Bored Ape History

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You have to know the past, to understand the present. How four crypto degens created a billion-dollar ecosystem of cartoon apes and how they have turned @yugalabs in a $4b crypto startup. A long 🧵

February, 21 All started when @GordonGoner texted @CryptoGarga. They, both in their mid-thirties, had been friends for a decade before deciding to start something together last year. Both was early in Crypto and also after the 2018 crash they remained believers.

They always admired the CryptoPunks and dreamed from a project with the appeal of the punks but also add value to it. They enlisted two friends, @SassBAYC and @TomatoBAYC, both software engineers, to help build before they really had any idea what they were building 🤓.

Garga texted Tomato, at this time he thought JavaScript was important to make an NFT, which it super isn't. ❌ Second thing which was wrong in his text message was the launch a SMALL crypto project. 🤑

They learned more about NFTs, and became excited about the possibilities opened up by the technology. The artwork as a key to access locked content, experiences, apparel...anything. There’s a long history of crypto traders affectionately referring to themselves as ‘Apes’.

It’s one of the reasons why some of the most valuable NFTs in the Cryptopunks collection are Apes. They imagined a future where crypto changed the world,where everybody in crypto ‘made it’. Everyone who ‘aped’ or went hard into crypto became rich beyond their wildest imagination.

But then what? What’s a Bored Ape to do? Their answer: Hang out in a secret club in the swamp, for Apes only. And write graffiti on a collaborative pixel board on the club’s Bathroom wall. Now it was time to bring the idea of a club, a digital swampland Soho House to life.

The main connection to the tech world was Gordon’s old friend Nicole Muniz @VStrangeYUGA. She had spent the last decade working on strategies for the likes of FB, Google, and startups. “I’m not the person with a creative idea, but I can help you execute it, make it make money.”

“I introduced them to a ton of people so they could actually start building it out,” Nicole said. Illustrating the Bored Apes was the result of a combined effort from a team of talented freelancers. Base character and some of its signature expressions was done by @allseeingseneca twitter.com/allseeingseneca/status/1422917423884341253?s=20&t=1wgJ9tnnR2NBMi0zTK5Etg

After that @migwasher, @thomasdagley and two other artists who prefer to remain anonymous created the design of the club itself as well all kinds of expressions, clothing, and accessories which were then scrambled at random into 10,000 distinct, computer-generated avatars.

It became real! ✅ Gordon said: “Even when there was no hope in the world, I was like, ‘This is gonna work.’" This was the first Twitter post from the official account @BoredApeYC twitter.com/BoredApeYC/status/1383466067419299840?s=20&t=jORGI9XUvrNlsQZjILyB9Q

April 23, 2021 The Bored Ape Yacht Club launched with a week-long pre-sale. The cost to mint a Bored Ape NFT was .08 ETH, or around $220 in USD at the time. The Bored Apes did not arrive with a bunch of hype. sales were slow, only 500 apes were minted during the pre-sale. twitter.com/BoredApeYC/status/1385750407268417536?s=20&t=WlZNf2UnWjdD4PCf2XbcAw

May 1, 2021 The remaining Bored Apes (9,500 or so) were minted in one insane night. The collection sold out in the early morning of May 1st 2021. That night, BAYC was the most-used smart contract on the Ethereum network, flipping UniSwap. 🥳

@SassBAYC said: “I’ll never forget the night, it was like two or three in the morning, and I hear my phone ring. I see that it’s Tomato and think something has gone terribly wrong. ‘Dude, you need to wake up right now. We just made a million dollars.’”

The initial sale of 10,000 apes had netted them $2 million, which was also needed for paying their moms back for fronting them the money for BAYC. While many crypto founders would’ve taken the money and run they have decided to build 💪 and work.

