Important events
Jan 302023
Bored Ape artist’s project sells out
What’s the next best thing to owning a Bored Ape? Some think it’s owning a Shilly.- The NFT project of the Bored Ape-owning recording artist, Shilly, sold out in just minutes on Friday. The collection, called “Shilly: The Access Pass”, was listed on popular NFT marketplace OpenSea.
- However, many fans were less than impressed with how the mint played out. The operators of the mint have been accused of making its whitelist too large – causing users to be left empty handed. When the project was launched, each of its 3.5k tokens were priced at $80.
- Since the token mint, the collection’s floor price (the lowest cost item in the collection) has doubled. But whether it will continue on the up, is a tricky question. The floor price of Bored Ape Yacht club has dropped by 55% since its all-time high in May last year.
boredapeyachtclub
Dec 082022
The apes are back in town
Staking rewards for APE token are nearly here – can it reboot the Bored Ape hype?- Staking rewards for APE are almost ready to begin, with the date set for December 12. The project, associated with Yuga Labs’ Bored Ape NFTs, has long anticipated the launch of its staking functionality since the token was released in March this year.
- The staking contract is already looking pretty healthy after launching on Monday, with $32m worth of APE along with a large number of BAYC and MAYC NFTs deposited in just one day. 175m APE (or 17.5% of supply) will be rewarded to stakers over the next three years.
- The token’s been ticking upwards with the excitement – rising by around 15% over the last two weeks. Although with that being said, the token did reach an all-time low of $2.61 last month in the wake of the FTX collapse, so it might be a little early to be getting excited.
Apecoin
Oct 122022
Struggling to catch a branch
The SEC is reportedly investigating Yuga Labs for potential monkey business and inventors are scratching their butts over what to do next.- ApeCoin took a sharp dive of more than 8% on Tuesday after it was revealed that the SEC is investigating Yuga Labs. The regulator is reportedly looking into the details of how its BAYC NFTs were sold as well as the distribution of ApeCoin in March, calling them out for selling unregistered offerings.
- Yuga Labs however remains adamant that it is not the creator of ApeCoin. It instead claims the ‘Ape Foundation’, a board composed of web 3 builders and prominent figures in the crypto space, is its “steward” – although convincing the SEC of that will likely prove tricky, and APE is already down 12% this month.
- The SEC has been on a bit of a rampage recently. Aside from its high profile case against Ripple, which claims it is a security, the group also came after nine separate listings on Coinbase over the summer. The head of the organization, Gary Gensler, has also suggested that any crypto other than Bitcoin is likely a security. Yikes.
Markus Spiske / Unsplash
Sep 212022
Apes gonna ape
Degens are aping into ApeCoin ahead of its new staking service. It is kind of their thing after all…- ApeCoin has been enjoying solid price gains recently with the APE token jumping almost 16% on Monday and maintaining those gains. Trading volumes were also up by 33% in 24 hours, with the number of wallets holding the token pretty close to breaking the 100k mark.
- The excitement’s largely down to its upcoming staking platform, for which web 3 company Horizen Labs was chosen as the developer in May. The platform’s expected to launch this fall, which will offer rewards to stakers of APE or BAYC NFTS.
- The token also seems to be defying predictions of a sell-off. Over the weekend, 25m new APE tokens (representing 8% of the total supply) were released, which was expected to cause significant selling pressure. But so far, the Apes are taking it in their swing.
Aug 222022
Metaverse tokens make mad moves
Metaverse tokens have been following the wider crypto market squeeze with the play-to-earn space seeing the largest selloffs.- Metaverse tokens have been slammed by recent market bearishness, with the BAYC’s APE token sinking by more than 18% last week. Similarly, the token of the Solana-based ‘move-to-earn’ project STEPN is down by almost 25% over the same period, with selloffs felt throughout the wider crypto sector as well.
- Play-to-earn tokens are also struggling, with Decentraland and TheSandbox both down by more than 20% last week. This could have something to do with dwindling DeFi activity as DeFi total value locked has shrunk by almost 6% or $5.3bn since Friday and by more than 60% since this time last year.
