88-572: Bored Ape Yacht Club ( BAYC ), often colloquially called Bored Apes or Bored Ape is a non-fungible token (NFT) collection built on the Ethereum blockchain with the ERC-721 standard . The collection features profile pictures of cartoon apes that are procedurally generated by an algorithm. The parent company of Bored Ape Yacht Club is Yuga Labs. The project launched in April 2021. Owners of
176-510: A Ponzi scheme . At their peak, the three biggest NFT platforms were Ethereum , Solana , and Cardano . In 2022, the NFT market collapsed; a May 2022 estimate was that the number of sales was down over 90% compared to 2021. An NFT is a data file, stored on a type of digital ledger called a blockchain, which can be sold and traded. The NFT can be associated with a particular asset – digital or physical – such as an image, art, music, or recording of
264-469: A cigarette lighter . They uploaded (known as "minting" in the NFT scene) and sold the video as an NFT. The person who destroyed the artwork, who called themselves "Burnt Banksy", described the act as a way to transfer a physical work of art to the NFT space. American curator and art historian Tina Rivers Ryan , who specializes in digital works, said that art museums are widely not convinced that NFTs have "lasting cultural relevance." Ryan compares NFTs to
352-483: A speculative asset . The NFT buying surge was called an economic bubble by experts, who also compared it to the Dot-com bubble . In March 2021 Mike Winkelmann called NFTs an "irrational exuberance bubble". By mid-April 2021, demand subsided, causing prices to fall significantly. Financial theorist William J. Bernstein compared the NFT market to 17th-century tulip mania , saying any speculative bubble requires
440-646: A Bored Ape NFT are granted access to a private online club, exclusive in-person events, and intellectual property rights for the image. In 2022, Yuga Labs was valued at US$ 4 billion. This is due in large part to the sales of the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection totalling over US$ 1 billion as well as high value auction sales from their investor, now defunct FTX . Various celebrities have purchased these non-fungible tokens, including Justin Bieber , Snoop Dogg and Gwyneth Paltrow . By July 2023,
528-519: A Snoop Dogg impersonator who several attendees confused for the real Snoop Dogg. The Bored Ape NFTs have attracted a considerable amount of negative reception, with many detractors of BAYC having opined that the NFTs have had a negative impact on artists. Nevertheless, the Bored Ape design has been positively received; Samantha Hissong of Rolling Stone wrote that "Bored Ape art isn't as valuable as it
616-894: A band composed of three Bored Apes and one Mutant Ape. On January 4, 2022, Markets Insider wrote that "Since its inception, the collection has amassed around 11,000 unique owners, according to CryptoSlam. On average, an ape has sold for 84 ether or roughly $ 344,000 as of publishing." Companies were also noted to purchase Bored Ape NFTs; Adidas bought one in September 2021. Many online media publications wrote about celebrities collecting Bored Apes in late 2021 and early 2022; Eminem , Gwyneth Paltrow , Shaquille O'Neal , Neymar , Snoop Dogg , Mark Cuban , Post Malone , Stephen Curry , Paris Hilton , Jimmy Fallon , and Serena Williams are among various celebrities noted to have purchased Bored Apes. In some cases of celebrities owning Bored Ape NFTs, such as with Justin Bieber , it has been reported that
704-400: A bathroom at a dive bar ; this idea stuck with the two, and they created a science-fiction storyline centered around it. In an interview with The New Yorker , Aronow elaborated on the concept, which centered on early cryptocurrency investors all becoming billionaires: Now they're just fucking bored. What do you do now that you're wealthy beyond your wildest dreams? You're going to hang out in
792-500: A buying frenzy. Within 24 hours, all tiles of the current version and a prior version, each hardcoded to 1 ETH ( US$ 0.43 at the time of launch), were sold for a total of US$ 1.4 million. In 2016, Rare Pepes a "semi-fungible" NFT project centered around the Pepe the Frog meme involving a collective of artists contributing their works into a curated directory, emerged on Bitcoin through
880-465: A digital blockchain, which permanently records its provenance or sales history." The collection exists on the Ethereum blockchain and contains 10,000 unique NFTs derived from 172 unique assets. The NFTs function dually as a membership card to Yacht Club. Membership to the club includes access to THE BATHROOM (stylized in all caps), a digital graffiti board where users commonly "draw dicks," according to
968-493: A digital file asset. Ownership of an NFT is often associated with a license to use such a linked digital asset but generally does not confer the copyright to the buyer. Some agreements only grant a license for personal, non-commercial use, while other licenses also allow commercial use of the underlying digital asset. This kind of decentralized intellectual copyright poses an alternative to established forms of safeguarding copyright controlled by state institutions and middlemen within