“We hadn’t seen any collections that had a roadmap. There was just, okay, you buy the thing.” said Gordon. “The main thing was that it was a club. But the second thing was that road map. What utility can we design for them?” At this point, they thought of Yuga as “Web3 Supreme. twitter.com/BoredApeYC/status/1383467162044571648?s=20&t=TgtuY4Yvmig5gW663iOXTg

A core part of the Bored Ape Yacht Club #NFT was THE BATHROOM, a collaborative art board for token holders. Think of it as the bathroom wall at a member's-only dive bar, ready to be scrawled on. twitter.com/corporatetrash1/status/1566618929132363781?s=20&t=1wgJ9tnnR2NBMi0zTK5Etg

Ape holders are given commercial rights to their specific ape. You can sell its likeness or make derivatives of it. You can give others permission to use it. It’s yours. You own the underlying Bored Ape, the Art, completely,” the contract declared. More to IP today, later 👇

May 2, 2021 First post from @_PPMan_ in the BAYC Discord. Happy Birthday btw 🎂

May 29, 2021 The first merch drop only for holders sold out in 6 minutes. Of course, they knew nothing about fulfillment at this time, they foolishly decided to handle the shipping themselves. 😅 twitter.com/BoredApeYC/status/1398762791587229698?s=20

June 18, 2021 Bored Ape Kennel Club (BAKC) joined the family. Each owner of a BAYC was able to claim a companion dog NFT. All proceeds generated from royalty fees in the first 6 weeks went to several animal charities, after which the secondary sale commission was set to zero. twitter.com/BoredApeYC/status/1406008682006069248?s=20&t=15e9MGks7ei2OheauNm3gg

July 27, 2021 Basketball NFT airdrop and later IRL claim. twitter.com/BoredApeYC/status/1420097939888910346?s=20&t=UqXS6SaNDkfyg5NR8b6RKQ

August 24, 2021 The BAYC concept got weirder: Ape holders could now “breed” their ape using a “Mutant Serum,” which would morph the avatar into what Gordon describes as a “Thrasher magazine version of the apes,” First and legendary fuck it tweet, as a teaser of the Mutants: twitter.com/BoredApeYC/status/1430224271712862208?s=20&t=GvRqCS14DlQVOr__NeStWw

August 28, 2021 Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) launched. Each owner of a Bored Ape received a serum that could be used to mutate their Bored Ape into a Mutant Ape with corresponding traits. An additional 10,000 Mutant Ape NFTs were also made available in a public mint. twitter.com/BoredApeYC/status/1431778965740564482?s=20&t=XDbW2x8cBqvmQ7UCDZVzRw

@VStrangeYUGA worked closely with the founders on the drop strategy/pricing, and how they could use mutants to expand the club without feeling any less special. “MAYC could have gone terribly wrong. It was really important that it didn’t feel like a cash grab, because it wasn’t.”

Still, the mutants generated a ton of money, close to $100 million after selling out in an hour, having gone on sale at a starting price of nearly $10,000 each. The timing was perfect. Bored Apes had started to proliferate as Twitter PFPs. Current BAYC members loved MAYC.

September 13, 2021 Interactive treasure hunt just for BAYC members, who explored the inside and outside the clubhouse and solved puzzles left by a trouble-making monkey named Jimmy. twitter.com/BoredApeYC/status/1437580836099006465?s=20&t=7yRo5o6NiVmfA2a4KZqYFQ

September 21, 2021 Roadmap 2.0 ☠️🦍⛵️ was announced and this roadmap is still valid, even wen not all from this roadmap was launched until now. twitter.com/BoredApeYC/status/1440392967437488134?s=20&t=4YLafoVGsubXG-mWfWbclA

October 10, 2021 First $APE token information twitter.com/BoredApeYC/status/1446569318540615681?s=20&t=eE9cQlQdMhnM3pJSgRWu4w

October 12, 2021 After the first phone call back in July22 (introduced by @beeple) @guyoseary joined the club. “Initially, I came on as a manager.” He helped to expand into music, TV and film. “At some point, it went beyond management,” Oseary said. twitter.com/BoredApeYC/status/1447922609266601990?s=20&t=dAsBFUynYkg91BSSntNFyQ

October 31-November 6, 2021 ApeFest #1 in New York. Members had access to an exclusive Halloween yacht party, art gallery and limited-edition merch pop up, among other perks.

