Bored Ape Yacht Club

Submission 44,576

Part of a series on NFT / Non-Fungible Token / Crypto Art. [View Related Entries]

Featured Episode

About

Bored Ape Yacht Club refers to an NFT collection hosted on the NFT platform OpenSea and minted by a group of four anonymous people who go under the name Yuga Labs. The collection consists of 10,000 digital collectibles of "Bored Apes" each with its own unique combination of clothes, colors and expressions. They also offer a secondary incentive of "exclusive benefits" to their NFT buyers, hence the analogy to a yacht club. Since the project's launch in May 2021, the Bored Ape Yacht Club on Opensea has gained roughly 5,700 followers and has increased its floor price from 0.1 ETH to 32.5 ETH over the course of seven months.

History

Bored Ape Yacht Club was launched by Yuga Labs in May 2021, when they minted their first 101 Bored Apes on OpenSea.^[1] There are four people behind Yuga Labs and the Bored Ape Yacht Club who go by the pseudo names Gargamel, Gordon Goner, Emperor Tomato Ketchup and No Sass.

According to an article released by The Rolling Stone^[2] in November 2021, all four are in their 30s and were interested or invested in crypto as early as 2010. Gargamel, for example, had a college roommate in 2010 who mined Bitcoin. Goner became interested in crypto after they met Gargamel in 2017. All in all, Goner and Gargamel are alleged to be the project's leaders, while Tomato Ketchup and No Sass are in more specialized, back-end areas like computer science and coding.

In 2021, the four kept an eye on "crypto Twitter" and other NFT collections like CryptoPunks and Hashmasks. They decided to launch Bored Ape Yacht Club with these crypto-art projects in mind, incorporating alongside the "cultural currency" aspect of these collections an additional component of community membership via gamification.^[2] This concept of exclusive benefits being granted to Bored Ape owners gave the project an extra layer of value. Bored Apes serve as an owner's "digital identity." The owner retains all commercial usage rights, meaning they can sell any sort of spinoff product based on the art.^[2] They're also able to write on "The Bathroom" wall, which is a digital graffiti space where only Bored Ape members are able to go and draw. These sorts of functions give the NFT collection a "sense of utility."

Although their first apes were minted in May 2021, Bored Ape Yacht Club didn't announce the project on social media until mid-April 2021 to their Twitter^[3] and Instagram ^[4] accounts. Their first social media post announcing the collection was to their Instagram^[5] on April 16th, 2021. The post (shown below) received 778 likes over the course of seven months. Their first announcement on Twitter^[6] was uploaded on April 17th, 2021, and received 36 likes over seven months. In both announcements, the team stated that they would hold a raffle to win a Bored Ape NFT. Additionally, within their Twitter^[6] announcement, they mention that the Bored Apes are priced at 0.1 ETH.

The Yuga Labs team began selling more and more Bored Apes on OpenSea going into summer 2021. Allegedly, the foursome had spent roughly $40,000 to launch the NFT collection but ended up generating roughly $22 million in collective revenue by September 2021.^[2] From this success, the group has launched two more off-shoot collections called the Bored Ape Kennel Club and the Mutant Ape Yacht Club.^[2]

Developments

KSI Buys a Bored Ape NFT

On August 23rd, 2021, YouTuber KSI announced via a tweet^[14] that he had "given in and bought an NFT." KSI became one of the first notable internet personalities to buy a Bored Ape and become a part of the Yacht Club. His tweet (shown below) received roughly 37,700 likes over the course of three months.

Multiple Twitter users began to poke fun at KSI for his purchase, using the NFT meme tropes of Right Click, Save As and Screenshotting NFTS. For instance, Twitter^[15] user @its_menieb replied to KSI's tweet with a photo of the Bored Ape with a "Saved" watermark layered on top. The reply (shown below, left) received roughly 2,500 likes over the course of three months. Other Twitter users began to exploit his tweet as a catchphrase, copying and pasting the text and pairing it with other images. Twitter^[16] user @JonnaayLIVE was the first to do so, whose tweet (shown below, right) received 404 likes over three months.

