10%: We pay back our moms.

20%: We release the Caged Apes. 5 Caged Apes (tokens held back from the sale) are airdropped to random Apeholders.

40%: BAYC gets its own YouTube channel, BAYC LoFi Radio - Beats to Ape into Shitcoins To.

60%: Member-Exclusive BAYC Merch Store gets unlocked, featuring Limited Edition tees, hoodies, and other goodies.

80%: The clubhouse image becomes interactive and the Mysterious Note becomes legible, beginning a treasure hunt. The first to solve the mystery will be rewarded 5 ETH and a Bored Ape.

90%: The Bored Ape liquidity pool is initiated.

100%: The Mutant Ape (NFT Breeding) Arcade Machine gets fixed. And we cook up new ways to ape with our friends.

Roadmap 2.0

Bored Ape Yacht Club was created in April 2021 by the founders of Yuga Labs. The collection launched in September 2021 at the peak of crypto’s bull market. The collection launched with 10,000 unique artworks randomly generated from a set of traits, each priced at 0.08 ETH (equivalent to $220 at the time of launch). By October of 2021, the floor price for a single ape had skyrocketed to 76 ETH ($100,418 at the time). 

BAYC was part of a historic moment in the art world when, in September 2021, Sotheby’s auction house sold a lot of 101 Bored Ape NFTs for $24 million.

The collection has gained notoriety for its celebrity following, which drove up trading prices and led to its connotation with exclusivity and status. Stephen Curry, Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Paris Hilton, Justin Bieber, Jimmy Fallon, Mark Cuban, Shaquille O’Neal, Steve Aoki, Gwenyth Paltrow, Serena Williams have all owned Bored Ape NFTs. 

Yuga Labs has since released several BAYC spin-off collections (Bored Ape Kennel Club, Mutant Ape Yacht Club) and taken over intellectual property rights for CryptoPunks and Meebits NFT collections. 

Beyond monetary value, BAYC also leads the NFT space in brand building. Through its exclusive network and in-person events, physical merchandise, investment in the metaverse, and publication of future product plans, BAYC has set a high bar for both web2 and web3 brands to provide value to their consumers.

The idea of Bored Ape Yacht Club came from a congregation place for bored billionaire “apes” (slang in Crypto twitter) to hang out, make memes, and talk numbers.

The backstory of BAYC goes: “The year is 2031. BTC and ETH have taken over the world. Everyone who aped into crypto is rich beyond their wildest dreams. But now they are all bored and want to hang out with other like-minded apes. To do that, you need to go somewhere special.”

The Bored Ape founders were initially anonymous, identifying themselves on their website as, “four friends who set out to make some dope apes, test our skills, and try to build something (ridiculous).” They were known only by their internet pseudonyms: Gargamel, Gordon Goner, Emperor Tomato Ketchup, and No Sass.

A journalist from Buzzfeed news later identified the real identities of Gargamel and Gordon Goner by tracing publicly available records from Yuga Labs. Greg Solano and Wylie Aronow are both men in their 30s who met in a creative writing MFA program.

Greg Solano (co-founder at BAYC and Yuga Labs) went to the University of Virginia and studied MFA (Master of Fine Arts) in Creative Writing. He was previously a book critic and editor, and is one of the co-authors of a book about “World of Warcraft.” The 32-year-old from Miami was introduced to cryptocurrencies in 2017 when his brother-in-law invested in a small quantity of Ethereum. A short while later, Solano also introduced Wylie to crypto, and they started brainstorming together for unique business ideas.  

Wylie Aronow (co-founder at Yuga Labs) was once a part-time trader in NFTs. Wylie initially “believed that NFTs had to have a purpose other than becoming virtual treasures.” Therefore, he decided to create a concept in which purchasers could make some gains and obtain value from their tokens, and this is one of the reasons that led to the creation of BAYC. 

Kerem Atalay (developer at BAYC and executive officer and director at Yuga Labs) studied computer science at the University of Virginia and is an engineer. Kerem was initially brought into BAYC to deal with the programming side of the business and ensure that the company's blockchain coding was of the highest quality. 