After Apefest Gordon and Garga asked @VStrangeYUGA: ‘Why don’t you just come in as CEO?’” first a recall but then she started in January and upgraded the original ambition: “People were still talking about us as monkey JPEGs. We were never gonna get to the place that we wanted

to be if we were just an NFT collection.” Out went Web3 Supreme, and in came “Web3 Disney,” as Muniz describes her vision. The goal now is to build a company with iconic IP assets that it monetizes across a sprawling, interrelated network of games, books, movies, and shows.

January 21, 2021 Holders competed in the week-long BAYC x MAYC Mobile Game Competition. The top 1,000 scorers for each NFT collection were eligible for physical prizes, including a toy plushie, a bong, a sewer-grate sculpture, a pinball machine, and a converted 02 Honda Accord. twitter.com/BoredApeYC/status/1460441263694655493?s=20&t=UGd995ACuZWT_EPy76Rw-w

With the help of @guyoseary a lot of celebrities entered the swamp over the past couple of months. “I thought these four dudes were like a rock band. You want to make sure your music [NFTs] is heard by the right audience.” he said. twitter.com/AltcoinDailyio/status/1508175248490782722?s=20&t=_UUT-60kc58ISVRk1Oz9eQ

Feb 5, 2022 Bored Ape Yacht Club's Founders were doxxed by BuzzFeed @katienotopoulos. decrypt.co/92223/bayc-bored-ape-founders-buzzfeed

March 11, 2022 First cryptic announcement of the Otherside with a second legendary "fuck it" tweet. twitter.com/BoredApeYC/status/1502056861624946688?s=20&t=GvRqCS14DlQVOr__NeStWw

March 12, 2022 @yugalabs has acquired the CryptoPunks and Meebits collections from @LarvaLabs, and the first thing they have done is giving full commercial rights to the NFT holders. Just like they did for BAYC and MAYC owners. twitter.com/BoredApeYC/status/1502421061387882503?s=20&t=Yn7cHxjRBaycp37pA2llCA

“I think the original idea [for the acquisition] came from Guy, our partner,” Gordon said, “and he was the one who helped facilitate that deal.” Yuga did not disclose the value of the deal, but the rumor mill put the price at anywhere between $100 million and $500 million. 👀

With the purchase of the Punks and Meebs YUGA controls the majority of the NFT marketshare. A few months ago i have written a 🧵 why this is very important and was a very smart move from YUGA. twitter.com/0xBonzo/status/1554962280848269314?s=20&t=1wgJ9tnnR2NBMi0zTK5Etg

A few days after the news of the purchase, what appeared to be Yuga’s pitch deck bestpitchdeck.com/yuga-labs for investors leaked online, revealing the startup’s success in startling detail. Gordon was not happy. twitter.com/GordonGoner/status/1503824994475950080?s=20&t=STwOkWujGXMjJ6yvDsXlHw

March 16, 2022 Yuga introduced @apecoin, a cryptocurrency for all transactions within Otherside. Yuga insisted that it would not control ApeCoin: Technically it was launched and run by a DAO, and the tokens are used to vote for proposals. Bored Ape holders received 15%. twitter.com/apecoin/status/1504201556165644298?s=20&t=l838P_vXzPzf1MEgcQmg_A

March 19, 2022 First @OthersideMeta teaser video. @VStrangeYUGA: “Otherside is a game, but it’s really a platform,” and when articulating Yuga’s business model, she reiterates, “We’ll also be introducing more platform thinking into the ecosystem and how we run the company.” twitter.com/yugalabs/status/1505014986556551172?s=20&t=aW-vidzttNNQDooQ4yL6Vg

March 22, 2022 Yuga closed $450 million in a seed funding round that gives it a post-money valuation of $4 billion. Yuga decided to raise money because both Gordon and Muniz sensed that a bear market was coming, and they wanted significant reserves. twitter.com/Ape2047/status/1506376306308571148?s=20&t=-U64TNOSSIt8oCOccaOlOw

