In harsh year for NFTs one group of ‘Made Mutants’ still believe in Yuga Labs’ future – DL News

At a time when NFTs are moribund, it takes commitment to stay true to collections such as Bored Ape Yacht Club and Mutant Ape Yacht Club.

To join the Mutant Cartel you have to do a little more — you have to take an oath, or more precisely purchase an “oath NFT.”

The floor price is 0.07 ETH, or $228, with get holders a seat at the Cartel’s table and status as a Made Mutant.

“They’ve doubled down on their commitment,” said Calum Morrison, the co-founder of Novel Labs, which runs Mutant Cartel.

Die-hards

Don’t remind Morrison and his fellow Bored Ape die-hards that the collection’s value has tumbled 94%, to 9.28 ETH, since its all-time high in May 2022.

It’s probably best not to mention that NFTs have been left behind in a bull market that has propelled Bitcoin 60% this year.

NFT die-hards such as Morrison and fellow Mutants still believe. He views non-fungible tokens as ideal for world-building, and says the NFT space blends the best of being a member of a football fan club and writing fan fiction.

“You have to enjoy being at the frontier of art and tech to even operate in the NFT space,” he said.

Yuga Labs, the studio that owns BAYC and its spinoff collections, still enjoy support from venture capital and web3 heavyweights such as a16z and Animoca Brands.

Members of the ApeCoin DAO, which is separate from Yuga Labs, are even voting on a proposal to create a Yuga-themed hotel in downtown Bangkok.

Hard reality

The plan, of course, may never come to fruition. And the hard reality is that NFT collections such as Yuga’s are struggling to recapture some of the pixie dust that electrified web3 a couple of years ago.

The days of high-profile endorsements from the likes of Snoop Dogg and Paris Hilton seem long ago. Yuga Labs’ vow to build a complex metaverse platformhas yet to yield a working model.

A meet-up of Bored Ape fans last year seemed to sum up the market’s woes when stage lights at ApeFest in Hong Kong caused some attendees to need medical treatment for eye pain.

Moreover, the promise of royalties on secondary sales of NFTs fizzled out.

“Secondary royalties as a revenue source for many creators and projects vanished with the arrival of Blur,” said Morrison, referring to an NFT marketplace that shunned the practice.

“Companies lacked the financial reserves to survive. The sudden loss of royalty revenue devastated many in the space.”

Even so, the diehards are still working to profit from Yuga brands in the real world, but that’s not going so well either.

Lack of consensus

A Bored Ape-themed cafe in Hong Kong that sold both burgers and Tether was shut down last year by police. It, like several other OTC crypto shops in Hong Kong, was linked to collapsed cryptocurrency exchange JPEX.

No surprise, there is a lack of consensus at ApeCoin DAO on the best ways to push the brand forward.

Members regularly submit proposals seeking funding for various Ape-related ventures but few garner enough support. One proposal requested $3.2 million to fund a comedy event company, Laughing Ape.

“WE WILL ACTUALLY BRING ABOUT MASS ADOPTION TO THE NORMIES who will use $APE for their everyday Laughing Ape purchases and perks,” the proposal claimed.

It failed.

‘Why would the average hotel customer want to stay in a room that appears to be an advertisement for Yuga’s NFT collections.’

—  Matt Borchert, ApeCoin DAO

Another proposal aimed to promote Yuga Labs IP via influencers on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, aiming to “create awareness within the normies and introduce them to the Bored Ape Yacht Club as the best club in the world.”

This proposal also failed to gain sufficient support.

The authenticity of these proposals is sometimes questioned. Several DAO members have suggested the hotel proposal might be a scam.

Despite the scepticism, many users still offer up ideas to take Yuga mainstream. Some users envision brick and mortar club houses owned by the community in major cities like New York, Miami, London and Hong Kong.

Need to be realistic

Yet there is perhaps an irony to it: holders are paying people to use their IP instead of the other way around.

And even then there’s a worry people just don’t want it. As one commentator noted on the Bangkok hotel proposal, the demand for Ape-themed items just isn’t there.

“Why would the average hotel customer want to stay in a room that appears to be an advertisement for Yuga’s NFT collections, of which the most common public perception is that they were a scam?” wrote ApeCoin DAO member Matt Borchert.

“It’s tough out there and we need to be realistic.”

Callan Quinn is DL News’ Hong Kong-based Asia Correspondent. Get in touch at callan@dlnews.com.