NFTs
Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs minimum price drops, CEO announces layoffs
Yuga Labs, the creator of viral Bored Monkey Yacht Club non-fungible tokens, announced a new round of layoffs on Friday as the NFT frenzy appears to cool.
Greg Solano, CEO of YugaLab, announced that the startup would lay off an unspecified number of employees while it underwent “restructuring.”
“To put it simply: Yuga has lost its way,” he wrote in a statement posted on X. “Being centered and on track means being a smaller, more agile and crypto-active team.”
The news comes as the floor price for the popular NFT collection, once praised by celebrities like Justin Bieber and Paris Hilton, drops to levels not seen since it launched in 2021.
The floor price is the lowest price that an NFT in a given collection will sell for. On May 1, Bored Ape Yacht Club’s minimum price hovered around 13,395 ETH, according to OpenSea, which would be worth almost $40,000 at the time of publication. This is lower than the maximum minimum price of 128 ETH on May 1, 2022, according to NFTPriceFloorwhich would have been worth about $354,000 at the time.
That’s a far cry from the highest prices Bored Apes has ever sold for. In September 2021, a Bored Ape was auctioned by Sotheby’s for a little more than US$24 million.
But despite Bored Ape Yacht Club’s substantially lower minimum price, the NFT market is still showing some signs of life. On April 25, an anonymous collector shelled out around $12 million in ETH for a CryptoPunk NFT, according to OpenSea.
YugaLabs’ Bored Ape Yacht Club Collection launched in April 2021 with 10,000 NFTs depicting the cartoon apes in various colors, outfits, and facial expressions.
The startup has released several other NFT collections, including Mutant Ape Yacht Club and CryptoPunks. As of 2022, YugaLabs has raised $450 million in seed funding and is valued at around $4 billion, according to its website.
However, the startup has faced a lot of controversy over the past three years. In December 2022, YugaLabs was sued by investors who claim they were tricked into buying Bored Apes by celebrities who promoted the NFTs without revealing they were paid to do so.
When it comes to digital assets like NFTs, investors must do their homework.
Similar to collectibles like trading cards or Beanie Babies, NFTs can have sentimental value. However, its monetary value only increases if someone is willing to pay for it.
There is no guarantee that you will make a profit from selling an NFT, which is why financial experts advise against spending more money on them than you are willing to potentially lose.
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