Intro
The startup Yuga Labs launched its first NFT collection, “Bored Ape Yacht Club” (BAYC), in April 2021. The four friends just decided to catch a wave amid the hype around the NFT industry. BAYC quickly broke into the top of the most famous and sought-after NFT collections, overtaking CryptoPunks.
BAYC is a collection of 10,000 NFTs released on the Ethereum blockchain. The purchase of BAYC means gaining membership in a private “swamp” club. The initial price of any of the 10,000 Bored Apes was 0.08 ETH. Now you can buy your Bored Ape only on the secondary market, such as the OpenSea marketplace. BAYC NFTs are easily sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars when purchased. To date, the floor price is 103 ETH, according to the OpenSea.
However, Yuga Labs didn’t plan to stop at Bored Apes. According to the developers, the Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) was a planned NFT collection. But before launching a new MAYC NFTs, it was necessary that every Bored Ape found its owner. MAYC have become no less popular than their progenitors and today occupy second place in the rating.
The MAYC
Mutant Ape Yacht Club is a collection of 20,000 zombie-themed Apes. There were two ways to get a mutated ape for yourself: with the help of a special mutant serum or by buying Mutant Ape on public sale.
Thus, the Yoga Labs development team planned to expand its BAYC community by allowing newcomers to join the club at a lower tier of membership. In addition, the members of the BAYC community were rewarded — they received brand new NFT — mutated counterparts of their Bored Apes.
Secret Airdrop
As already mentioned, for the members of the Yacht Club, that is, the owners of Bored Apes, the developers have created a mutant serum. All club members received their serum in their wallets in the form of an airdrop. The airdrop was held in secrecy. The community, of course, knew that something big was being prepared, but no one knew what exactly. On August 27, 2021, the BAYC team just tweeted one single intriguing phrase, “MAYC Tomorrow 8/28/21”. The time of the snapshot and airdrop was also announced. But even after users received their mutant serums, they could not use them until the public sale was over.
Mutant Serum
Mutant serums are divided into three tiers: M1, M2, M3. All of them were randomly distributed among the Apeholders. So, 7,500 M1, 2,492 M2, and 8 M3 were created. As is clear from the quantity, M3 is the most valuable and rare serum. Moreover, five more Mega Serums (M3) NFTs were added to the Dutch auction. Thus, there may be a total of 13 M3 Mutant Apes.
When a Bored Ape ingests a vial of M1 or M2 serum, the user gets another NFT in the form of a mutated counterpart. But the situation is completely different with M3 serum. They create a unique Mutant Ape, which doesn’t retain traits of the original one. By the way, it is crucial to mention:
- You don’t lose your Bored Ape after the serum injection. You just get another one;
- One Bored Ape can only inject one M1, M2, or M3 serum. If an Ape has already injected M1; serum, it can’t use another M1 serum;
- Immediately after use, the serums burn.
Where to Buy a Mutant Serum?
To date, there are 18,600 Mutant Apes, which means that 8,600 mutant serums have been used. Some users did not use their serums on their Bored Apes but decided to sell them on the secondary market. And it turned out to be a stunningly profitable idea. So the remaining 955 M1 mutant serum are sold at a flat price of 35 ETH on OpenSea. 560 M2 serums are sold at 48 ETH. And the remaining 2 M3 Mutant Serum you can get for a song — just 95 ETH.
The price of 95 ETH seems, no matter how strange it is, really tempting. After all, some M3 series were sold much more expensive. For example, Taylor Gerring bought himself an M3 serum for a crazy 888 ETH. And Deepak Tapliyal gave a jaw-dropping 1542 ETH for a serum for his Bored Ape.
Public Sale
As for the newcomers into the Yacht Club, they could just mint themselves a Mutant Ape. To do this, BAYC organized a Dutch auction. A Dutch auction is a method in which an item is put up for auction at a higher asking price, and then the price is gradually reduced.
Yuga Labs set the initial price of Mutant Ape at 3 ETH and lowered it until all of them were sold. At the time of the auction, the Mutant Ape was unrevealed in order to ensure fairness and complete randomization. After the end of the public sale, a special randomized index was launched and revealed all the Mutant Apes.
Statistics
Today is March 24, 2022, and the Mutant Ape Yacht Club is the second largest NFT collection by trade volume, neck, and neck with BAYC. The floor price of one Mutant Ape is 23.5 ETH.
The collection has incredible success in individual sales. For example, the most expensive Mutant Ape #4849 was sold for an incredible 350 ETH. The appearance of this Ape is really stunning — it’s a kind of Demon Ape, with all the accompanying attributes — horns, red eyes, gold jewelry, and a demonic tail. A little cheaper was sold Mutant Ape #1796, which apparently mutated from radiation. The Ape is wearing a damaged anti-radiation suit, and a grimace of complete incomprehension and shock is imprinted on its face. Finally, the third most expensive Mutant Ape #6957 was sold for 250 ETH, from which mutation it suffered, one can only guess, but by looking at it, you can delve into the anatomy.
How Are Mutant Apes Unique?
Why did such popularity suddenly fall on BAYC? It’s simple, buying an Ape (Tired or Mutant) is not just a waste of money, but something more. This is an allowance to the private club of the same crypto enthusiasts like yourself. The privileges of this club are constantly expanding, but for most users, the most crucial point is that they can stand apart from their idols. Yes, many celebrities supported BAYC.
For example, Snoop Dogg has a whole collection: Bored Ape #7723 and its mutated twins (M1 and M2). Another famous owner of the Mutant Ape is Lil Baby. He even bragged about his purchase on Twitter, where there are more than 6.3 million subscribers. And these are just two of a whole list of celebrities who have joined the Yacht Club.
In part, this could be regarded as demonstrative consumption, but projects such as BAYC are working for the benefit of the crypto sector. While we are waiting for blockchain to gain mass acceptance in the financial sphere, maybe it will be more in demand in the entertainment space? Only time can give an answer to this question.