KSI was the first celebrity to go viral for buying an NFT, however, other celebrities followed suit. For instance, rapper Lil Baby bought a Bored Ape NFT on August 28th, 2021,^[17] and subsequently changed his Twitter profile picture to a Bored Ape.^[18] NBA player Stephen Curry also purchased a Bored Ape NFT the next day on August 29th, 2021.^[19]

$24.4 Million Made at Sotheby's

On September 9th, 2021, the Bored Ape Yacht Club received increased attention in the mainstream for selling a set of 107 Bored Apes at a Sotheby's online fine art auction for roughly $24.3 million.^[7] Additionally, Yuga Labs sold 101 Bored Ape Kennel Club NFTs at the same auction for an additional $1.8 million. Reuters^[7] also mentions in their article that on September 4th, 2021, a single Bored Ape sold for 740 ETH which is roughly $2.9 million. Bored Ape Yacht Club announced Sotheby's final sale on September 9th, 2021, via a tweet.^[8] The tweet (shown below) received roughly 4,500 likes over the course of two months.

Bored Ape NFT Discord Hack

On October 30th, 2021, Bored Ape NFT collector Calvin Becerra posted a tweet^[9] that detailed an account of three Bored Apes being stolen from him. According to Becerra, "hackers" posing as "buyers" faked troubleshooting questions over Discord, slowly pulling out of him information regarding his MetaMask settings. After a change in his language settings, the hackers were able to rip his Bored Ape NFTs from his digital possession. His tweet (shown below) received roughly 1,000 likes over the course of five days. According to a separate Twitter^[10] user, @innothought, Becerra lost roughly $1 million.

After warning other NFT collectors to not purchase his "stolen apes," Becerra announced on October 31st, 2021, via a tweet^[11] that Yuga Labs had received the issue and deemed the apes that were stolen as "worthless." Becerra's tweet (shown below) received 404 likes over the course of four days.

In response to Becerra's tweet, multiple Twitter users replied to his apes being stolen. Most Twitter users did not have sympathy for him, being skeptical of NFTs in general. Most tweets and memes made in response to the hack revolved again around the NFT meme concepts of Screenshotting NFTS and "Right Click, Save As." For instance, Twitter^[12] user @AsherLangton replied saying "Stole it back for you," and attached a screenshot of one of the apes. This reply (shown below, left) received roughly 2,200 likes over the course of four days. Another Twitter^[13] user, @shoopdahoop25, replied to a Becerra tweet saying, "when u lose 1 million dollars on shitty monkey drawings," and attached a screenshot of a crying Bored Ape. This reply (shown below, right) received 303 likes over four days.

ApeCoin

On March 16th, 2022, council members that were connected to the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT project founded an entity called the ApeCoin DAO.^[23] Although the members are not also part of Yuga Labs, the BAYC's parent company, the founders of ApeCoin were given the rights to the BAYC's likeness. Among the ApeCoin founders include Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian.^[23] The token is based in Ethereum and a spokesperson for it announced on the 16th that it would soon be held on major exchanges like Coinbase.

On the 16th, the official Twitter account of the ApeCoin DAO posted an announcement tweet^[24] that over the course of one day received roughly 23,500 likes (shown below).

Reactions

On the 16th, multiple internet users reacted to the ApeCoin development both earnestly and satirically. For instance, tech entrepreneur Gary Vee replied^[25] to the ApeCoin announcement tweet, giving them a congratulations and earning roughly 1,800 likes in less than 24 hours (shown below, left). On the contrary, Twitter^[26] user greg16676935420 joked about trying to buy a Big Mac at McDonald's with ApeCoin, earning roughly 2,300 likes in 24 hours (shown below, right).

All Gorillas and Monkeys are NFTs

As Bored Apes became more mainstream and recognizable, internet users started making memes about how they were seeing NFTs in everything, specifically referring to gorillas and monkeys as NFTs within image macros. The first internet user to create a meme in this vein was Twitter^[20] user @ijustbluemyself whose meme (shown below) referenced a SpongeBob SquarePants episode called "Chimps Ahoy" where Chimpanzee professors of Sandy's come and visit her treehouse. The tweet received roughly 87,000 likes over the course of one month.

The trend spread to Reddit's /r/OkBuddyRetard subreddit going into the following month. For instance, on November 26th, 2021, Redditor^[21] FritoTheLay posted a meme (shown below, left) that received roughly 5,900 upvotes over two weeks. Redditor^[22] everythingagainstme then posted a meme on November 27th (shown below, right) that received roughly 14,800 upvotes over two weeks.