A metaverse full of NFTs of monkeys, punks and cats
3 min readBored monkeys, pixelated people with mohawks and cute kittens: This is what the new metaverse of what is probably the most expensive members’ club in the world could soon look like.
The company behind Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), Yuga Labs released the trailer on March 19th for what appears to be a virtual world that brings together the eponymous Bored Apes along with a host of other popular NFT collections.
The short video not only shows a bored monkey, but also animated specimens from the collections Mutant Ape Yacht Club, Cool Cats, CryptoPunks, CrypToadz, Meebits, Nouns and World of Women.
The project bears the name Otherside and should be available from April.
See you on the Otherside in April. Powered by @apecoin pic.twitter.com/1cnSk1CjXS
— Yuga Labs (@yugalabs) March 19, 2022
The BAYC bubble is inflating
It was only on March 17th that BAYC went live with an ETH token called ApeCoin (APE). This is “a culture, gaming and commerce token designed to power a decentralized community at the forefront of Web 3.0,” wrote the new token’s official Twitter account. The Member Club Coin is not Yuga Labs, but the ApeCoin DAO. The token is intended to give BAYC members certain preferential rights.
While APE shot up almost vertically after the issue, the initial hype has since flattened out again. The token is currently trading at $10.53, a correction of 4.1 percent on a daily basis.
At the same time as the announcement of the ApeCoin, game developers and venture capitalists got in touch Animoca Brands to word. The company explained on Twitter that it would also integrate the ApeCoin in a “secret project” that the investment company is working on together with BAYC. Animoca Brands, meanwhile, is best known for its involvement in the NFT and Metaverse sectors, taking part in notable projects such as The Sandbox or OpenSea.
In the meantime the Hong Kong-based company also posted the trailer above on Twitter. So, putting two and one together, it’s safe to assume that the new BAYC Metaverse project will be endorsed by Animoca Brands. In addition, the newly born ApeCoin (APE) could act as a native token of the virtual world.
Is it art or can it go away?
While hypes are part of the process by which new industrial sectors are formed, one should still think carefully about what the fundamental value of a project is.
Ultimately, hypes can also subside. Stars like Eminem, Justin Bieber or Heidi Klum are part of one or the other virtual club. The phenomenon of the classic celebrity hotspots in the real world, which change every few weeks, can possibly also be transferred to the virtual member clubs here.
So it’s more complicated than the funny little monkey pictures would suggest. While you usually only have to be initiated into a code word in films in order to gain access to exclusive clubs, entry in this case “only” costs a small JPEG – but with an even larger one Price tag of currently at least 99.99 ETH (about $291,000).
