The founder of Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), Yuga Labs, released a teaser, Otherside, to reveal its plan for the metaverse. The trailer adds to the speculation that a 3D game from Yuga powered by Animoca Brands is underway. The trailer launched shortly after ApeCoin went live. However, it failed to take the coin to the moon.
Three months have passed since BAYC outshined CryptoPunk NFTs for the first time in floor price. The floor price of BAYC‘s then was 53.9 ETH, while CryptoPunk was 52.69 ETH. However, almost three months later, these two outstanding NFT collections are owned by Yuga Labs, the founder of BAYC.
In March, the NFT field witnessed Bored Ape Yacht Club taking center stage. After the news on the acquisition of CryptoPunk was made public, the airdrop of the hotly-anticipated ApeCoin followed quickly. One billion ApeCoins was dropped to several groups of receivers, with Bored Apes and Mutant Apes NFT owners in line to receive part of the treasure. And this is just the beginning of BAYC’s commercial empire. On March 19th, Yuga Labs released a short video announcing that its metaverse will have CryptoPunks, Cool Cats, and other blue-chip NFTs projects to join.
The teaser features bluechip NFT collections
In the trailer, a flying creature takes the bored ape on an unexpected adventure. And of course, he is showing his uninterested face. Also, the video goes on with the appearance of other bluechip NFT collections. From the screenshot below, we can see Mutant Ape Yacht Club, Cool Cats, World of Women, CryptoPunks, Meebits, and CrypToadz.
Two days after the trailer’s release, Animoca Brands echoed Yuga lab’s original announcement with a retweet. Together with the cameo appearance of those blue-chip NFTs, this action adds to the conjecture that a 3D BAYC game powered by Animoca will happen. And apparently, the game will include all kinds of other NFT collections, echoing concepts of interoperability also seen in for example WorldWideWebb.
ApeCoin by ApeCoin DAO
ApeCoin will serve as a utility and governance token in the broader BAYC ecosystem. It is of practical importance to mention that ApeCoin was launched by the ApeCoin DAO, not by Yuga Labs or Bored Ape Yacht Club.
As we can see from the pie chart below, venture capitals that helped with the launch of ApeCoin received a collective 14% of the allocation. Andreessen Horowitz and Animoca Brands fall into this category of recipients. However, many pointed out that these token holdings could grant Andreessen Horowitz and Animoca significant influence over ApeCoin DAO, even though the group is meant to be decentralized.
ApeCoin DAO has recruited celebrities in the crypto community to serve on its board. Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian and FTX’s Amy Wu are two on the list. They’ll help for six months, and later ApeCoin holders will vote for new board members who serve one-year terms. Then, hopefully, we will have a clearer view of whether the community will be member-driven or VC-driven.
While the trailer offered a hint of clarity on BAYC’s future, it didn’t add any momentum to ApeCoin’s increase. As of this writing, the 48th largest cryptocurrency by market cap has lost 7.33% to $10.24, according to the DappRadar token tracker.
For the latest BAYC NFT collection volume, floor price, and top sales, check out the NFT tracking tools on DappRadar.