SECTION 10
#17327941998411056-461: A dive bar is rarely agreed on, and is the subject of spirited debates. The term dive was first used in the press in the U.S. in 1880s to describe disreputable places that were often in basements into which one "dives below". A dive bar may also be known as "brown bars" or "brown pubs" in parts of Western Europe and Northern Europe, for example brun bar or brun pub in Norway. Once considered
1144-587: A diverse group of Turkish, Cuban and Jewish friends, some of whom have voted for Bernie Sanders and that they chose apes as the focus of the collection because of the common term "aping in". In late 2021, the popularity of Bored Apes spurred copycat NFT projects. PHAYC and Phunky Ape Yacht Club were two such projects centered around the same idea of selling NFTs of mirrored but otherwise identical images of Bored Ape NFTs. The OpenSea NFT marketplace banned both projects in December 2021. In February 2022, Bored Wukong
1232-573: A family member of theirs is often working the bar. Dive bars usually have a clientele from all walks of life, including some locals who have been drinking there for decades. During the COVID-19 pandemic of the early 2020s, U.S. cities closed down bars and food service establishments, and many dive bar owners made repairs and cleaned up while they were closed down. Rick Dobbs, author of the 2019 book Local Spirit: Neighborhood Bars of Orleans Parish , said, "A dive can absolutely be cleaned up but still be
1320-434: A new kind of market for artworks that deviated from traditional gatekeeping norms and ushered in a different kind of collector. Artist Beeple sold an ERC-721 NFT of his composite artwork known as Everydays: The First 5000 Days at Christie's for $ 69 million and was the first instance of a legacy arthouse dealing in NFTs. The NFT market experienced rapid growth during 2020, with its value tripling to US$ 250 million. In
1408-763: A partnership to simplify the verification and security of metadata for digital content, including NFTs. In 2021, a cryptocurrency exchange Binance , launched its NFT marketplace. In 2022, eToro Art by eToro was founded, focusing on supporting NFT collections and emerging creators. Sotheby's and Christie's auction houses showcase artworks associated with the respective NFTs both in virtual galleries and physical screens, monitors, and TVs. Mars House, an architectural NFT created in May 2020 by artist Krista Kim , sold in 2021 for 288 Ether (ETH) — at that time equivalent to US$ 524,558. NFTs can represent in-game assets . Some commentators describe these as being controlled "by
1496-509: A pejorative term, "dive bar" has more recently become a badge of distinction from patrons who seek authenticity in such establishments. Devotees may describe a bar as "very divey" or "not divey" and compose rating scales of "divey-ness". One such devotee is Steve Vensen, founder of a California group called the DBC (Dive Bar Conoisseurs) who says, "Every dive bar is like a snowflake: diverse and unique. . . you always get local subculture and every time
1584-650: A protocol known as Counterparty (which had been created in 2014 and used to create other assets). In 2017, several NFT projects emerged on Ethereum that utilized a "fungible" token standard known as ERC-20. Curio Cards in May of that year is credited with being Ethereum's first art NFT project using the fungible standard and features artwork in the shape of a card among a variety of image types including satirized corporate logos The generative art project of 10,000 pixelated characters known as CryptoPunks emerged soon after in June and would later establish itself as one of
1672-415: A reference implementation. ERC-721 provides core methods that allow tracking the owner of a unique identifier, as well as a way for the owner to transfer the asset to others. Another standard, ERC-1155, offers "semi-fungibility" whereby a token represents a class of interchangeable assets. Because the contents of NFTs are publicly accessible, anybody can easily copy a file referenced by an NFT. Furthermore,
1760-559: A shot of Jack , $ 3, and Pabst Blue Ribbon is served in a can. The sign outside says Steaks, Dinners, Cocktails— but there hasn't been any food served since FDR was president. The prevailing decorative elements are red Naugahyde , wood-toned Formica , and cinder blocks . Dive bars adhere to the minimal effort needed to provide guests with drinks; i.e., they typically do not advertise, provide parking, or have fancy signage. Dive bars are not known for their food. They often do not serve food beyond pretzels and snacks. For example, in 2018
1848-433: A sports event. It may confer licensing rights to use the asset for a specified purpose. An NFT (and, if applicable, the associated license to use, copy, or display the underlying asset) can be traded and sold on digital markets. However, the extralegal nature of NFT trading usually results in an informal exchange of ownership over the asset that has no legal basis for enforcement, and so often confers little more than use as
SECTION 20
