With a winning offer of $24.39 million, the sale of Yuga Labs’ 101 Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) collection has exceeded expectations.
The famed auction house Sotheby’s, which had originally predicted that the collection would bring in between $12 million and $18 million, sponsored the sale, which ended on Friday.
The 101 bored apes plus the three M1 and three M2 “mutant serum” NFTs comprise the bundle of non-fungibles. A Bored Ape token may be used to create a new Mutant Ape NFT that has the same characteristics as the original Bored Ape but is presented in a mutant form when it is coupled with an M1 or M2 serum.
Each Bored Ape in the collection was valued at an average price of around $241,000 or 69.4 Ether at the time of release, taking into account that serum NFTs are often airdropped to holders at free.
The amount is significantly more than the floor price for Bored Ape NFTs on the secondary market, which, according to statistics from OpenSea, is 38.99 ETH, or around $135,000 in value.
A 101 NFT collection from Yuga Labs’ side project Bored Ape Kennel Club, was also put up for sale; it ended the same day with a winning offer of $1.83 million, or $18,150 per NFT.
The price was more than the floor price on OpenSea of 3.09 ETH ($10.700), yet it was within Sotheby’s range of $1.5 million to $2 million.
The BAYC was introduced by Delaware-based Yuga Labs on April 30 and has since grown to be a very well-liked and sought-after project. People like NBA star Steph Curry joined in by purchasing a Bored Ape NFT late last month for 55 ETH ($191,000).
On September 6, the metaverse game company The Sandbox purchased a Bored Ape for a record-breaking 740 ETH ($2.57 million).
A golden ape with laser eyes and a sea captain’s hat is shown in Sandbox’s NFT. The company disclosed intentions to include BAYC NFTs into its metaverse as playable avatars in a blog post on Wednesday.
“The Avatar collections find additional utility for their NFT holders within our gaming virtual world. Through the interoperability of NFTs, they will be able to turn 2D collectible image NFTs into 3D playable avatars that are animated, can run, jump, socialize, play games, and interact with their other peer Avatars in The Sandbox,” the blog post read.
NFT sales volume on the secondary market decreased in September, according to statistics from OpenSea, with notable projects like CryptoPunks, Art Blocks, and BAYC all experiencing drops in their seven-day volume of 85%, 82%, and 69%, respectively.
Out of the top 20, only one NFT project has had a rise in volume over the past seven days, with Vine co-founder Dom Hofmann’s Loot (for Adventures) NFTs seeing an 8.42% increase.
Data from Dune Analytics also demonstrates the recent decreasing trend in NFT floor pricing, which fell from 1.02 ETH on August 30 to 0.40 ETH on September 9. This doesn’t necessarily portend a gloomy trend for the NFT industry, though, since new projects that enter the market and sell for less can have an influence on the pricing.