Bored Ape Yacht Club is an extremely popular NFT collection that went mainstream in 2021.
These NFTs are still very popular, and they are popular for a reason.
Bored Apes are super expensive status symbols.
Even some celebrities are taking part in the hype!
What is Bored Ape Yacht Club, and why are these NFTs so expensive?
What is Bored Ape Yacht Club?
Bored Ape Yacht Club is a digital art collection of 10,000 NFTs called Bored Apes that feature portraits of cartoon apes.
An NFT is a non-fungible token. A non-fungible token is a unique token tied to a transaction on the blockchain using a
smart contract. Because an NFT is on the blockchain, it cannot be replicated or manipulated. An NFT can be bought and sold just like a cryptocurrency, and it’s basically a certificate of authenticity.
This set of NTFs, Bored Ape Yacht Club, is based on the Ethereum blockchain.
Bored Apes are avatars featuring portraits of apes with different traits and characteristics. Traits are background (8), clothes (43), earring (6), eyes (23), fur (19), hat (36), and mouth (33). With so many possible combinations, each Bored Ape is unique.
The creators of Bored Ape Yacht Club wanted to create a digital canvas where people could draw on it if they bought it, sort of like a bathroom at the club.
They created a story around this “bathroom” where crypto investors, who got so rich from “aping in,” that they hang out at the yacht club with other apes bored out of their minds, unsure of what to do with their wealth and time.
“Aping in” is slang for recklessly investing your money into an altcoin or memecoin that you have done no research on.
And that’s how Bored Ape Yacht Club came to be.
Why Are Bored Apes So Expensive?
As you can probably tell, Bored Apes are not cheap, at all.
The main reason Bored Apes are so expensive is because they are rare.
When Bored Ape Yacht Club first launched in April 2021, each Bored Ape was 0.08 ETH (about $185 at the time).
Nowadays the cheapest is around 80 ETH (about $104,000). The most expensive Bored Ape was bought for 852.39 ETH ($1.1 million now, $3.4 million then).
How did it get there?
Well, Bored Ape Yacht Club started to get popular, and demand for the NFTs skyrocketed. Since there are only 10,000 Bored Apes, only a maximum of 10,000 could get one. In order to get one, you have to outbid everyone else.
That’s how the price of Bored Apes skyrocketed.
But, there are other things that make them more expensive, too.
Like rare traits! The rarer the trait, the more expensive the NFT.
For example, there are 1,714 Bored Apes with “Bored” eyes, but only 69 with “Laser Eyes”. The cheapest “Bored” eyes NFT is 80 ETH ($104,000), and “Laser Eyes” is 145 ETH ($188,500).
The same goes for almost every single trait. The rare ones are worth more.
But, there is one more reason why Bored Apes are expensive.
They are seen as a status symbol. They are kind of like a Rolex, or a Maserati. When someone online sees you with a Bored Ape profile picture on Twitter, they will know you have class, sophistication, and wealth.
Okay, maybe not the first two, but definitely the third.
What Does Having a Bored Ape Get You?
There are a few things that having a Bored Ape will get you.
The idea behind Bored Ape Yacht Club was to allow users to draw on a canvas. Having a Bored Ape grants you access to THE BATHROOM, the digital canvas. I’m sure you can guess what most people draw.
You can also receive exclusive limited edition Bored Ape Yacht Club merch.
A Bored Ape gets you into exclusive real life events. There have been meetups all around the world like in New York, California, United Kingdom, and Hong Kong. ApeFest was one such event held in New York City. Entertainment included Eminem and Snoop Dogg. In another yacht party Chris Rock, Aziz Ansari, and The Strokes performed.
Owning a Bored Ape also gets you free NFTs from other collections like the Bored Ape Kennel Club and Mutant Ape Yacht Club.
An interesting thing about Bored Apes is that when you own one, you also own its commercial rights. You can use your ape in anything you want, and even monetize it. Put it in a music video, use it as a mascot for cereal, put it on a billboard, the possibilities are endless!
Having a Bored Ape also gives you monetary value in the form of ETH. Its value can change in two ways. Bored Apes can get even more popular raising the amount of ETH each is worth, or they can tank and be worth less ETH. Second, Ethereum itself could increase or decrease in price.
It also gets you a little ApeCoin!
What is ApeCoin ($APE)?
ApeCoin is the cryptocurrency that will be used in the Bored Ape Yacht Club metaverse ecosystem.
There are a few upcoming metaverse games, like Otherside and Benji Bananas, where ApeCoin will be used as an in-game currency.
Not much is known about the metaverse ecosystem, but apparently you will be able to purchase things in the metaverse like merch, events, or services. You can already use ApeCoin to buy some of the Bored Apes themselves.
Other than being a currency in the metaverse, it is also used for governance.
When you hold $APE you are eligible to join the ApeCoin DAO, a decentralized autonomous organization that governs the treasury, and votes on proposals, changes, and the future of ApeCoin.
The market cap of ApeCoin is currently $1.4 billion. That makes the price $4.56 per $APE. The circulating supply is 306 million tokens with a max supply of 1 billion tokens.
Bored Ape Yacht Club in Popular Culture
After Bored Ape Yacht Club went mainstream, it started to be seen a lot in popular culture because it was seen as a status symbol.
Even celebrities and companies are part of Bored Ape Yacht Club. That includes Arizona Iced Tea, Adidas, Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Gwyneth Paltrow, Shaquille O'Neal, Neymar, Mark Cuban, Post Malone, Stephen Curry, Paris Hilton, Jimmy Fallon, Serena Williams, possibly Justin Bieber, and possibly Elon Musk.
Snoop Dogg and Eminem have been the most vocal with theirs. They performed at ApeFest, and also included their Bored Apes in a music video for “From the D 2 The LBC”.
Their Bored Apes even made it on the VMAs!
Summary
Bored Ape Yacht Club is a collection of 10,000 Ethereum-based NFTs, depicting portraits of cartoon apes. Each ape has a certain combination of traits.
Bored Apes are expensive because they are rare, seen as a status symbol, and have many real world perks.
Having a Bored Ape will get you access to merch, events, other NFTs, and even the commercial rights to your ape.
Bored Ape Yacht Club is aiming to create a metaverse ecosystem with a cryptocurrency called ApeCoin being used to purchase items.
As Bored Ape Yacht Club got more popular, it started to be seen everywhere including in music videos and in many celebrities tweets.
Now that you know all about Bored Ape Yacht Club, you can learn about other
real life uses of blockchains, NFTs, and cryptocurrencies.
