Furry Friends for Bored Apes

In June 2021, Yuga Labs announced that they would offer yet more value for holders of the famous Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs via a completely free NFT airdrop. A month later, in July 2021, the Bored Ape faithful finally found out what these NFTs would end up being: furry friends for their Bored Apes.

Similar to how Larva Labs gave holders of its pioneering CryptoPunks collection complementary NFTs in the Meebits collection, Yuga Labs would reward its holders with a free complementary NFT. Free, except for gas fees needed to make the NFTs, of course.

On the surface, the Bored Ape Kennel Club seemed like a nice gesture at the time on Yuga Labs’ part. But is that all there is to these wacky dog ​​NFTs?

The most cost-effective way into the Bored Ape ecosystem

When Yuga Labs kept its promise, it sent Bored Ape Kennel Club NFTs into the crypto wallets of anyone who had a Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT at the time. To claim these NFTs, holders simply needed to mint them, incurring a nominal gas fee in the process.

The “adoption drive”, as it was called, was a huge success. All but 400 of the original 10,000 Bored Apes received a complementary Bored Ape Kennel Club NFT during the imprint window, bringing the supply of these off-kilter doggos to approximately 9,600 in total. While it may have been a great opportunity to have all the imprinted Bored Ape Kennel Club NFTs match existing Bored Apes in terms of traits, each Bored Ape’s canine companion also carried a set of randomized traits. All holders interested in “matching” their Bored Apes with BAKCs of similar characteristics had to do so via trades on the secondary market.

So how did this collection end up on the second hand market? Despite initially being made available via a free airdrop, the relative exclusivity of the Bored Ape Kennel Club boded well for its eventual value on the open market. Although it debuted on the secondary market at about 1 ETH, the price settled in a range well above that in the years that followed. At the time of writing, Bored Ape Kennel Club’s floor price is a healthy 10 ETH on OpenSea.

Now, 10 ETH may still be far from an accessible price point for entry-level collectors, but it’s still cheaper than anything else in the Bored Ape Yacht Club pantheon. At the time of writing, Mutant Ape Yacht Club NFTs have floor prices of approximately 17 ETH on OpenSea. As for the mainline BAYC NFTs, you’ll be looking to shoot out at least 80 ETH on OpenSea to enter this exclusive collectors club.

An NFT for a dog cause

As with the rest of their NFT projects, Yuga Labs has dedicated a portion of the proceeds from secondary sales of the Bored Ape Kennel Club NFT to animal welfare. Unlike the rest of the collections, however, this was not just “a part”. That was all the revenue generated from the initial bet on the open market. In a six-week window after the imprinting of these puppies, Yuga Labs collected a 2.5 percent royalty fee on sales via OpenSea, donating all proceeds to fund animal shelters and other dog-centric charities. The first donation went to fund Wright-Way Rescue, and was handled by The Giving Block.

After the six-week window, the royalty fee was waived entirely. That is, until late announcement in December 2022 indicated that Yuga Labs would charge a 2.5 percent royalty fee on BAKC NFTs traded on OpenSea again. This announcement came just one day after BAYC founder Gordon Goner expressed interest on Twitter in reactivating royalties for the dog project to fund further development.

Given the Bored Ape Kennel Club’s status as a BAYC offshoot, much of its future is tied to the future of the BAYC ecosystem as a whole. However, if Recent news on the upcoming trial version of the Jimmy The Monkey minting event is anything to go by, you’ll probably still need a Bored Ape – Mutant or otherwise – to enjoy the full range of Yuga Labs’ initiatives and plans into the future.