In short
- Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT prices have dropped significantly in recent weeks.
- Musician Justin Bieber bought a Common Ape for $1.3 million in January, far more than a similar NFT would sell on the open market today.
Bored Ape Yacht Club the hype was in full swing earlier this year as celebrities “entered” the expensive Ethereum NFT collection. Some have even used their monkeys to create products, themed restaurants, live showsand more.
But the buzz died down in the middle of the crypto bear market, and the price to join the exclusive club has gone down more and more in recent weeks. And a Bored Ape “floor,” like the one singer Justin Bieber spent $1.3 million in ETH to buy in January, now sells for a tiny fraction of that price.
At the time of this writing, the Bored Ape Yacht Club floor price, i.e. the price of the cheapest available NFT listed on a market – is around 58.2 ETH, per data from NFT floor price, or about $69,800. On Monday, the floor price fell below $60,000 for the second time this month, but rallied throughout the day on Tuesday.
November was a tough month for the Bored Apes as the USD price floor fell 33% since the start of the month. The last weeks collapse of popular crypto exchange FTX had an apparent impact on the NFT market, driving down crypto prices and impacting NFT valuations as well, but other notable projects don’t take such a beating as the monkeys.
CryptoPunks, another “blue chip” NFT project owned by Yuga Labs, saw its floor price drop 23% this month to around $79,800 (66.5 ETH) in November. Its price in ETH today is almost identical to what it was on November 1; what has changed is the USD value of ETH. The Bored Ape floor, on the other hand, rose from 66.6 ETH to 58.2 ETH, and fell to 48 ETH on Tuesday morning.
The Bored Ape floor peaked at around $429,000 (152 ETH) in late April, before the crypto market crash, due to hype surrounding the launch of NFT plots for Yuga Otherside metaverse game. Bored Ape owners just cashed in Launch of ApeCoin in March and were willing to receive Otherside land for free, making NFTs look like gifts that kept on giving.
But the crypto crash has led to a rapid decrease in the speculative frenzy around NFTs, which has sent Bored Ape prices down significantly over the past six months. The entry price for a Bored Ape today is around 84% lower than it was at the April peak, measured in USD.
An NFT is a blockchain token that represents ownership of an item, including unique profile pictures (PFPs) like the Bored Ape Yacht Club. The project’s 10,000 NFT avatars give users access to a community and private events, as well as exclusive merchandise, potential future NFTs and token drops, and the ability to market their own NFT artwork.
Amid the decline, we haven’t seen any major recent examples of celebrities flocking to the project, following a shopping spree late 2021 and early 2022 which brought the likes of Jimmy Fallon, Steph Curry, Madonna, Eminem, Gwyneth Paltrow and Snoop Dogg into the club.
Lower prices also made some of Bored Ape’s seven-figure buys stand out even more in retrospect. A notable example is musician Justin Bieber’s January purchase of an Ape for $1.3 million (500 ETH) – a pickup that was deemed questionable at the time by crypto influencers who said he paid too much for a monkey with very common traits.
Next time you think you’re bad, just remember that.@justinbieber just bought a ground monkey for 500 ETH.
— gmoney.eth (@gmoneyNFT) January 29, 2022
“Who [the fuck] advises Justin Bieber’s NFT buys,” tweeted Farokh Sarmad, co-founder and host of Rug Radio, “and how do I get in touch to sell them [floor] NFT for 500 ETH?
It is ranked as the 9,810th rarest bored monkey based on its traits and characteristics, per Rarity Toolsmeaning it would likely sell for rock bottom if it weren’t linked to a world famous celebrity.
A similar Ape could sell today for almost one ninth of that price in ETH, or nearly 1/19th of the price in USD. Buying Bieber may have marked the peak of the Bored Ape celebrity boom, though holders like Eminem and Snoop Dogg continued to use their monkeys prominently since.
However, lower prices appear to be boosting sales: some $6.5 million worth of monkeys were sold on Tuesday, according to data from CryptoSlam, a 135% increase from the previous day’s sales.
This has been quite common in the days following the BendDAO overflow.
BendDAO concerns hammer the floor well below where people are calibrated, and then when people realize there is buying interest, they rush to buy.
Also, I think Blur 0-fee, 0-royalty creates a lot more rollovers.
— NFTstatistics.eth (@punk9059) November 16, 2022
Pseudonymous crypto analyst Punk9059, research director for startup NFT Proof, tweeted that the floor price of Bored Ape tends to fall as owners worry about NFT liquidations from BendDAO, an NFT lending service, but then sales increase and the floor price recovers as people buy the NFTs .
They also cited the impact of the recent NFT Blur marketplace, which is aimed at “professional marketers” and does not charge marketplace fees or impose royalties on creators. Punk9059 suggested that such an environment”[creates] many more flips” from Bored Ape traders.