Renowned auction house Sotheby’s completed the online sale of 101 non-fungible tokens (NFTs) from the Bored Ape Yacht Club collection yesterday. A report disclosed this news after the auction, noting that the collection, which features images of cartoon apes, fetched $24.4 million. This price exceeded Sotheby’s presale estimate of between $12 and $18 million, indicating that the NFT craze is far from over.
According to the report, the collection of 101 apes also included three M1 and M2 mutant serums, which will enable the buyer to generate six new Mutant Ape NFTs. Purportedly, these serums help create mutant versions of bored apes, thus increasing their value.
Reportedly, the Bored Ape Yacht Club collection features 10,000 NFTs, each representing a cartoon ape with distinctive traits, such as fur color. On top of this, the apes have different accessory arrangements, ranging from eye patches and necklaces to earrings. The collection launched on Ethereum in April at an initial price of 200 ETH.
Since then, the price of each ape rose sharply, with one NFT selling for 740 ETH (approximately $2.9 million) on Monday. Among the people that purchased NFTs in this collection is NBA star Stephen Curry, who bought an ape for 55 ETH (approximately $180,000). He then updated his Twitter profile to a picture of the ape.
The NFT fever continues spreading
This news comes as the NFT space continues unlocking new milestones. Since the start of the year, the industry has recorded global sales nearing $7 billion. In comparison, the space only generated $94,862,807 in the entirety of 2020. This value only exceeds Beeple’s Everydays: the First 5000 Days NFT, which fetched $69.3 million in a Christie’s auction, by roughly $25.5 million.
The second-largest NFT sale in history was CryptoPunk #3100, one out of nine alien NFTs in a collection of 10,000 CryptoPunks. The NFT sold for $7.58 million. CryptoPunk #7804, also an alien avatar, became the third most expensive NFT after fetching $7.57 million in March this year.
The performance of the NFT market this year has seen traditional industries embrace the industry for various reasons. For instance, financial services giant Visa purchased CryptoPunk #7610 in the past month for $150,000 in ETH. According to the company, CryptoPunk #7610 is a meaningful addition to its 60-year-old collection of historic commerce artifacts.
Visa added that this purchase was its way of supporting creators, collectors, and artists backing the future of NFT-based commerce. Cuy Sheffield, the Visa’a Head of Crypto, noted that the firm decided to onboard the crypto bandwagon to understand the infrastructure requirements that a global brand has to meet before it can purchase, store, and use NFTs.
The sports world has also been keen on embracing NFTs to boost fan engagement. The latest team entry is Spain’s top soccer league, La Liga, which partnered with French company Sorare to generate NFTs of all its players. Through these collectibles, the league seeks to offers fans of clubs such as Real Madrid, FC Barcelona, and Atletico Madrid, new and exciting experiences.
