The Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs project has raised $96 million through the sale of 10,000 new monkey portraits. These “Ape Mutant”, or mutant monkeys, sold for 3 Ethers (ETH) each and are currently trading for more than double that.
An invasion of 10,000 new mutant monkeys
Launched in April 2021, the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) originally included 10,000 NFTs called “Bored Ape” and representing randomly generated apes. Each of them has different characteristics. Some wear hats, unusual clothing or glasses, while others have multicolored skin or smoke a cigarette.
This Saturday, the BAYC team made a massive airdrop. The “Bored Ape” holders were each given one of three serums: M1, M2 or Mega Mutant (M3). By injecting it into their monkey, they had the ability to create a new mutant monkey, called “Ape Mutant”, keeping the traits of the original but with new characteristics.
Depending on the level of the serum, the mutant monkey can be completely deformed, with more or less rare characteristics. As for the Mega Mutant (M3) bottle, it completely transforms the one who takes it, giving him potentially rarer and therefore more valuable traits.
For Bored Ape holders, this airdrop was a godsend. Indeed, they could keep their original ape while getting an extra NFT of potentially great value.
Bored Ape Yacht Club raises $96 million
In addition to the 10,000 serums distributed for free to their community, BAYC has also released 10,000 new mutant monkeys for sale. Offered for sale at a price of 3 Ether (ETH) per unit, they all found takers in just one hour. The BAYC project was able to raise $96 million.
At the time of writing and in just two days, these NFTs are already selling for at least 7 ETH, or $22,400 each. According to data from the OpenSea platform, Mutant Apes have generated about $140 million in trading volume since their launch.
Bored Apes is the fifth best performing crypto-currency project of all time. Also according to OpenSea data, the monkeys have generated more than $400 million in sales. The minimum price threshold for a monkey (non-mutant) is now set at 25 ETH (or $80,000).
On his Twitter, journalist Colin Wu analyzed BAYC’s Etherscan address and found that $28 million obtained from the sale of mutant monkeys was automatically transferred to the Blockfolio exchange (now FTX).
According to the BAYC community, this move could be the reason for the recent and rapid 4% drop in the ETH price. The journalist asked the Bored Ape Yacht Club team and its 2 co-founders about this, a request that has remained unanswered to date.