- The NFT space hasn’t been feeling the love recently either and has seen trading volume fall to its lowest since June 2021. ApeCoin’s pain could have something to do with its NFT collection, BAYC, having its floor price overtaken by the once dominant CryptoPunks collection – it was fairly short lived, but shows that low valuations are causing a shakeup of the NFT-artwork hierarchy.
Dan Matt/ Flickr
Aug 192022
The demise of NFTs?
The Apes are anything but Bored rn as a mass-liquidation event brews in the NFT space, with too much faith being placed in their ability to sell.- A meltdown of the NFT space could be imminent, according to analyst ‘doubleQ’, who's flagged on Twitter that the loans being offered by NFT lending platform BendDAO are not sustainable. BendDAO allows users to deposit NFTs to receive short term loans of up to 40% of its value in ETH and other tokens.
- The analyst claims there’s not enough trading volume on high-value NFTs to allow owners to receive liquid loans this easily. As the floor price of high value collections like BAYC drop, NFTs approach their liquidation point on the platform where the NFT is sold. The liquidation of some $55m worth of NFTs could be about to happen. Yikes.
- The concerns have slammed Bored Ape Yacht Club’s APE token, which is down by 26% over the last week, but the squeeze is being felt industry-wide. From Q1 to Q2 this year, NFT trading volume slumped by more than 20% while the number of unique buyers has declined by roughly 25%.
Bored Ape Yacht Club
Aug 112022
Bored ape thieves get doxxed
Mon dieu! Phishing scammers in Paris have been exposed for swiping NFTs, joining an anonymous trickster in highlighting the complexities of Tornado Cash while they’re at it.- BAYC phishing scammers have been exposed by on-chain sleuth @Zachxbt, who exposed the identities and activities of two prolific NFT thieves who have allegedly stolen $2.5m worth of NFTs since December 2021, luring in collectors with promises of animating their NFTs.
- But the hackers accidentally left a trail of transaction crumbs behind. @Zachxbt said they weren’t careful enough in covering up their withdrawals from Tornado Cash, which is how he found them and highlights how easy it is to see when someone uses Tornado Cash just as the US Treasury blacklists the platform. No doubt there will be a knock at these thieves’ doors soon…
- Speaking of Tornado Cash, an anonymous crypto user is hilariously trolling celebs. To try and prove how messy it would be to try and regulate and sanction those using the platform, the user sent a bunch of TC transactions to high-profile ETH addresses belonging to peeps like Coinbase’s CEO, Jimmy Falon and Dave Chapelle, which basically implicated them in a regulatory mess.
Aug 032022
NFTs live the luxury life
High-end fashion brand Gucci is taking a strut on the NFT side of life, and it’s chosen ApeCoin to walk alongside it.- Gucci has just become the first major brand to accept ApeCoin as payment, a move that could give the BAYC-themed token significant mainstream exposure and help it boast about its utility – an important goal for any cryptocurrency.
- APE is up 10% in Wednesday morning trading, so investors seem keen on the partnership. ApeCoin joins the likes of BTC and ETH in being able to purchase in-store Gucci gear, and BitPay will be providing the payment infrastructure – the same peeps that’ve helped AMC accept crypto in the past.
- Luxury brands have been exploring web3 heavily this year despite the ongoing bear market, and BAYC isn’t the only NFT collection attracting the upper echelons of fashion – Tiffany & Co. is turning your CryptoPunks into actual necklaces, at a pretty starting price of $50k.
Julien Tondu / Unsplash
Jul 192022
The Otherside of the bear market
As Bored Ape Yacht Club’s Otherside metaverse becomes a reality, ApeCoin reaps the rewards of the hype spilling out of it.- ApeCoin pumped 20% on Monday, reflecting – at least somewhat – that people still have a taste for ape-themed NFTs during a time of bearish uncertainty. Sure, the Ethereum-based token is down a mega 80% from the high canopies of $27.70, but Monday’s price action marks its best day on the market since mid-May.
