BAYC Metaverse witnesses $300 million sales at launch
The sale also resulted in a clog in the Ethereum network, driving gas fees up
By Shashank Bhardwaj
Image: Shutterstock
Yuga Labs, the company behind the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT collection, held its much-anticipated digital land sale on Saturday, April 30th, raising approximately $285 million for the company. The metaverse project, called "Otherside," is the company's biggest launch to date.
Traders bought up a limited supply of 55,000 "Otherdeeds" NFTs, which represent titles to virtual land parcels in a future 3D social arena. Each of the lands were priced at around $7,000 and could only be purchased using ApeCoin (APE), Yuga Labs' official cryptocurrency.
The sale also resulted in some of the highest gas fees in the Ethereum network's history, with investors reportedly spending over $176 million on fees alone. There was a spike in Ethereum gas prices due to increased demand, and, as a result, transactions on Ethereum-linked services were delayed, and the Ethereum transaction tracker, Etherscan, crashed.
In the aftermath of this, the company issued a public apology: “This has been the largest NFT mint in history by several multiples, and yet the gas used during the mint shows that demand far exceeded anyone’s wildest expectations. We're sorry for turning off the lights on Ethereum for a while.”
The incident also called into doubt Ethereum's long-term viability as a host for large-scale NFT projects. Yuga Labs also suggested developing its own dedicated blockchain in its apology statement. “It seems abundantly clear that ApeCoin will need to migrate to its own chain in order to properly scale. We'd like to encourage the DAO to start thinking in this direction.”
The price of ApeCoin, the APE ecosystem's native digital currency, increased by as much as 50% earlier last week as a result of the anticipation for the sale. The floor price of a Bored Ape, which was roughly $250 a year ago, had also risen to 150 ETH, an all-time high.
The Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT collection has become one of the most popular NFT collections, with sales of at least $1.4 billion. In March, Yuga Labs also raised $450 million in a fundraising round, valuing the company at $4 billion.
Shashank is the founder at yMedia. He ventured into crypto in 2013 and is an ETH maximalist. Twitter: @bhardwajshash
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