April 30, 2022 The Otherside mint. The KYC on somethingisbrewing xyz was to participate in the mint — only those who KYCed was able to participate. Gas was ridiculous 🙈 and not everybody was happy about the KYC. decrypt.co/99219/otherside-nft-mint-burned-more-157m-ethereum

June 20-23, 2022 Apefest 2022 on @Pier17NY in NYC was stunning over all expectations incl. live performances from @Eminem x @SnoopDogg. twitter.com/BoredApeYC/status/1541526892863492096?s=20&t=vxDRxrFOYzca7AWmlPkBDg

July 16, 2022 First and until today only trip on the @OthersideMeta was a tech trip. As the name implies, this demo was designed to show off the technical capabilities of the Otherside platform and it was stunning 🤩. twitter.com/OthersideMeta/status/1555271228667076610?s=20&t=7TknAojMzwwWToogwaEM-g

Otherside is being built by @Improbableio, a decade-old metaverse engineering company with approximately 1,000 employees that’s backed by A16z. decrypt.co/111088/bored-apes-otherside-builders-improbable-eyes-fresh-funding-3-billion-valuation-report

August 15, 2022 The BAYC Twitter account reached 1m followers. twitter.com/BoredApeYC/status/1559276287621009409?s=20&t=s0aPPDxYBEEgeWiOwkb5tA

August 29, 2022 Snoop Dogg and Eminem performed on the @vmas stage. They have brought the Yacht Club and @OthersideMeta to life on the VMA stage. twitter.com/vmas/status/1564074360884822018?s=20&t=WmG4ddJl-msBQFojuzpvvA

October 8, 2022 BAYC x @TheSandboxGame experience was announced. twitter.com/TheSandboxGame/status/1578740687691952128?s=20&t=_N23BVFmUB3nqKXzkm_F6Q

October 10, 2022 BAYC community council was announced to help the community grow and thrive. twitter.com/BoredApeYC/status/1577691866677510147?s=20&t=Nw7bB9p4zXpd1eTmDTwhvg

Since mint in April 2021, a huge IP Ecosytem developed around the Bored and Mutant Apes. Checkout this 🧵 with the latest updates around IP usage on the Apes from @harry_forj twitter.com/harry_forj/status/1588293289664712704?s=20&t=TgtuY4Yvmig5gW663iOXTg

November 3, 2022 Finally some news from the Meebits. According to rumors @GordonGoner had new ideas for Meebs on his holidays.... 🤔 MB1 was announced, the first chapter of the story with a new webpage as a central hub for upcoming experiences, activations, and opportunities. twitter.com/MeebitsNFTs/status/1588159420365783045?s=20&t=8iDxmzskrbZxFk2MqjPwjQ

As you have seen the last few months have been very quiet because YUGA is building, they are working very hard at the moment to scale the company (>80 employees👇), building the collection teams to launch new things in the end of Q4. 💪 twitter.com/0xBonzo/status/1576250869149884416?s=20&t=7yRo5o6NiVmfA2a4KZqYFQ

That's it, thx for reading 🙏. A long and awesome @BoredApeYC journey, proud to be part of it since August, 2021. ❤️ Attached a summary what could happen in the next weeks/months from @VStrangeYUGA CEO of YUGA. twitter.com/0xBonzo/status/1588272914788323328?s=20&t=2nbnDWfp79Da6qYwcKFn3g

If you have enjoyed reading please like ❤️ and retweet 🔁 with a comment ✍️. Tltr: Trust YUGA 💎✋ We have a great culture. Positive, friendly and helpful. Let's keep it this way! Yours, ₿onzo🤟 DYOR twitter.com/0xBonzo

References Yuga Press: news.yuga.com/lets-make-a-nft @BoredApeYC Discord and Twitter @FastCompany: fastcompany.com/90796009/bored-ape-yacht-club-tell-all-the-untold-story-of-the-4-billion-crypto-startup