- The upswing on Monday came as its Otherside metaverse became a reality. Over last weekend, 4,300 lucky apes who had bought digital land (Otherdeeds) were given an exclusive tour of a section of the metaverse called ‘Biogenic Swamp’. The launch of the metaverse will give ApeCoin a further use case, which is prolly why some are stacking their tokens now.
- Bored Apes have faced their fair share of controversy recently. Whether it’s astronomical gas fees for minting Otherside NFTs, or accusations of racist imagery embedded in their franchise, BAYC has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. Investors will be hoping the release of this metaverse will turn apes’ heads back in the right direction.
Jun 272022
Yuga Labs goes ape on Ryder Ripps
The Bored Ape Yacht Club has had some very serious allegations levied at it recently, but its founders are swinging into action to defend the project. Talk about guerilla warfare.- “We’ve become the target of a crazy disinformation campaign” wrote Yuga Labs’ Gordon Goner (Wylie Aronow, IRL), after a video went viral examining accusations that BAYC contains hidden Nazi and racist messages, plus promoting a knock off NFT set as a form of consumer protest.
- The founders are now suing their accuser, the artist Ryder Ripps, for trying to devalue BAYC NFTs and “scamming consumers”. Meanwhile, others have been examining Ripps’ claims in more detail: a recent deep dive into co-founder Greg Solano’s online history didn’t find any evidence to support the accusations against him.
- How is APE coin doing with all this drama, you ask? Well, not badly actually. The token is on its fifth day of gains after a 13% gain last week, and rallied 16% on Sunday before settling down somewhat after a new Bored Ape-themed video with Eminem and Snoop Dogg garnered some excitement.
Boredapeyachtclub
Jun 222022
BAYC's 'Nazi dog whistles' accusations
An internet artist and a prominent YouTuber have released a documentary alleging that the Bored Ape Yacht Club is filled with hidden Nazi and racist references.- A video titled “Bored Ape Nazi Club” was published by ‘Philion’ on Sunday which alleged that BAYC (run by Yuga Labs) is hiding “4chan trolling, racist imagery, and white supremacy dogwhistles” in plain sight.
- ‘Philion’ has now started a #BURNBAYC campaign, asking crypto influencers and celebs alike to burn their Bored Ape NFTs and buy a copypasta collection of BAYC made by internet artist Ryder Ripps. The collection apparently strips the “racist imagery” from the Bored Ape NFTs and aims to further undermine Yuga Labs.
- This alternative collection pumped on OpenSea to become the #1 in terms of trading volume. It was then later removed for “intellectual property infringement”. Some Twitter commentators have also questioned RR/BAYC’s true motives – noting that its sales would‘ve netted the creators a significant profit. A lot to digest here.
This is the result of 100’s of hours of research, investigative journalism, and insight from experts in the field of art and internet culture.
BORED APE NAZI CLUB
LINK BELOW.
Jun 062022
A banana peel for Ethereum?
It’s all happening in the crypto jungle this week, with Bored Ape thefts and votes alike.- Voting has begun on “ApeCoin Improvement Proposal (AIP) 41” to decide whether the Ape community wants to stay on Ethereum’s blockchain. A “no” is currently looking pretty unlikely, but if it were to go through, ApeCoin would obvs have to find a new home – running on its own blockchain is a known option, while Avalanche has also been mentioned.
- The proposal itself argues the case to stay on Ethereum. It outlines how migrating to a new blockchain is a “costly, risky, and complex endeavor” and that despite the high gas fees Ethereum charged during its Otherside metaverse NFT drop, its security is “second to none”.
- Speaking of security, BAYC just lost $358k worth of NFTs. Thanks to phishing links that weren’t nipped in the bud quickly enough, over 200 ETH in NFTs were stolen on Discord. While this had nothing to do with Ethereum, the co-founder of Yuga Labs (parent company of BAYC) accepted a “better platform” than Discord was needed for web3 fans.
May 182022
The Great Ape Migration
Are the apes about to leave Ethereum’s tree? Avalanche and Flow reckon they may have the bananas to prize them away.- After the Otherside metaverse land sale racked up over $100m in gas fees, ApeCoin DAO is considering moving its native token over to Avalanche or Flow. Avalanche would offer apes their own subnet which would process transactions off the main network, while Flow is a proven NFT player, managing high transaction volumes on a daily basis.
