Are Bored Ape NFTs Still A Good Investment? (2024)

The Bored Ape Yacht Club is an NFT collection created by Yuga Labs on the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain. Each individual NFT is referred to as an Ape.

These digital artworks portray, well, bored simians. They all share a common look and feel, yet each Ape features a unique combination of facial expressions, accessories and outfits, so no two are the same.

It’s this combination of features—or the relative rarity of each combo—that may be the very thing that fuelled the popularity of the Bored Apes. In the BAYC community, “rarity” was a formal measure of the uniqueness of each Ape.

At the height of their fame, there were even dedicated websites that score Apes for their rarity. According to Rarity Tools, Bored Ape No. 8135, back in September 2022, held the highest “custom rarity score”. Notable features for Bored Ape No. 8135 included a dagger in its mouth, a “trippy captain’s hat”, and a silver stud earring.

Other than rarity, there’s nothing unique about the artworks themselves—they’re just pictures of monkeys, after all. What separated BAYC from the crowd at the time was that it had morphed into a cultural phenomenon.

For the NFT cognoscenti, owning a Bored Ape meant more than just possessing a digital cartoon monkey—it was a ticket granting the holder access to an exclusive membership club with perks like merchandise, parties and ApeCoins (APE), among other things. These days, the glow has faded from the Bored Ape phenomenon, and the NFT market has cooled significantly.

Created via an algorithm, there will only ever be 10,000 Bored Ape NFTs in circulation.

As noted above, each Ape is unique. While it may share a feature, or several features, with other Apes, no two are identical. This drives BAYC’s non-fungible nature, which is the key to NFT valuations.

Scarcity also means BAYC NFTs are highly illiquid. OpenSea, the biggest NFT marketplace, has previously taken the action of freezing the listing of certain Apes if they are reported as stolen.

This action is considered controversial in some quarters, as a central entity intervening goes against one of the core pillars of crypto: decentralisation. On the other hand, it helps prevent perpetrators from selling the stolen Apes for crypto they can withdraw.

Celebrities, influencers and regular folks bought Bored Apes. Some BAYC owners used their Apes as their social media profile images.

Well-known celebrities love their Bored Apes; Madonna owns BAYC No. 4988, Justin Bieber has BAYC No. 3001 and Tom Brady owns BAYC No. 3667, to name just a few.

I finally entered the MetaVerse…,……….. My very own Ape! 🦧 Thanks @moonpay 🪄 We all need protection from Evil Eye. 🧿 <ahref=”https://t.co/We5p9iy4hS”>pic.twitter.com/We5p9iy4hS

— Madonna (@Madonna) March 25, 2022

“The general public hears about a celebrity paying money for a BAYC NFT, which in turn creates validation and a perceived value in the project itself,” says Dave Broome, CEO of US-based Orange Comet, which has launched several NFT collections.

Bored Apes were first released in April 2021, with an original mint price of 0.08 ETH, equivalent to about $192 USD at the time.

Apes’ floor price has fluctuated wildly over time. It peaked in May 2022 at around $US420,000 almost a year to the day when the collection was released. The most expensive Ape ever sold (with gold fur), BAYC No. 8817, sold at Sotheby’s “Natively Digital 1.2: The Collectors” in October 2021 for $US3.4 million.

But the good times weren’t to last and the BAYC floor price fell amid the crypto downturn of late 2022 to 72 ETH, or nearly $US110,000—a drop of more than 70% in five months. But the worst was yet to come. Fast forward to May 2024, and the price has dropped by 90% from previous highs and is now 14.33 ETH or a floor price of$US42,000.

#AuctionUpdate #BAYC #8817 sells for a RECORD $3,408,000 USD! This is the first time it has been made available since it was minted. Less than 1% of all Bored Apes have the gold fur trait. From the collection of @j1mmyeth #NativelyDigital pic.twitter.com/HfFTpEOIUh

— Sotheby’s Metaverse (@Sothebysverse) October 26, 2021

See Also

Top 5 Most Expensive NFT Monkey (Bored Ape) Sold Ever [2023]

It is also important to remember that BAYC and most of the other largest NFT collections are denominated in Ethereum, meaning not only is BAYC subject to the volatility of the floor price itself, but also the fluctuation of ETH’s price against US dollars and other fiat currencies.

Bored Apes have been the subject of several thefts. Many wonder how this is even possible, given these Apes don’t exist in the “real world” and are digital creations.

But if a hacker gains access to someone’s private key, they can transfer out any cryptocurrency or NFTs, including Apes. Incidents involving Bored Apes have gained extra attention given their high value compared with other NFTs collections.

Several phishing scams have targeted Bored Ape owners, using methods such as gaining access to the Bored Ape Discord server before sharing phishing links to try to make off with some stolen Apes.

Our Discord servers were briefly exploited today. The team caught and addressed it quickly. About 200 ETH worth of NFTs appear to have been impacted. We are still investigating, but if you were impacted, email us at [email protected].

— Bored Ape Yacht Club (@BoredApeYC) June 4, 2022

Yuga Labs has continuously expanded the BAYC ecosystem, driving more demand for these digital creatures. This includes the launch of its sister collection, Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC).

On Aug 28, 2021, 20,000 Mutant Apes were released, resembling mutated versions of their Bored Ape cousins. In its creation, each Bored Ape was exposed to a “vial of Mutant Serum.”

BAYC holders had an option to pair their unique NFT with the Mutant Serum, hence creating a Mutant Ape in addition to the Bored Ape they already held.

Half of MAYCs were created this way. The remainder were sold to the public via a Dutch auction, with $96 million in sales in less than one hour.

When I APE in I APE all the way in!! pic.twitter.com/3XB3Jo5Fb6

— Snoop Dogg (@SnoopDogg) December 21, 2021

Mutant Apes are just another way that Yuga Labs has turned BAYC into a cultural juggernaut.

But since the highs of 2021. Apes of all varieties have cratered in price, leaving even their famous celebrity owners holding the bag.

Note: When investing, it’s possible to lose some, and very occasionally all, of your money. Past performance is no prediction of future performance and this article is not intended as a recommendation of any particular asset class, investment strategy or product.

Bored apes have certainly had their moment in the sun, but will they will ever experience a resurgence in value? As of May 2024, they are down 90% on their previous highs, and two years after they were listing floor prices in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, they are now coming listing in the low tens of thousands of dollars.

So what went wrong? Perhaps the question is: what went right? How could a collection of images be so highly valued in such a short space of time and why would anyone expect such hype to sustain those prices forever?

Yuga Labs, the company behind the NFT, are certainly hoping for a comeback. The company Greg Solano, YugaLab’s CEO, has admitted they “lost their way” and they have announced lay-offs to restructure the company.

“Getting ourselves centered and on the right path means being a smaller more agile and cryptonative team,” he said in a statement on X.

The bottom line is to make sure you do your research before investing in any NFT—especially now as the market has cooled significantly—and be aware that the value of your NFT may drop quickly and you may not recover your money.