Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs Fetch Over $24 Million at Sotheby’s

Yuga Labs, the company behind the now-famous Bored Ape Yacht Club line of NFTs, sold its collection of 107 Bored Ape NFTs at an online auction with Sotheby’s for $24.4 million USD. While this isn’t the highest amount paid for NFTs, it is a landmark auction in the world of NFT art.

Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs sell in the open market for well over $150,000, so this collection may have been something of a bargain given that it was owned by the company behind the NFTs, and included a wide range of art from the series.

The Bored Ape Yacht Club depicts simple renderings of apes with human apparel, some of them with food items, or other accessories. It has become wildly popular, and is being sought after by NFT collectors.

The Bored Ape Yacht Club is a Sign of The Times

There is a mad rush into the NFT space happening at almost every level of media. New digital artists, like Beeple, have found amazing success in the NFT space, while legacy artists are finding ways to use NFTs to make headlines.

Kings of Leon, a band that initially gained popularity almost two decades ago, is teaming up with Elon Musk and SpaceX to put a music NFT into space. The NFT will contain a collectable version of the band’s hit song ‘Time in Disguise’.

The band told PEOPLE magazine that,

“It means so much to us to be a part of this historic moment…When we wrote and recorded ‘Time in Disguise’ in the studio, we always thought it had a spacy feel to it and then the visuals from our live show have that vibe, as well…To now have that song and those images be a part of something as historic as this is really cool, and having it raise money for a cause we’ve always cared so much about, makes it even better.”

The NFT aboard the SpaceX rocket is actually being auctioned off, and is contained in an iPhone.

According to media reports,

“The NFT is up for auction now, with proceeds going to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Bidding starts at $50,000USD, and the winner will receive both the NFT itself and the iPhone that gets sent up to space.”

Just about any other that is connected to a famous person, or media conglomerate, seems to be finding a market willing to buy and bid it. Some have called this a bubble, but only time will tell.

OpenSea is Killing It

OpenSea, a marketplace for NFTs, did more than $3 billion in business in August, and is on track to keep posting amazing numbers. However, there are still risks in the sector.

Recent reports allege that NFTs on the platform were burned, and more than $100,000 worth of assets were lost as a result. A bug resulted in a number of NFTs being sent to the wrong ETH address, which permanently ‘locked’ them, rendering them unreachable, and worthless.

A frantic call to @OpenSea later, it transpires I was the first and apparently only victim of a bug introduced to their transfer page in the past 24 hours, which affected all ERC721 transfers to ENS names. Ownership of rilxxlir.eth is now permanently burned.

— nick.eth (@nicksdjohnson) September 7, 2021

ENS lead developer Nick Johnson went on to tell the public that the bug has been fixed, and there should be no further issues with the platform. ENS is a service that lets people create Ethereum addresses, and then send NFTs to the address.

Given the amount of interest in the NFT sector, there has been relatively little in the way of hacks and other problems. As more people enter the space, it would seem unavoidable that NFTs would become a target for hacks.

However, as all the tokens exist on-chain, and are unique, it would be difficult to “steal” an NFT in the same way that art can be stolen. It would be impossible to hide the chain of custody, which may make NFTs a more secure way to collect than physical art.

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