Yuga Labs’ Otherside NFT Sales Break $310M
Important takeaways
- Yuga Labs’ Otherside Metaverse issued its first NFT drop last night to wild success.
- By charging 305 APE tokens for each of 55,000 Otherdeeds, Yuga Labs raised more than $310 million.
- The price of ApeCoin retreated in the wake of the sale, but brought Yuga’s earnings down to $287 million at press time.
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A new Metaverse by Bored Ape Yacht Club creator Yuga Labs has taken the virtual world by storm, bringing in more than $310 million in its highly anticipated NFT drop this weekend.
Break through
On Saturday, April 30, Yuga Labs seeded its first round of Otherdeeds NFTs, making 55,000 NFTs available to pre-approved wallets. At 305 APE a piece – which traded for just under $20 at the time of the coin – the drop brought over $310 million into Yuga’s coffers.
It is widely believed that Otherdeed NFTs will represent countries in the Otherside Metaverse. Otherdeeds could only be purchased in ApeCoin (APE), and until recently what their actual price would be was unknown. This predictably drove up the price of APE in the weeks leading up to the mint.
Otherside is a highly anticipated Metaverse world set to incorporate the branding of various high-profile NFT favorites, most notably Bored Ape Yacht Club, but also Meebits, Cool Cats, CryptoPunks and more. The project is developed by Yuga Labs in collaboration with Animoca Brands, the Hong Kong-based venture capital firm behind the popular but still unreleased Metaverse game, The Sandbox.
Otherdeed NFTs sold for a flat price, although there had originally been plans to launch the project via Dutch auction. However, this plan was eventually abandoned to avoid “a gas war of historic proportions” during what was expected to be one of the largest NFT coins in history. The coin consumed over $177 million in gas fees and there was such a demand for the NFTs that at one point Etherscan crashed.
Only those who pre-registered before April 1, which included undergoing KYC requirements, were eligible to participate in the mint. The shares could only be purchased with ApeCoin (APE), which was launched in March by ApeCoin DAO — an organization not affiliated with Yuga Labs, according to comments Yuga Labs provided to Crypto Briefing last month.
ApeCoin has fallen in the wake of the sale, but is pulling back below $17, wiping more than $23 million from Yuga’s earnings in the first hours of the drop.
At the time of writing, Otherdeeds traded on OpenSea at a floor price of 7.5 ETH.
Disclosure: At the time of writing, the author of this piece owned ETH and several other cryptocurrencies.
