Bored Ape Yacht Club

Bored Ape Yacht Club, launched in 2021, is a non-fungible token (NFTs) collection of 10,000 cartoon-like apes with specific traits. BAYC quickly gained popularity as a status symbol with high-profile celebrity ownership. This caused its valuation to soar, although pricing has fluctuated since its peak. BAYC is a Yuga Labs creation.

Rarity

The array of BAYC’s unique traits and accessories are used to measure its value. The term “rarity” gauges how unusual an NFT is within a collection with an assigned number. In the BAYC collection, there are more than 160 traits, and each ape may have four to seven trait categories. These traits are background, clothes, earrings, eyes, fur, hat, and mouth.1

The most expensive Bored Ape in the collection, BAYC #8817, was auctioned in October 2021 for $3.4 million on Sotheby’s Metaverse marketplace, an online platform dedicated to rare and extraordinary NFTs. BAYC #8817 had the Solid Gold Fur trait—making it a relatively rare variety of the NFT. Other characteristics of the #8817 token are the Silver Hoop Earrings and the Wool Turtleneck.11

Celebrity Endorsement

BAYC has enticed several celebrities and brands to own pieces of its NFT collection. Adidas contributed to the hype surrounding the NFT collection by launching “Into the Metaverse,” its native digital collectible, in partnership with Bored Ape Yacht Club, Gmoney, and PUNKS Comic.

Following the partnership launch, BAYC uploaded an image of a Bored Ape wearing an Adidas jacket on X. Gmoney tweeted a silhouette picture that displayed the Adidas logo. PUNKS Comic tweeted a picture of a character wearing a shirt bearing the Adidas logo.1213

Other celebrities, beyond those already mentioned, who bought BAYC include billionaire Mark Cuban, prominent X personality and DJ Steve Aoki, X personalities and musicians Post Malone and Mike Shinoda, and producer and songwriter Timbaland.3