In late 2021, a report on the NFT market scene by Chainalysis stated that there was a “noticeable spike” in total value sent starting in the final week of August that year. This allegedly came after the Bored Ape Yacht Club dropped a new collection.
Now, around half a year later, where does BAYC stand in terms of value? And, could a shocking development change its fortunes?
The numbers went bananas
The OurNetwork newsletter revealed some formidable insights about the Bored Ape NFTs. For instance, the total trading volume has gone beyond $1.3 billion. What’s more, while August 2021 saw highs of $292 million in terms of volume, January 2022 was a close second with $278 million.
As far as wallets are concerned, OurNetwork noted that close to half of all Bored Apes are the only apes in their respective wallets. Also, while the highest ROI on a sold Bored Ape NFT was around 170x, the average was closer to 30x when looking at the top 1000 wallets.
That being said, the Bored Ape Yacht Club has been in the news for reasons besides its numbers lately.
Unmask yourself, monkey man
An investigation by Buzzfeed revealed the names and professions of the founders behind BAYC. The two are men in their thirties from Florida and expressed an interest in reading and creative writing. After entering crypto, they reportedly collaborated to produce an NFT collection, using the expertise of an illustrator and two engineers.
Following the release of the report, the crypto-community raised an uproar. While some claimed that Buzzfeed’s investigation was warranted, considering the billion dollar trading volumes of BAYC, others believe it isn’t in the public’s interest to expose anonymous creators who have been working on something as innocuous as monkey NFTs.
these two humans chose to remain anonymous, building something wonderful with no dependency on their identity
we chose to dox them after an unremarkable investigation for…. literally no reason
but “what if”?
shame on you @buzzfeed and cheering enablers
this ain’t journalism pic.twitter.com/BXV817ljpS
— Mike DAOdas (🏌️♂️, ⛳️) (@mdudas) February 5, 2022
Anti-privacy journalists like @katienotopoulos are disgusting.
+ No reason to dox the founders
+ Creates actual security risks for private citizens
+ Dox motivated by clicks, ad revenue, and self-righteous bullshit.But she’s got a check mark! So it’s ok! https://t.co/mqsUB8aiLx
— Ryan Selkis 📖 🖊🔑 (@twobitidiot) February 5, 2022
BAYC’s co-founders stated on their Twitter accounts that they had been “doxxed” – An act that refers to exposing and publishing an individual’s intimate details by means of digital tools.
Curiously, others in the crypto-community pointed out that BAYC’s founders could not claim a violation of privacy when considering the public-facing nature of the commercial ventures the team is planning to pursue.
If @yugalabs wanna stay anonymous maybe dont —
1) Register a company in Delaware associated to IRL name
2) Sign a celebrity deal with @guyoseary
3) Get a fiat investment from @a16z
4) Deny equity to your OG artist @allseeingseneca
— ◥◤Nimrod Kamer (@nnimrodd) February 5, 2022
Now, the question remains – Will this loss of anonymity affect the Bored Apes’ ROI in February 2022?
BAYC, not so breezy
According to Defi Llama, the daily volume of the Bored Ape Yacht Club has been falling since 30 January. At press time, BAYC’s daily volume was 268.9 ETH. This was a drop of 81.51%.
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