Zeshan Ali (executive officer and director at Yuga Labs, co-founder at BAYC) studied at the University of Virginia and graduated in computer science. Zeshan is one of the programmers who worked to make the BAYC concept a success. 

Genesis collection

The BAYC genesis collection consists of 10,000 NFTs that were initially designed to be simple profile pictures. Each NFT features a Bored Ape that has a combination of four to seven traits from a possible 170 variable traits. This makes the NFTs highly unique with distinct facial features, accessories, backgrounds, and clothing. Bored Apes with only four traits are the rarest, and so far, there are only 254 in circulation. Apes with six traits are the most common, with more than 5,300 in circulation. 

Out of the entire collection, “Only 49 Bored Apes have a dagger in their mouth, 108 have cyborg eyes, and 115 have a cross earring.” This means that they are among the unique Apes on the market and are likely to fetch a significant price on the market. Further analysis of the NFTs demonstrates that some of them have features that make them even rarer. For example, only 26 Apes show a bored expression, are unshaven, and are pictured eating pizza, while only 42 Apes are dressed in a black suit. Ultimately, the tiered rarity system ensures that the NFT with the rarest features fetches the highest price. 

Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) is a collection of up to 20,000 “Mutant Ape” NFTs that can only be created by exposing an existing Bored Ape to a digital vial of “mutant serum,” or by minting a Mutant Ape in the public sale.

The Mutant Yacht Club (MAYC) was initially released in August 2021 as a members-only NFT collection, wherein BAYC holders were airdropped digital bottles of “mutant serum” that could be used to create a derivative NFT from their Bored Ape. The MAYC collection was subsequently opened up to the public, leading to a wave of new purchases of mutant ape NFTs. 

Much like BAYC NFTs, there is also high demand for MAYC. Gauging the MAYC floor price over time measures the demand for these digital assets. From August 29, 2021, the floor price of MAYC started at around 4 ETH. The floor price shot up to 1878.75% on April 29, 2022, which was 79.15 ETH.

Bored Ape Kennel Club 

The Bored Ape Kennel Club (BAKC) collection introduces 10,000 digital dogs as the best friend of each BAYC NFT. Each dog in the kennel club is unique and programmatically-generated from over 170 possible traits. As with all BAYC collections, some traits are rarer than others. 

There are 10,000 total Bored Ape Kennel Club NFTs. Each BAKC dog is stored as an ERC-721 token on the Ethereum blockchain and hosted on IPFS. Among the four notable NFT collections in the BAYC ecosystem, BAKC has the lowest market cap at 111.68 ETH. 

 

The BAKC collection will have a 2.5% royalty fee associated with secondary sales on OpenSea. All proceeds generated from this fee were donated to no-kill animal shelters via The Giving Block. The first donation would be to Wright-Way Rescue. 

Otherdeed for Otherside

Launched on April 30, 2022, Otherdeeds are NFTs that let users buy real estate in the Otherside metaverse. Though BAYC collections traditionally have a high price tag, Otherdeed for Otherside has the lowest floor price among the collections in the BAYC ecosystem as of August 15, 2022. 

There are 100,000 Otherdeed NFTs, making them less exclusive than other collections in the BAYC ecosystem. Though the Otherdeed NFT collection is a few months old, there are over 34,000 landowners, according to OpenSea. The number of Otherdeed NFT holders currently outnumbers the holders of BAYC, MAYC, and BAKC altogether.

Although it is the newest NFT collection in the BAYC ecosystem, it is ranked third in largest market cap among all NFT collections.

Because of their high price tag and celebrity following, BAYC avatars have become synonymous with exclusivity and wealth—but holders get benefits that go beyond just money and power. 

Commercial usage

Each ape NFT comes with its own fictional backstory created by the project’s developers, and BAYC gives members full commercial rights over their avatars with no monetary cap. 

Purchasing an NFT from the BAYC or MAYC collection means you own it. NFT holders receive full ownership and commercial rights to their apes; this means that along with owning an expensive and exclusive digital asset, they can also further profit from its ownership. For example, NFT holders can sell merchandise of their bored apes or use them in the branding of their company.