- BAYC creator Yuga Labs has already voiced its desire to run ApeCoin on its own chain, but the DAO quickly shot that proposal down. With this latest rumor, however, a move could be on the cards. To add some spice to the tea, Avalanche has conveniently thrown $290m recently to get projects running on its subnets.
- Losing ApeCoin and its NFT arsenal would be a banana peel for Ethereum, which is only around the corner from its long-anticipated merge that is set to curb ridiculous gas fees by shifting to a proof-of-stake model. Can it hold onto this lucrative branch?
Yuga Labs
May 042022
There’s a new ape on the block
ApeCoin hops on Polygon’s blockchain to offset stress on Ethereum after the NFT minting mania that saw over $180m burnt in gas fees.- ApeCoin will now be supported by Polygon, a sidechain that runs on Ethereum. The aim here is to help process transactions for Ethereum, which saw its network buckle under the pressure of Yuga Lab’s NFT sale of land plots in its Otherside metaverse. Things actually got so bad that Yuga Labs has since offered to refund back users’ extortionate gas fees.
- Gas fees spike when the network gets congested with transactions, and the NFT mania that saw $320m minted in one day led to the average price of ETH’s gas fees soar from $11 to $196 on May 1. Transaction data shows that many people paid around $6.5 - 8k to mint an NFT worth around the same price.
- Apes still want to run their token on a native blockchain, though. While Yuga Labs agrees it’s “abundantly clear” that ApeCoin needs its own chain to run on, Yat Siu of ApeCoin DAO’s board has since dispelled rumors of an Apechain.
2/ No discussion was had either at the
@apecoin
board level or with any other parties (including
@yugalabs
) of a possible apechain; this is a completely new idea to us.
May 022022
Laugh now, but one day we’ll be in charge
Bored Ape Yacht Club’s launch of the Otherside metaverse becomes the largest NFT mint in history, raising $320m.- This NFT offering was no boring affair – $100m in sales was made in just 45 mins, eventually selling out for an eye-watering $320m. All sales were made in BAYC’s native token APE, with each plot of land costing 305 APE, roughly $5k based on the token’s price on Saturday. All 55k plots of land sold, making it the biggest NFT offering in history.
- The apes gave Ethereum’s blockchain a run for its money. Gas fees went through the roof, costing investors a whopping $123m worth of ETH – almost half the money made from the land plots. One unlucky user is reported to have spent $43k ETH to mint just two NFTs. In response to the frenzy, Yuga Labs agreed that APE needed its own chain to run on.
- Is Otherside a bit of a banana republic, though? ApeCoin dumped hard on Sunday, falling 20% to basically wipe out any of the gains investors had made in the build-up to the metaverse launch. However, Otherside land plots are already selling for over $10k on OpenSea, so it seems the apes may have outwitted the market yet again.
We're sorry for turning off the lights on Ethereum for a while. 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.
Apr 262022
Shocked Ape Yacht Club
From Instagram to instant loss: Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) holders fall victim to a phishing scam that sees over $13m stolen in NFTs.- BAYC had their Insta and Discord channel hacked on Monday. The blue-ticked accounts were taken by the attackers, who sent the ApeCoin army to an unofficial link that mimicked an NFT airdrop run by BAYC. There, users were given the chance to mint land in the upcoming OthersideMeta, which is due to launch later this week.
- But users got tripped up by a banana peel after getting told to link their MetaMask wallet to the scammer’s wallet in order to take part in the airdrop. Once connected, users’ wallets were basically an open door, and 91 NFTs were pinched within minutes.
- By floor price, the total stolen amassed to $13.7m, but Yuga Labs (BAYC’s matriarch) reckons the market value will be less than that. Be careful out there, even if it’s coming from the horse's mouth: there is no such thing as a free lunch. Especially in crypto.
🚨There is no mint going on today. It looks like BAYC Instagram was hacked. Do not mint anything, click links, or link your wallet to anything.
