment.

This report was prepared by Footprint Analytics.