On Sunday (May 1), Yuga Labs talked about the insane demand for its Otherdeed NFTs (which are like “title deeds” for land plots in the Otherside metaverse) and how this impacted the sale process on April 30.

What Is Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC)?

Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) is an NFT collection and ecosystem developed by Yuga Labs. Here is how they describe this collection:

“BAYC is a collection of 10,000 Bored Ape NFTs—unique digital collectibles living on the Ethereum blockchain. Your Bored Ape doubles as your Yacht Club membership card, and grants access to members-only benefits, the first of which is access to THE BATHROOM, a collaborative graffiti board. Future areas and perks can be unlocked by the community through roadmap activation...

“Each Bored Ape is unique and programmatically generated from over 170 possible traits, including expression, headwear, clothing, and more. All apes are dope, but some are rarer than others. The apes are stored as ERC-721 tokens on the Ethereum blockchain and hosted on IPFS. (See Record and Proof.) Purchasing an ape costs 0.08 ETH.“

What Is ApeCoin ($APE)?

ApeCoin ($APE) is “an ERC-20 governance and utility token used within the APE ecosystem to empower a decentralized community building at the forefront of web3.”

Here are the things that $APE is used for:

  • governance: “ApeCoin is the ecosystem’s governance token, allowing ApeCoin holders to participate in ApeCoin DAO.“
  • means of payment: “ApeCoin is the ecosystem’s utility token, giving all its participants a shared and open currency that can be used without centralized intermediaries.”
  • access: “ApeCoin provides access to certain parts of the ecosystem that are otherwise unavailable, such as exclusive games, merch, events, and services.“
  • incentivization: “ApeCoin is a tool for third-party developers to participate in the ecosystem by incorporating APE into services, games, and other projects.“

ApeCoin’s total supply is “permanently fixed at 1 billion tokens.” There is “no minting capability is exposed through the contract interface,” which means that “the total supply will never increase.” Also, “the contract interface does not expose any token burning capability, so the total supply will never decrease.”

BAYC’s “Otherside” Metaverse

On March 19, Yuga Labs tweeted that an $APE-powered game — named “Otherside” — based on BAYC would be launched in April:

According to a Cointelegraph report published on April 20, Otherside would be “an MMORPG game where players can employ their NFTs as native avatars or characters.” The report went on to say that “a leaker investor pitch deck showed that Yuga Labs expects to earn $178 million by selling virtual lands, with APE acting as the de-facto token to process these purchases.”

Then, on April 23, Yuga Labs announced that the Otherside land sale would take place on April 30:

On April 26, we got more details from Yuga Labs about the sale of land in the Otherside metaverse:

They went on to say:

  • “The mint will be exclusively in ApeCoin, though you’ll need some ETH for gas. You’ll want both in the wallet you used for the KYC.“
  • “Mint will be Dutch auction style, so the ApeCoin price will decline over time. The starting price of the Dutch auction will be announced later this week.“
  • “Only those who were KYC-approved can mint in the auction.“
  • “BAYC and MAYC holders, you’ll be able to claim an NFT for 21 days after the auction. You don’t need to be KYC-approved to claim, but you DO need to be KYC-approved to mint in the auction.“
  • “And before anyone asks: Whatever ApeCoin is earned from this auction will be locked up for one year. That means no voting with it in the ApeCoin DAO either.“
  • “The morning of 4/30, you’ll be able to pre-approve your KYCed wallet on https://otherside.xyz. This will allow the smart contract to use your ApeCoin to mint during the auction. BAYC/MAYC holders do not need to approve their wallets to claim — only to mint during the auction.“

The ‘Otherside’ Land Sale

The Otherside website provides the following useful information about the sale of land plots in the Otherside metaverse:

  • “The Otherside contains 200,000 unique plots of land that can be claimed with Otherdeeds when Otherside launches. The first 100,000 Otherdeeds are available on April 30, 2022. The biomes featured in the next 100,000 Otherdeeds have yet to be revealed.“
  • The start date/time for the Otherdeed mint was set to 9pm ET on April 30.
  • The mint price was set to 305 ApeCoin per Otherdeed.
  • 55,000 Otherdeeds were made available for purchase by KYCed wallets.
  • There were four requirements for minting: ApeCoin for minting, ETH for gas, prior KYC approval via Blockpass, and wallet pre-approval.
  • Holders of BAYC or MAYC NFTs can “claim 1 Otherdeed per BAYC or MAYC NFT.” After the sale of the first 100,000 Otherdeed NFTs has been completed, BAYC and MAYC holders have 21 days to claim their Otherdeed NFTs.
  • “An Otherdeed is your key to the Otherside. Otherdeed holders can participate in prototype builds, demos, and tests that shape the final game design and experience. Every Otherdeed is also a dynamic NFT, built as a collection of elements — from resources to Kodas, and will evolve as you move component pieces around.“

Here is how the first 100,000 Otherdeed NFTs are distributed:

  • “10,000 are for BAYC claim for the Biogenic Swamp at the center of the Otherside“
  • “20,000 are for MAYC claim for the Chemical Goo on the outskirts of the swamp“
  • “55,000 are for purchase with ApeCoin for the Rainbow Atmos, Cosmic Dream, and Infinite Expanse“
  • “15,000 are for Yuga and other project developers for the Rainbow Atmos, Cosmic Dream, and Infinite Expanse“

What Yuga Labs Says About How the Otherdeed NFT Sale Went

On May 1, Yuga Labs commented on the insane demand for land plots in the Otherside metaverse:

  • “We know that the Otherdeed mint was unprecedented in its size as a high-demand NFT collection, and that would bring with it unique challenges. The hope was that those challenges would be assuaged via a rigorous gating mechanism in the form of an on-chain KYC, a max mint of 2 per KYC’d wallet, and a significant clearing price at 305 ApeCoin.“
  • “This has been the largest NFT mint in history by several multiples, and yet the gas used during the mint shows that demand far exceeded anyone’s wildest expectations. The scale of this mint was so large that Etherscan crashed. We’re sorry for turning off the lights on Ethereum for a while. It seems abundantly clear that ApeCoin will need to migrate to its own chain in order to properly scale. We’d like to encourage the DAO to start thinking in this direction.“
  • “We are aware that some users had failed transactions due to the incredible demand being forced through Ethereum’s bottleneck. For those of you affected, we appreciate your willingness to build alongside us – know that we’ve got your back and will be refunding your gas.“

Disclaimer

The views and opinions expressed by the author, or any people mentioned in this article, are for informational purposes only, and they do not constitute financial, investment, or other advice. Investing in or trading cryptoassets comes with a risk of financial loss.