#17327941998411936-430: A status symbol. NFTs function like cryptographic tokens, but unlike cryptocurrencies, NFTs are not usually mutually interchangeable, so they are not fungible . A non-fungible token contains data links, for example which point to details about where the associated art is stored, that can be affected by link rot . An NFT solely represents a proof of ownership of a blockchain record and does not necessarily imply that
2024-487: A swamp club with a bunch of apes and get weird. Aronow clarified that apes were chosen as a mascot for the NFT because of the cryptocurrency phrase aping in , meaning to buy into a new currency or NFT with abandon, risking a significant amount of money. All Seeing Seneca, or simply Seneca, an Asian-American artist, is credited as the lead designer of the artwork featured in Bored Ape NFTs. Seneca clarified that she
2112-538: A technological advance for people to "get excited about", with part of that enthusiasm coming from the extreme predictions being made about the product. For regulatory policymakers, NFTs have exacerbated challenges such as speculation, fraud, and high volatility. NFTs, as with other blockchain securities and with traditional art sales, can potentially be used for money laundering . NFTs can be used for wash trading by creating several wallets for one individual, generating several fictitious sales and consequently selling
2200-432: A visitor to a well-known Nashville dive bar reported seeing a hand-written menu taped to the refrigerator, listing only pork rinds, popcorn, peanuts, and microwaved corn dogs (US $ 1). Bathrooms in dive bars are notoriously shabby and may have a shower curtain instead of a door on the toilet stall. Authentic dive bars are usually "cash only" establishments, and would probably not feature computerized registers. The owner or
2288-614: Is a wider concern to regulate cryptocurrencies and NFTs. On December 8, 2022, a class action lawsuit was filed against the Bored Ape Yacht Club parent company, Yuga Labs, alleging their product is an unregistered security that was promoted through fraudulent undisclosed celebrity endorsements. The class action names many celebrities who promoted the NFTs such as Diplo , Snoop Dogg , Post Malone , Kevin Hart as well as Yuga Labs' business partner, Guy Oseary , in being part of
2376-421: Is a writer and editor, while No Sass and Emperor Tomato Ketchup are programmers. Aronow, the son of boat tycoon Donald Aronow , has been documented as planning to attend an MFA program, before becoming addicted to crack cocaine and alcohol, falling ill and becoming a cryptocurrency day trader . Solano and Aronow brought in two friends of theirs, No Sass and Emperor Tomato Ketchup, programmers who could handle
2464-512: Is akin to a decal of Calvin from Calvin & Hobbes taking a piss. The crudeness is the point. Each ape is a misprized thing, bought and sold constantly. Red Ape Family , an animated sitcom about a family of Bored Apes that travel to Mars, premiered in November 2021. It was created by Hashem Zaini, the CEO of Dubai -based animation studio Zaini Media, and Youssouf Bedraoui Drissi. Each episode
2552-495: Is an adventure." Author Todd Dayton offers the following: "Dives [dive bars] are like pornography : hard to define but you know it when you see it ". As to what distinguishes a dive bar from an ordinary bar, Dayton stated in 2004: For me, the ideal dive bar is run by a beefy guy named Frank, where the aroma of yesterday's beer still hangs in the air, and your quest for clean bathrooms (or toilet paper, for that matter) will go eternally unanswered. A bottle of Bud costs two bucks,
2640-671: Is because it's visually pleasing, even though it is. It's valuable because it also serves as a digital identity." Emma Roth of The Verge wrote that the apes were "very interesting-looking and sometimes fashionable." Cited by Intelligencer in January 2022, Roman Kräussl, an art-finance professor at the University of Luxembourg and Stanford University 's Hoover Institution , stated that NFT works like Bored Apes (in addition to CryptoPunks and Cool Cats) had already become iconic. Writing for The Cut , Claire Lampen commented, "I find
2728-466: Is terrible for an artist." [ sic ] After Bored Ape NFTs became popular, Yuga Labs hired artists, social media managers, Discord community managers, and a CFO. In response to the popularity surrounding Bored Ape, Aronow stated that BAYC was aiming to be a " Web3 lifestyle company." The company released secondary assets like Bored Ape Kennel Club, Mutant Serum, and Mutant Ape Yacht Club, which has increased BAYC's worth, brought more users into
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2816-492: The Anti-Defamation League , the allegations of racism are doubtful, but certain traits within the images, such as "Hip-Hop", can be seen as problematic. Record executive Damon Dash , American rapper Freddie Gibbs and 8chan founder Fredrick Brennan have stated that they believe Bored Ape Yacht Club looks racist. The founders of the Bored Ape Yacht Club adamantly deny these allegations, stating that they are
