TL;DR
CryptoPunks and Bored Ape Yacht Club, both of which are owned by Yuga Labs, are the two most high profile NFT collections, and both achieved floor prices well above 100 ETH at their peaks. However, both are currently dropping in price, with Bored Apes suffering the biggest decline as it falls below 10 ETH. This appears to be partly due to market conditions, but at the same time, Yuga Labs has come under criticism for its handling of both projects, with complaints suggesting that the company is straying away from the original strengths of the respective collections.
Looking back over the short history of NFTs, two collections stand out: CryptoPunks and Bored Ape Yacht Club. Both dominated in their primes, but are now slipping to new floor price lows, so is it all over for Punks and Bored Apes, or is this just a passing stage in the longer cycle? Let’s look at the two collections and find out.
How CryptoPunks Became Iconic
CryptoPunks were first launched by Larva Labs back in 2017, when the term NFT was still years away from mainstream recognition, and the collection set several standards for future projects, establishing a default supply number (10,000), the use of sideways-facing PFP characters and pixel art design, and even cementing the place of apes and zombies in NFT collections.
Punks were distributed for free before being traded at low prices as on-chain collectibles, but by the time of the 2021 crypto bull run when NFTs exploded into popularity, CryptoPunks were positioned as valuable artifacts in the history of NFTs, Ethereum, and blockchain development as a whole.
What’s more, with NFTs crossing over into the art world, Punks straddled the worlds of crypto and art, with sales at Sotheby’s and Christie’s, and displays at various art galleries around the world.
Why Are CryptoPunks Crashing Now?
At their peak in October 2021, CryptoPunks hit a floor price over 110 ETH, and even though NFTs have endured low trade volumes this cycle, up to the middle of May the Punks collection–the rights to which were acquired by Yuga Labs in 2022–still held a floor price around 38 ETH.
That was down considerably from the highs, but there was a sense that CryptoPunks had special status as an important, one-of-a-kind collection, and perhaps even as digital pop art. However, the charts this month are showing a different story, with the floor price dropping below the 30 ETH level to 24.5 ETH.
As for why this has occurred, at first sight it looks like one trigger was the release in May of a badly received spin-off collection called Super Punk World, by artist Nina Chanel Abney.
There was a frenzy of highly opinionated debate around that launch, but to summarize the main points, critics felt the artwork was–to paraphrase politely–low quality and at odds with the original PFPs, there were accusations that the artist had included a Bud Light political angle, and Yuga Labs was attacked for interfering with the original collection amid a sense that CryptoPunks should simply exist untouched.
Whatever anyone’s views on those criticisms, negative sentiment had been unleashed to the extent that Yuga Labs co-founder Greg Solano posted a statement reassuring Punk holders that, “Yuga will no longer touch Punks. They will just be decentralized and preserved on the blockchain. ”
However, that negative storm is likely not the only factor at play in CryptoPunks’ price drop. If NFTs were booming 2021-style and Punks were trading as though they’d been spun up by Andy Warhol, would an ill-conceived spin-off by an unconnected artist, which doesn’t actually alter the originals, have mattered this much?
Arguably not, and in that case, perhaps CryptoPunks are simply not especially isolated from the ups and downs of the crypto markets–don’t forget that almost everything is dipping at the moment–meaning any potential new buyers may wait for a lower floor before stepping in.
How Bored Apes Climbed to the Top
Moving on to Bored Ape Yacht Club, this collection was launched by Yuga Labs in April 2021 and drew on the template set by CryptoPunks, with a supply of 10,000 PFPs and a focus on apes, after CryptoPunks had included 24 apes in its pioneering collection.
Although BAYC got off to a hesitant start, it was quickly picked up on by influencers and eventually–having taken over the NFT space–drew in high profile celebrities, leading at the height of mainstream interest in NFTs to Paris Hilton and Jimmy Fallon comparing Bored Ape PFPs on primetime US TV.
If CryptoPunks were the cooler, art-oriented collection, Bored Apes were the irreverent party crashers who didn’t care about public opinion, turned the music up loud, and wound up catapulting to a 2022 floor price high of almost 130 ETH.
Why Are Bored Apes Crashing Now?
Yuga Labs has come under harsh scrutiny for its handling of BAYC, and a major criticism is around dilution of the original collection. Initially, the Bored Ape Kennel Club and Mutant Ape Yacht Club companion collections worked very effectively and provided value to holders, but it’s the 2022 Otherdeeds launch–which saw the sale of 55,000 land plots (from a total supply of 100,000) for Yuga’s Otherside gaming/metaverse project–that perhaps signaled an incoming loss of focus.
Then there were the HV-MTL and Legends of the Mara gaming developments and related NFTs, which created yet more questionable expansion and were subsequently sold off to games developer Faraway, and besides the hit-and-miss gaming pivot, there has also been a sequence of acquisitions–as Yuga Labs bought not only CryptoPunks, but also Meebits, 10KTF, and Moonbirds–the purposes of which were unclear.
Also, besides these factors, we have the influence of points farming on NFT marketplace Blur. Some observers claim that farming has propped up NFT prices as trading is incentivized, while others argue that the relentless churn–in which trades are made at a loss in order to accumulate points–damaged NFTs and alienated original collectors. Either way though, the leading points farmer this week publicly ended his activity, and prices on Bored Apes–which were already on a downward trajectory–have subsequently dropped to 8.8 ETH.
Finally then, where does this leave CryptoPunks, Bored Apes and the owner of both, Yuga Labs? It’s notable that in both cases, Yuga has been criticized for doing too much: with Punks, holders just want the collection to be left alone, and in the case of Bored Apes, there’s a feeling that expansion went too far, and Yuga needs to refocus.
So while the firm still has enormous resources at its disposal, the key to a future revival for these iconic collections may in fact be for Yuga to take a more minimal approach.
