Cody McGrath 
BAYC celebrated its one-year anniversary and some long-time Apes reflected on how the NFT project helped push the web3 space forward and became a cultural phenomenon
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) were an esoteric concept used by a few crypto enthusiasts five years ago, but that changed in 2021 when NFTs became mainstream. Since then, the niche has wreaked havoc on a variety of industries, most notably the art and gaming industries.
While there are hundreds of different NFT projects on the market today, each attempting to outperform the others, a few, such as the well-known Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), have changed the lives of some investors in a short period of time.
BAYC Celebrates Its 1st Anniversary
On April 23, 2022, BAYC celebrated its one-year anniversary, and some long-time Apes, such as web3 enthusiast Chris Jourdan, AKA Captain Zwingli, reflected on how the NFT project helped push “the web3 space forward” and became “a cultural phenomenon.”
“One year ago today, the Bored Ape Yacht Club mint began… What an insane year. Here’s to many more to come. Happy Birthday, apes! “
—Bored Ape Yacht Club
Gordon Goner, a fellow club co-founder, echoed Garga’s remarks and thanked Bored Ape Yacht Club members for an incredible first year. “Thank you for this past year, apes.
Working on behalf of the Bored Ape Yacht Club continues to be the greatest privilege of my life. I don’t take it for granted for even a moment. Happy Birthday.”
BAYC Otherside Meta Project
The Bored Ape Yacht Club released new information about the club’s upcoming metaverse to commemorate the club’s first birthday.
Following the announcement, apes and NFT fans flocked to the Otherside Discord. Thousands of people flocked to the new channel in minutes, crashing the Discord server.
While little is known about the Otherside metaverse, on March 18, 2022, Yuga Labs, the Bored Ape Yacht Club’s parent company, released a 90-second teaser trailer.
Users expect the Otherside Meta project to be the sale of virtual land that can only be purchased with Bored Ape Yacht Club’s native ecosystem coin, APE.
BAYC Achievements In A Year
The Bored Ape Yacht Club has accomplished a lot in a year. The club presented each ape with a Bored Ape Kennel Club Dog in June and donated the $500,000 in royalties to Orangutan Outreach. The Mutant Ape Yacht Club was founded in August to expand the club’s membership.
Later that fall, the Bored Ape Yacht Club hosted Ape Fest, a gathering of apes and mutant apes from all over the world. The club then launched $Ape Coin and created the ApeCoin DAO in March, just two months after 22 apes competed in the first of its kind mobile game competition.
Yuga Labs launched the Bored Ape Yacht Club, a collection of 10,000 Bored Ape NFTs, in April 2021. Users who participated in the BAYC public minting paid a flat price of 0.08 ETH (roughly $190) for each ape, unlike other NFT projects that used bonding curve offering (BCO).
“So much to be grateful for, and so much balder than I was a year ago.”
— BAYC Co-Founder Garga
Captain Zwingli believes that BAYC’s founders’ decision to use a fair, flat price distribution for the collection contributed significantly to the project’s early success.
However, prior to the public launch, the BAYC deployer contract minted the first 30 apes and distributed them to the Web3 ecosystem’s founders and other active members. On April 23, 2021, the remaining 9,970 Apes became available for public minting.
Surprisingly, the collection’s floor price dropped by about 40% from the minting price at one point, with the least expensive Bored Ape trading for around 0.03 ETH ($70).
After one of them traded for about 0.16 ETH in secondary sales, all 10,000 Apes were minted about a week into the public event. That’s when crypto investors became interested in the BAYC collection, and prices skyrocketed in the months that followed.
Not long after, mainstream investors, including well-known celebrities and large corporations, began flocking to the BAYC, boosting the NFTs’ popularity and floor price.
The BAYC collection’s current floor price is 139 ETH (approximately $403,000), representing a return on investment of more than 173,600 percent. However, outside of the floor price, the most expensive BAYC NFT, Bored Ape #8817, sold for a record $3.4 million, with other rare and notable Apes fetching up to $2.3 million.