2904-669: The United States Treasury assessed that there was "some evidence of money laundering risk in the high-value art market", including through "the emerging digital art market, such as the use of non-fungible tokens (NFTs)". The study considered how NFT transactions may be a simpler option for laundering money through art by avoiding the transportation or insurance complications in trading physical art. Several NFT exchanges were labeled as virtual asset service providers that may be subject to Financial Crimes Enforcement Network regulations. In March 2022, two people were charged for
2992-952: The net art fad before the dot-com bubble . In July 2022, after the controversial sale of Michelangelo 's Doni Tondo in Italy, the sale of NFT reproductions of famous artworks was prohibited in Italy. Given the complexity and lack of regulation of the matter, the Ministry of Culture of Italy temporarily requested that its institutions refrain from signing contracts involving NFTs. No centralized means of authentication exists to prevent stolen and counterfeit digital works from being sold as NFTs, although auction houses like Sotheby's , Christie's , and various museums and galleries worldwide started collaborations and partnerships with digital artists such as Refik Anadol , Dangiuz and Sarah Zucker . NFTs associated with digital artworks could be sold and bought via NFT platforms. OpenSea , launched in 2017,
3080-505: The 'scheme'. In addition, the suit also names Moonpay and auction house Sotheby's for contributing to the scheme. Bored Apes have been documented by the media as one of the more prominent NFTs. In December 2021, the Bored Ape Yacht Club overtook CryptoPunks as the highest-priced NFTs. Bored Apes, along with other character-based NFTs, would become "a status symbol for owners who regularly use their animated creatures as avatars on social media". Senior Writer, Kate Knibbs from Wired called
3168-463: The BAYC NFTs. Getting the highest score granted the player a "golden key" NFT, which Twitch streamer Mongraal won and subsequently sold to Adam Weitsman for $ 1.6 million. In October 2022, it was reported that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission were investigating Yuga Labs amid concerns that their NFTs were unregistered security offerings. Since the fall of Yuga's investor, FTX , there
3256-602: The BAYC project and that his NFTs were a satirical response to those of Yuga Labs. On August 15, 2022, he tried to file an anti- SLAPP motion to dismiss the lawsuit, which was denied; Ripps appealed the denial of his anti-SLAPP motion to dismiss, but the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against him in October 2023. In April 2023, federal judge John F. Walter of the United States District Court for
3344-574: The Central District of California issued a summary judgment in Yuga Labs' favor, with damages to be determined at trial. The judge ruled that Ripps and his partner Jeremy Cahen had committed " false designation of origin " and " cybersquatting " and that Yuga Labs was entitled to an injunction and damages. Following the court trial, Judge Walter ruled that Yuga Labs was entitled to recover all $ 1.3 million of Ripps' and Cahen's profits from
3432-459: The ERC-721 draft, the word deed was given consideration among other alternatives including distinguishable asset, title, token, asset, equity, ticket. Ultimately, through Entriken's initiative under the moniker "Fulldecent," a vote was held during the paper's drafting phase to decide which word would be used in the published version and "NFT" was chosen by the stakeholders. The term "NFT" and
3520-586: The actual purchase of the NFT may not have been made by the celebrity themselves. Bored Ape Yacht Club holds hosted events in New York, California, Hong Kong, and the UK for its owners. In November 2021, the company held a yacht party and a performance featuring Chris Rock , Aziz Ansari , and The Strokes as part of an entertainment weekend in New York; an "ApeFest" event in June 2022 at South Street Seaport featured LCD Soundsystem and Haim alongside "Doop Snogg",
3608-487: The art world thinks they have acquired. They definitely do not own the copyright to the underlying work unless it is explicitly transferred." Certain NFT projects, such as Bored Apes , explicitly assign intellectual property rights of individual images to their respective owners. The NFT collection CryptoPunks was a project that initially prohibited owners of its NFTs from using the associated digital artwork for commercial use, but later allowed such use upon acquisition by
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3696-609: The associated artwork file on the blockchain due to the large size of such a file and the limited processing speed of blockchains. Such a token functions like a certificate of ownership, with a web address that points to the piece of art in question; this however makes the art itself vulnerable to link rot . Dive bar A dive bar is typically a small, unglamorous, eclectic, old-style drinking establishment with inexpensive drinks; it may feature dim lighting, shabby or dated decor, neon beer signs, packaged beer sales, cash-only service, and local clientele. The precise definition of