Yacht club members are taking full advantage of the opportunity and moving to stake their claim in Hollywood. Music producer Timbaland is creating an artist-owned ape metaverse for potential creative projects called Ape-In Productions. Hollywood agency CAA has signed Jenkins the Valet, a Bored Ape character, for commercial, movie and TV projects. Universal Music Group has signed a band of Bored Apes called KINGSHIP. Adidas bought an ape of their own and is creating a whole metaverse based on their avatar, with endless possibilities for shoe and apparel use.

Community membership

Owning a traditional ape, a mutant ape, or even a Bored Ape Kennel Club NFT gives you entry into one of the world's most exclusive members-only social clubs.

The Bathroom

As a member of BAYC, collectors are granted access to the private bathroom—a digital board where ape owners can paint a pixel on the bathroom wall every fifteen minutes. In an innovative art project, club members can collaborate on an art project while remaining anonymous due to high-quality security.

Exclusive events

BAYC hosts a yearly festival called ApeFest for owners of bored apes and mutant apes. In 2021, the festival featured a party on a yacht and performances by Lil Baby, The Strokes, Chris Rock, and Aziz Ansari. Celebrity guests were also present such as Kygo, showcasing the celebrity promotion of the project.

The Otherside metaverse is a 3D virtual world developed by Yuga Labs based on the BAYC collection. In this world, the BAYC story comes to life as an online multiplayer game wherein BAYC NFTs are playable characters. BAYC’s metaverse experience is intended to expand the utility of BAYC NFTs and will allow players to bring select third-party NFTs into the game. In the game, players will be able to explore an open world, go on quests, own land, and harvest resources. 

To gain acces into The Otherside, players must purchase an Otherdeed token, which is essentially a deed to a specific plot of land within the metaverse. There are 200,000 parcels of land in The Otherside, each of which is characterized by a unique combination of features that determine its overall value: environment, resources, sediment, Koda (a fictional creature), and its proximity to the “center” of the metaverse.

Environments

There are eight different environments in The Otherside: Decay, Harsh, Spirit, Volcanic, Mineral, Growth, Psychedelic, and Chaos. Each environment has four sub-environments (except Chaos, which only has one sub-environment). Each sub-environment has five different tiers, where one is the lowest and five is the highest (the higher the tier, the more developed the land).

Resources

Players can extract a variety of resources from their land to use in the virtual world. There are 74 total resources categorized into four groups: Anima (research), Ore (metal), Shard (stone), and Root (wood). Each resource has a specific tier, between one and three, where one is the lowest and three is the highest.

Sediment

There are five sediments that Otherside lands are built upon: Biogenic Swamp, Chemical Goo, Rainbow Atmos, Cosmic Dream, and Infinite Expanse.

Otherdeed Tiers:

Sludge - Tier 1

Bog - Tier 2

Obsidian - Tier 3

Luster - Tier 4

Biogenic Swamp Crimson - Tier 5

Artifacts

Each piece of land in The Otherside may contain an Artifact; some artifacts can be crafted, and some can't. In total, there are 74 different artifacts categorized into six groups: 1on1, Creatures, Tools, Celestial, Orb, and Obelisk. Artifacts have special secrets. At the moment, we do not yet know what you can do and what artifacts are.

Kodas

Kodas are a collection of 10,000 rare creatures, a 'race of celestials' with unique traits and high value in the Metaverse. While the BAYC team has revealed little about Kodas, a leaked pitch deck defines them as a race of celestial beings important to the survival of The Otherside—their cosmic energy holds the metaverse together.

“The massive ecosystem in the Otherside metaverse has been created to house Kodas, the unique beings that served as Otherside’s foundation. Yuga Labs describes them as creatures that helped users travel to the Otherside. In addition, the existing narrative around Kodas is considerably vague, especially considering the suspense around the Otherside metaverse. However, it is clear that Kodas are inherently associated with the Otherside land, and developers have asked users to tread cautiously when they encounter one. Apparently, Kodas could be found in only 10% of all the Otherdeed plots.” 

Meet the Bored Ape Yacht Club Founders in Their First Video Interview (INVERSE.com)

How Four NFT Novices Created a Billion Dollar Ecosystem of Cartoon Apes (RollingStone)

How Did the Bored Ape Yacht Club Get So Popular? (Wired)

Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs Are Still Selling... And Being Stolen (Forbes)