Yuga Labs the Project Created by 4 Friends that is Leading the NFT Market with BAYC

Yuga Labs was founded by four crypto enthusiast friends who worked with a team of freelance commercial illustrators to bring Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) to life. BAYC launched with a week-long pre-sale on April 23rd, 2021, with the cost to mint a Bored Ape NFT .08 ETH.

After a very slow week (only about 500 apes were minted during the pre-sale), all remaining Bored Apes were minted in one night. The collection sold out on May 1st, 2021. At one point, BAYC was the most-used smart contract on the Ethereum network, flipping UniSwap.

Floor Price of Bored Ape Yacht Club Shoots

Recently, the floor price of BAYC skyrocketed after BAYC parent, Yuga Labs, acquired two other popular NFT collections — CryptoPunks and Meebits that were originally created by Larva Labs. Matt Hall and John Watkinson, co-founders of Larva Labs, CryptoPunks and Meebits said in a statement that they will continue creating awesome projects that will help shape the future of web3. They went on to add,

“Yuga Labs are the innovators of the modern profile picture project, and the best in the world at operating these projects. They are the ideal stewards of the CrytoPunks and Meebits. In their hands, we are confident that they will continue to be vital, thriving projects in the emerging decentralized web.”

The BAYC Metaverse

On 19 March, Yuga Labs teased its new BAYC metaverse by tweeting a short trailer alongside, “See you on the Otherside in April. Powered by @apecoin.” The short clip is a curious addition to all the hype and speculation about where Yuga Labs plans to take BAYC next.

However, at this juncture, there aren’t many details on what Otherside will be. But judging by last week’s various announcements, the new teaser suggest a 3D BAYC gaming experience powered by Hong Kong-based game software company, Animoca Brands.

As reported by Blockchainjournal last week, Apecoin (APE) token was launched by ApeCoin DAO, a decentralized autonomous organization that’s clearly officially affiliated with the BAYC franchise. Despite ApeCoin’s association with Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), it has been set up independently of its developer – Yuga Labs.

APE is an ERC-20 utility and governance token in the APE ecosystem. Its purpose is to incentivize and empower an entire decentralized community building at the forefront of Web3.