Monkey Business — NFTs

The past few weeks have taken the internet by storm with the new launch of APE Coin . You might have seen how many people (well mainly filthy rich celebrities) have started to change their Twitter profile picture to their Ape NFT pictures.

In more recent news, Meta felt it is falling behind Twitter on that front and announced that they are looking to introduce NFTs to Instagram. People will be able to add all the APE /Dogs/Cats to their profile on social media and later in the metaverse.

Darwin must be going nuts in his grave looking at how we evolved from Chimps to Humans, and now all the way to Digital Apes and Dogs; I doubt that’s what he had envisioned as the future evolutionary state of humanity.

Who is behind BAYC?

Yoga Labs is the parent company that created Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) aka “Bored Ape”. There are only 10,000 APEs with different features, clothing and styles — all computer generated. On release day, it took 12 hours for all 10,000 NFTs to sell out. The sale price per NFT was set at 0.08 ETH, or around USD 190. These are now reselling for 80–100ETH (USD 250K–300K). Not bad of a return, life changing to say the least!

A few weeks ago, Yoga Labs was valued at USD 4B and is planning to build out its APE metaverse after it raised 450M in its latest round of capital (they call their metaverse the “Otherside”) . To be part of the initial release: 1) check out https://somethingisbrewing.xyz/, 2) complete the basic identity checks required and 3) wait for the metaverse version of Planet of the Apes to emerge.

Yoga Labs also acquired Larva Labs NFT project most famously known for crypto punks shown below. And yes the most expensive one was traded for USD 23.7M!!!
https://www.larvalabs.com/cryptopunks

This trend doesn’t stop at Bored Apes. To keep the community engaged, holders of Bored Apes were able to transform them to cool and weird looking Mutant Apes. Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) is a collection of up to 20,000 Mutant Apes that can be created by exposing an existing Bored Ape to a vial of serum or by minting a Mutant Ape in the public.
https://opensea.io/collection/mutant-ape-yacht-club
At a later stage, each BAYC holder was offered the opportunity to claim their Kennel; at the end of the day, every APE needs a loyal companion. Each Kennel holds a certain value and can also be traded.
https://opensea.io/collection/bored-ape-kennel-club

Today, these Apes, Mutant Apes and Kennels can all be traded on opensea.io. The creators get a percentage of every trade.For more on the family tree: https://boardroom.tv/bored-ape-yacht-club-family-nft/

APE Coin
Ape coin is the cryptocurrency or utility token that the BAYC community will be using in their transaction. The coin can be currently used like any other cryptocurrency and is built on the Ethereum blockchain.When APE coin launched, every holder of an NFT (Bored Ape, Mutant, or Kennel) received anything between 2K to 10K Ape coins which can be valued at USD 150K. Consider the early investors in the NFTs as Series A investor and the ApeCoin being released to the public is similar to an IPO (initial public offering) where users can sell their Ape coins but retain the underlying NFT.

NFT Songs
Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr — best known as Snoop Dog aka Snoop -has been leading the way in embracing the new “meta world” by buying virtual property in sandbox, having his own BAYC and most recently dropping limited edition NFT songs (listen here). Each song was a limited release and cost around USD 100–120. These songs were released for a limited number of users, up to the first 700–1000 buyers.(If you haven’t benefited from this article so far, at least now you know what Snoop Dogg’s real name is!)

Governance model
Each coin holder has the opportunity to vote on issues / decision points. In Web 3.0, this is called DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization). Each organization has a board which proposes issues within a global community of coin holders… Think of it as a more efficient and simpler general assembly which can meet-up as frequently as needed.

Metaverse ambitions
Yoga Labs closed a round of funding of USD 450M that will enable them to build their metaverse. They have recently launched a teaser video and asked people to sign up for the upcoming launch (https://somethingisbrewing.xyz/) where attendees can use their APE coins to transact.Signing up is simple, you just need to link your wallet and pass a simple identity check to get approved. More information on the launch will follow. As mentioned before, Yoga Labs’ metaverse is called the “Otherside” but I’m pretty sure there has been a long debate about calling it “Planet of the Apes’’!

Roadmap
The BAYC Roadmap 2.0
The plan goes beyond just having digital art of an APE, Mutant or Kennel — check out the roadmap that gives out some clues of what’s in store and what the BAYC team is planning to do. Here’s a few milestones:

• ApeFest Yacht party in Q4!
• P2E (Play to earn) — mobile game competition.
• Trezor hunt (no it’s not a typo…)
• Providing 3D models of NFTs which owners can use in the metaverse.
• Ape DAO: As a user, discord is heavily used for discussing and asking for clarification on these proposals.

For more info: https://apecoin.com/governance / https://snapshot.org/#/apecoin.eth 

Exclusivity
Being part of the NFT club is all about engaging at a deeper level with members of the same community or group. The sense of community will be extended to the physical and virtual world: from a virtual trezor hunt, to actual gatherings for members of BYAC in cities or at exclusive parties.

Special and limited edition merchandise

Hungry? Grab a burger at JustBoredAndHungry who only accepts APE and ETH. If anyone thinks the below won’t be a collectible item then they haven’t seen the craze that happens when BTS did a McDonalds Collaboration.

https://www.nftgators.com/bored-ape-themed-fast-food-restaurant-opens-in-california-accepts-apecoin-as-payment/

For 4APE coins (~USD 44), this better be an amazing burger!Flex and show-off
NFTs are becoming the “bling bling” of the Web 3.0 world: you’ll soon be able to walk around with a cool 3D rendering of your Ape to use in your strolls in the metaverse. It is becoming a status symbol. People are using NFT as an expression of their interest and a representation of their metaverse brand by displaying it as profile pictures for Twitter, Discord and other platforms just like CEOs usually wear fancy watches.Anyone can download a JPG of a Bored Ape in the same exact way you can wear a cheap Rolex knockoff. In both cases, though, people will know.The craze is catching up to brands. For example, Casetify is giving APE NFT holders the ability to customise their phone covers to showcase their prime ape possessions.

Dreamt of being a movie star?
Your APE can now be casted to the interactive film trilogy that coinbase is producing about BYAC . APE NFT Royalties…here we come!

So what?
The whole point of this article is to illustrate that the above phenomenon in the NFT world transcends beyond just owning a piece of digital art, it’s a membership card, its being part of an exclusive group that shares a common interest… that common interest is a pass to exclusive experiences, giveaways, events, merchandise, etc.

Looking beyond Apes, this could easily be done with many brands where the ownership of the NFT makes you a part of the group.For example, holding your favourite Football club NFT would grant you:

• Early bird access to tickets to events in both the physical world and the metaverse.
• Exclusive merchandise for your metaverse avatar.
• And most importantly, the ability to easily monetise your membership and trading.

In conclusion, if you’re skeptical don’t write-off NFTs just yet. Not all NFTs will be worth thousands/millions of dollars, so always do your research! It’s going to be a very interesting space to watch and it’s paving the way to a new level of engagement within the metaverse community.