Apr 252022
Swinging on fragile branches?
The ApeCoin jungle has a pod of whales circling it, with large-scale investment helping the token top off another impressive week.- APE swung up nearly 44% last week to hit a new high of $18.44. Clearly, the token is not letting a tired-looking Bitcoin and a general bearish sentiment towards the crypto market shake it out of its bullish tree.
- However, a small selection of wallets are taking up a lot of the supply. The coin distribution has a heavy concentration of not monkeys but whales, with 52% of the supply being owned by the top 100 wallets on the network.
- OK, enough mammal talk. What could this mean? Well, for a relatively new crypto, ApeCoin will just hope that these whales are in it for the long run. And although crypto is meant to challenge centralized ownership (at least last time we checked), it isn’t uncommon for many popular cryptos to have asymmetrical distributions of tokens.
Bored Ape
Apr 212022
Ape prices go bananas
ApeCoin investors buy the unconfirmed land sale rumor and send prices swinging up to a brand new ATH.- Turns out crypto fans love a rumor… who knew. Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) members and those that hold its token were sent into a flurry of excitement as (potentially false) news hit that BAYC will be granted virtual land in Yuga Labs’ (they developed BAYC) new “Otherside” metaverse.
- It started out with a tweet, how did it end up like this? A pseudonym duo tweeted the rumor earlier this week, adding that ApeCoin would be used as the virtual world’s central de facto payment token.
- ApeCoin flew 25% on Wednesday to mark its highest close ever at $16.7, and the token has now boomed over 100% since first launching on March 18. Yuga Labs said a while back that it would be using ApeCoin for “future projects”, so while the rumor could be speculation, it could also very well be true.
Alpha leak: these projects will be auto whitelisted to mint Otherside land.
BAYC - airdrop (center land)
MAYC - airdrop (mid land)
CryptoPunks - WL (outer rim)
Meebits - WL (outer rim)
Cool Cats - WL (outer rim)
Nouns - WL (outer rim)
WoW - WL (outer rim)
Toadz - WL (outer rim)
Apr 122022
Planet of the Bored Apes
Coinbase gets the director’s chair as it launches Bored Ape Yacht Club’s movie trilogy, likely to coincide with the launch of the company’s NFT marketplace.- Bored Ape Yacht Club is getting three animated movies produced by Coinbase, less than a month after the launch of ApeCoin – topping off what has been a pretty cinematic Q1 for the token. Bored Ape owners are invited to contribute to the trilogy by submitting the character represented in their NFTs as potential movie stars.
- The primates will need their tuxedos for June, with the first release scheduled for then. Those who want to watch the movie will need a Coinbase wallet – handy for the exchange giant, since it may coincide with the launch of CoinbaseNFT.
- You maniacs! You blew it up! Yup, afraid so – ApeCoin fell 9% yesterday after a bloody day in the crypto market. Otherwise, APE has been v kind to investors, up over 100% since it landed on this strange planet we call crypto.
Pixabay
Mar 282022
The Ascent of Scam
Some Bored Ape inventors are wishing for a Jane Goodall of their own to rescue them from De-Fi’s latest phishing attack.🔍 Key points:
- Investors have been defrauded of over $1m this week after several verified Twitter accounts (with Bored Ape profile pics) were hacked and started prompting a fake ApeCoin airdrop last week.
- Will this listing survive the scrutiny of regulators? There’s much debate in the crypto world around what could be considered a security, but Yuga Labs has bought the IP behind Bored Ape and earns a cut every time one is resold. That gives off security vibes, and some investors think the SEC may get involved.
- But investors in the legit coins are enjoying the ride until then. ApeCoin lifted over 48% last week after seeing similar gains the week before, and has already become the top traded token amongst Ethereum whales in its short time on the market.
Rip another Ape owner phished who has lost $500k worth of NFTs (BAYC, MAYC, & more)
Stop connecting your wallet & approving transactions on sketchy sites
Scammer address:
https://etherscan.io/address/0x50bcbc6ddf33ad3e03602aa03cf93d4a32d65ac1