NFT or known as Non-Fungible Token, can represent any digital asset on blockchain. Unlike real-life tokens, every one of these non-fungible tokens is unique and impossible to lose. NFT can be anything. Creators can tokenize their in-game items, digital artwork, music, avatars and event tickets into NFT and them online. Avatars are the massive hype for the NFT game.
Bored Apes are the most successful and priceless collection of NFTs by volume. The most expensive NFT in this series sold for a whopping $3.59 million. Global influencers like Stephen Curry, Shaq O’Neal and Justin Bieber all hold at least one of these apes as their social media profile. This insane NFT project has gone from the world of cryptocurrency into the real world of pop culture and fashion. If you don’t know how Bored Ape made its own fortune, I will give you a little bit of insight into the Bored Ape’s origin story.
What is Bored Ape?
The Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) is a collection of 10,000 NFT ape avatars. The apes in each image are generated by a unique algorithm. This algorithm can generate a total of 172 attributes of varying rarity. And then randomly disrupting the various combinations of background colour, fur colour, incarnation costume, hat, eyes, mouth shape and character accessories for each ape incarnation. Making each ape unique in the world. Unlike the Mona Lisa in Louvre, where a real-life forgery has to be identified by an expert, the NFT can be identified simply by its publicly available serial number.
The rarity will determine whether your ape is priceless or a cheapo. If the ape has less common combinations and accessories, it can lead to higher rarity. And the higher the rarity means the higher the offer. According to OpenSea, the world's first and largest NFT marketplace, one of the rarest NFTs in the series, Bored Ape #7495 (worth approximately $150,000), carries a dagger in its mouth, a trait possessed by only 48 other apes out of the 10,000 apes. (This algorithmically randomly generated attribute has a rare rarity of 0.49%)
These Boring Apes NFTs are bought, sold and traded using Ether (a type of cryptocurrency). They can be purchased on OpenSea. All information about each transaction can be presented on the platform. Take Bored Ape #7495 for example. Any user can check the Opensea website to find out the time of each transaction, the information about the counterparty, and even the amount of each transaction of this NFT item. Because they are publicly documented on the blockchain.
How did the average price of BAYC take a big leap jump from 0.08 ETH to 105 ETH? There are certainly a lot of special characters around BAYC, but apart from that, they have attracted millions of potential buyers and sellers through three marketing tricks.
Community Operations & Marketing
BAYC is more than just a fun Jpeg to use for your Twitter profile, their ultimate goal is to be a global premium club. Your bored ape is the VIP pass for entry. That’s why much of its commercial marketing revolves around its online community. When NFT was officially launched, the team began promoting the project on Twitter, and Discord, building up strong online communities that would allow BAYC holders to interact while sharing information. Even if you don’t own any NFT, you can still join the BAYC discord community and participate in discussions on some of the channels to get the latest insight on NFT. This allows users from inside and outside the crypto community to be connected.
Member benefits
BAYC owners can enjoy exclusive membership benefits in the club. Every owner will not only be able to participate in some exclusive offline parties, but BAYC will also grant consumers free NFTs for other product lines. In June 2021, every BAYC holder will receive a free virtual land NFT, Otherside. While these virtual lands are free for BAYC holders, if you are not a BAYC member you will need to pay 2.3 ETH (about $4,160) for the cheapest piece of Otherside virtual land. This step also paves the way for BAYC to build their Ape metaverse.
Brand Remake & Co-branding
Each BAYC owner is given the right to use it commercially and they can build products on it. Unlike traditional artwork, the products are different. Once a consumer has purchased a Bored Ape NFT, the consumer can make and sell all kinds of peripherals with their Bored Ape IP on them: T-shirts, mugs, etc. With the help of BAYC, the customer becomes the owner. Li Ning bought BAYC #4102 in April this year, and at the end of the transaction, Li Ning not only received an NFT, but also commercial ownership of the Bored Ape IP #4102, which was added to the brand’s new products for sale. BAYC is not only incentivizing individual users and commercial brands to create their own new commercial IPs through secondary IP ownership but is also giving its NFT a free wave of high-quality PR.
Conclusion:
Bored Ape is more than just an NFT collector’s item, it represents a status symbol in Web3. Its success is definitely not based on luck and hype alone. It is still very different from CryptoKitties, the NFT that was an instant success but whose bubble soon burst. The company is now launching its fourth series, Otherside Virtual Worlds, and is gradually expanding and refining its ecosystem. According to the roadmap released by BAYC, they want to create an NFT that is accessible in all areas, and I believe it will continue to improve its ape universe and create more value in the future.
