Bored Ape Yacht Club sails ahead of NFT competition amidst celebrity controversy
According to data from Nonfungbile.com, a NFT data provider, Bored Apes Yacht Club (BAYC) has significantly outperformed every other Non-Fungible Token (NFT) collection out there. Bored Apes made over $14 million this week, which is more than double its second contestant, the Otherside NFT collection.
Bored Apes continue to be exciting news
Just this week, one of NFTs from the iconic collection, Bored Ape #3756, sold for 421 ETH, worth roughly $539,000. This Bored Ape was first sold for $228 (0,08 ETH), so it’s safe to say it made a killing. That was the second-biggest NFT sale this week. The seventh most valuable sale was for the Bored Ape #7609, which sold for $137,000 (108 ETH)
The Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) is a highly popular collection of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) that is built on the Ethereum blockchain and launched by Yuga Labs. The collection features unique and colorful profile pictures of cartoon apes procedurally generated by an algorithm.
Several celebrities and high-profile individuals have also been drawn to the Bored Ape Yacht Club collection. Some notable figures who have purchased NFTs from this collection include Justin Beiber, Kanye West, and tech mogul Elon Musk.
A lot of these celebrities have dropped top dollar for their BAYC NFTs, but some have seen their investment dwindle to just a few tens of thousands. For example, Justin Bieber purchased this Bored Ape NFT in January for $1.31 million. Now it’s just worth $70,000.
BAYC is embroiled in legal disputes and Nazi conspiracy theories
Everyone is always gunning for number one. A while ago, a popular conspiracy theory surrounding BAYC claimed that the project was full of Nazi-related symbolism, which spawned from the popular 4-chan imageboard. Beyond the popular 1 hour video detailing the conspiracy theories, Yuga Labs also received threats from the infamous hacker group Anonymous through youtube.
Although the aforementioned conspiracy is full of questionable suppositions and “what-ifs”, recent events have brought a much more serious issue to the doorstep of Yuga Labs, the company behind the Bored Apes Yacht Club project.
On the 8th of December, Scott+Scott Attorneys at Law LLP filed a class action complaint on behalf of plaintiffs Adam Titcher and Adonis Real against Yuga Labs Inc. The complaint, filed with the United States Central District Court of California, Western Division, accuses the company of engaging in deceptive and misleading marketing practices.
The class action complaint names several defendants, including Justin Bieber, Paris Hilton, Madonna, Neymar, Jimmy Fallon, Kevin Hart, Diplo, Snoop Dogg, Post Malone, and The Weeknd. These celebrities are accused of promoting the NFT collection without disclosing their financial ties to Yuga Labs. The complaint alleges that the defendants’ endorsements created the false impression that the NFT collection was a valuable investment.
If the class action is successful, it could have far-reaching implications for the growing NFT market. It remains to be seen how the court will respond to the allegations against Yuga Labs and the celebrity defendants. However, it’s unclear if these allegations are actually true.
