In this article, you will learn what is a Bored Ape and what makes Bored Ape this much expensive. An ape's digital caricature fetching almost half a million dollars in value and it really happened in 2021. The asset is called the Bored Ape.
What is Bored Ape?
Bored Apes are a collection of 10,000 Ethereum-based non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that launched in 2021. Full name is Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC),” these Ape NFT caricatures feature various facial expressions, clothes, and unique elements. Wildly popular in both the crypto community and wider online culture, the Bored Apes that initially sold for hundreds of USD now sell for millions. Owners of Bored Apes are considered members of the BAYC and gain access to exclusive perks such as private online spaces, exclusive merchant , and members-only live events.
The Bored Apes are grungy simian avatars with different characteristics—some rarer than others. For example, only 5% of Bored Apes have red fur, and 3% have a biker vest. The rarer the traits of a Bored Ape, the more expensive it's likely to be.
Origins of the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT Collection
Launched by crypto startup Yuga Labs in early 2021, Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) is a collection of 10,000 digital art non-fungible tokens (NFTs) minted on the Ethereum network. After receiving widespread notoriety and visibility, the Bored Ape has become emb of the spectacular growth of the NFT industry as a whole. A quick refresher: NFTs are blockchain-based digital tokens that can be used to prove ownership of an item or asset — from a document to a piece of digital art. The sector was enabled By the release of Ethereum's ERC-721 standard, a token format used for creating unique NFT-based assets.
The NFTs that populate the BAYC offering are known as “Bored Apes,” each a work of digital art depicting an ape in increasingly creative and imaginative designs. The creators of Bored Ape Yacht Club set out to incorporate elements from 1980–90s era music scenes like punk, hardcore, and hip hop, all amidst the land-and-seascape of Miami, Florida. They also drew particular inspiration from the crypto slang phrase “aping in,” which refers to the act of recklessly investing into an altcoin or NFT project based on excitement rather than research
Why Are Bored Apes So Expensive?
To the most pressing question of all: why do Bored Apes cost so much? Even the most exclusive club memberships in the US do not cost $368k. What's the fuss about? Let's see.
Utility
Bored Ape art is not only valuable because it serves as a digital identity—but also because of the accompanying commercial usage rights. Not only can Bored Ape owners re-sell the NFT for a profit, but they can also sell spinoff products based on the art.
Scarcity
Some basic economics here: because there are only 10,000 Bored Apes, the supply of the NFT art is pretty limited. Coupled with the massive interest in the brand, we have a high-demand/low-supply dynamic that inevitably drives prices up.
To boot, some Bored Ape avatars within the same collection are rarer than others. Each Ape is a one-of-a-kind, randomly generated combination of 170 traits, such as background color, earrings, expression, headwear, clothing, etc. This derived scarcity also contributes to the high prices of some Bored Apes.
Exclusive content
BAYC offers exclusive content benefits to Bored Ape holders, some of which are spelled out in the detailed roadmap on the Bored Ape Yacht Club website. The roadmap is a sort of to-do list that the founders intend to check off when they hit their target sales percentages.
Celebrity Backing
Jimmy Fallon, Post Malone, Mark Cuban, Paris Hilton, Snoop Dogg, Stephen Curry, Eminem, and Shaquille O'Neal all own Bored Apes. And it's a well-known fact that involving celebrities in anything can raise interest—and prices.
Early Entrance
While Bored Apes aren't the first NFT collection, they're one of the few collections out there. Not to discredit the innovation, but the novelty does contribute to the movement's success. CryptoPunks, for example, are valuable primarily because they represent the first NFT collection.
Bottom Line
Widely considered the most sought-after NFT collection to debut in 2021, and a pioneer in community engagement and ownership models, Bored Ape Yacht Club remains a landmark in NFT art. So, you will get to understand what is a Bored Ape and what is making Bored Ape expensive.
