"Bitcoin of NFT", Bored Ape reaches the top

The crypto market has remained relatively quiet in recent days, and the activity of the NFT market has also plummeted. In this depression, a figure jumped into view. It was an NFT work called "Bored Ape Yacht Club" (BAYC, Bored Ape Yacht Club).

The new track that has benefited the most from the bull market in 2021 is undoubtedly NFT. Regarding this, we can review some articles in Liu Jiaolian’s WeChat public account in the early period of 2021, such as "The core spirit of NFT is the physicalization of digital items, not the chaining of atomic items" (2021/1/28), "NFT is the next Bitcoin-level opportunity" (2021/3/26), etc.

I remember that it was shortly after I wrote these articles, around the end of March or the beginning of April, that the Bored Ape series of NFTs made their debut.

Those who have experienced that period of history should remember that at that time, the market had not formed a consistent understanding or consensus on PFP (Profile Pictures), or avatar-type NFTs, and everyone was still in the initial exploration period. The most popular works at that time, in addition to the Cryptopunks series, which was born in 2017 and was hailed as the "Bitcoin of the NFT world", were the digital art works of beeple and others, and the creative Hashmasks art collection series.

Born under this background, the sales of Bored Ape were not ideal at first. The initial price of 0.08 Ethereum, which was equivalent to less than 200 US dollars at the time, took a long time to sell out. Compared with the Hashmask series that sold well earlier, Bored Ape did not use the so-called joint curve pricing (i.e., markup sales) for the sake of "promotion", but sold all works at the same price.

It seems that later a relatively famous crypto artist or collector bought a few monkeys and promoted them on Twitter, which quickly ignited the market and sold out.

But history always likes to play some big or small jokes on people.

Shortly after the birth of Bored Monkey, as if in just a moment, the various creative teams that issued NFTs and the various players who hyped NFTs suddenly converged in their cognition and consensus, and everyone began to pay attention to the only type of work: PFP avatars.

BoredApe and CryptoPunk share the same art form: PFP avatars. Hashmasks are not, and neither are beeple’s electronic paintings.

The floor price of Bored Ape began to rise rapidly. From a few Ethereum, it quickly rose to dozens of Ethereum, which is a staggering hundreds of thousands of dollars.

As Buffett once asked business school students a classic question: Generally speaking, economics believes that the higher the price of a commodity, the smaller the demand. Students, can you give an example where the higher the price of a commodity, the greater the demand?

Commodities such as blue-chip stocks, Bitcoin, LV bags, and bored monkeys are the answers to Buffett's questions.

As the price of the Bored Ape continued to rise, it attracted more and more attention. As more people paid attention to it, celebrities began to notice its eye-catching effect. So some stars began to buy it, which further enhanced its popularity and pushed up its price.

As Satoshi Nakamoto wrote in a blog post about Bitcoin’s price back on February 18, 2009: “Supply is predetermined and value changes, rather than changing supply to keep value stable. As the number of users increases, the value per coin increases. It has the potential to form a positive feedback loop. As more users come in, the value goes up, which could attract more users to profit from the growing value.”

Fortunately, the Bored Ape NFT, which is limited to 10,000 pieces, has also entered such a “positive feedback loop”.

By the second half of 2021, its floor price had exceeded 100 Ethereum. And during the peak of the second wave of NFT hype, the price once exceeded the classic brand Crypto Punk, becoming a rising star.

Many people would find it incredible. Or they would think that this thing is so expensive and they can’t afford it. Who would buy it? But there are some things in this world that are more popular the more ordinary people can’t afford them. The more people will buy them because there are still many, many people who can afford them.

Just like many people always say that Bitcoin is too expensive to buy. In fact, the logic is completely reversed and wrong. It is not that Bitcoin is too expensive to buy, but because there are too many richer people buying it, it has become so expensive. When more richer people buy it, it will become more expensive.

Please think carefully again about Buffett’s question above.

In the second half of 2021, someone asked the issuer of Boring Monkey, "Are you going to issue a coin?" They firmly denied it.

This denial is as prophetic as Jobs' denial that Apple would enter the smartphone industry.

Time flies and it is already 2022.

Just a few days ago, the issuer of Bored Ape suddenly took action and announced the acquisition of CryptoPunk, the originator brand of PFP NFT that it imitated (and Meebits was acquired as a dowry).

Then the coin was issued on March 17, and the first launch was on Coinbase, the world's top compliant cryptocurrency exchange in the United States.

For a moment, the place was bustling with noise and the air was filled with the smell of money.

Various media outlets competed to report on the incident, using flattering words such as "Web3 Disney" to target the bored monkey.

After listing, the price surged to nearly $30, and then quickly fell back to the current level of around $8.

Sell ​​when the place is crowded.

After operating for so long, the secondary market can finally take over the orders.

If you discovered the potential of Bored Ape early in April 2021 and bought its NFT, you were a smart person. If you rushed into the secondary market on March 17, 2022 and bought its tokens at a high price, you might be a fool.

Aren’t the reasons for telling such a beautiful story when issuing coins just to encourage the leeks to “suffocate for their dreams”?

When the leeks are suffocating for their dreams, the bored monkeys reach the top.

(Official account: Liu Jiaolian. Knowledge Planet: reply “Planet” to the official account)