3784-410: The awareness of the ERC-721 standard received significant exposure and adopted use through the popularity of CryptoKitties in 2017. While using the standard, CryptoKitties earned the recognition of being the first mainstream NFT dApp; the game's usage was significant enough to have overwhelmed Ethereum's processing power at the time. During the height of the breakout success of CryptoKitties and
3872-399: The beanie." Gargamel stated he was "struck" by the expressiveness of Seneca's characters and that "for the apes, we arrived at exactly the mood we were after: existential boredom." Although unable to share specifics, Seneca did state her financial compensation was not ideal, but that she was "grateful for the experience" and stated that "not of ton of people know that I did these drawings, which
3960-527: The blockchain and can be transferred by the owner, allowing NFTs to be sold and traded. Initially pitched as a new class of investment asset, by September 2023, one report claimed that over 95% of NFT collections had zero monetary value . NFTs can be created by anybody and require few or no coding skills to create. NFTs typically contain references to digital files such as artworks, photos, videos, and audio. Because NFTs are uniquely identifiable, they differ from cryptocurrencies , which are fungible (hence
4048-494: The blockchain coding. The latter two were knowledgeable in computer science, having studied the field at the same university Solano attended; however, they "were not crypto-savvy," having both written their first lines of Solidity code, a language used for smart contracts , in February 2021. Solano and Aronow came up with the concept of "a shared digital canvas: anyone who bought in could draw on it." They likened this canvas to
4136-439: The buyer received instructions for recreating the artwork rather than an actual banana: The Bored Ape Yacht Club, in contrast, is a grimmer kind of gimmick, one that parodies nothing. It uses certificates of authenticity, too, but with a crucial difference in intent. The certificate points back to a commodity, not an idea. It doesn't mock or even question the art world; instead it simply cashes in on it. The project's sense of humor
4224-680: The collection's parent company. The first known "NFT", Quantum , was created by Kevin McCoy and Anil Dash in May 2014. It consists of a video clip made by McCoy's wife, Jennifer. McCoy registered the video on the Namecoin blockchain and sold it to Dash for $ 4, during a live presentation for the Seven on Seven conferences at the New Museum in New York City. McCoy and Dash referred to
4312-407: The company. In February 2022, Gargamel and Gordon Goner's identities were revealed to be Greg Solano and Wylie Aronow, respectively, by BuzzFeed News . Upon this revelation, Nicole Muniz, the then-CEO of Yuga Labs, confirmed BuzzFeed ' s report. Solano and Aronow went to Twitter , commenting they were doxxed and uploaded images of themselves next to their Bored Ape profile pictures. Solano
4400-468: The consumer experience first and has absolutely nothing to do with empowering artists. It's all about the collector's ego." He also wrote that "The attitude says it all. Bored, emptied out, wrecked, and proud of it. That's how the NFT art investors all feel, apparently. And so they should. NFTs are not good for art. They are not liberating for artists." A Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon segment featuring Fallon and Paris Hilton showing off their Bored Apes
4488-512: The ecosystem and rewarded previous holders and investors. On March 11, 2022, it was announced that Yuga Labs acquired all of the CryptoPunks and Meebits intellectual property for an undisclosed sum. Yuga Labs stated they were granting complete commercial rights to CryptoPunks owners. On March 16, 2022, ApeCoin DAO launched its own token separate from Yuga Labs known as "ApeCoin" ($ APE), which
SECTION 50
#17327941998414576-417: The emergence of ERC-721 tokens in 2017, an NFT marketplace called OpenSea emerged to capitalize off of the new non-fungible token standard. It positioned itself early in the NFT market landscape and grew to a $ 1.4 billion market cap in 2021 during the then-ongoing NFT boom. In 2021, ArtReview's Power 100 ranked ERC-721 at the #1 spot, praising it as "the most powerful art entity in the world" for creating
4664-416: The event. On November 6, Bored Ape Yacht Club stated they were aware of the incident and claimed "...we believe that much less than 1% of those attending and working the event had these symptoms." They also encouraged attendees who feel any symptoms to seek medical attention. The anthropomorphized ape cartoons within the Bored Ape Yacht Club collection have been accused of racism. According to researchers from
4752-470: The execution of a million-dollar NFT scheme through wire fraud . The European Commission announced in July 2022 that it was planning to draw up regulations to combat money laundering by 2024. Several blockchains have added support for NFTs since Ethereum created its ERC-721 standard. ERC-721 is an "inheritable" smart contract standard, which means that developers can create contracts by copying from
4840-684: The financial markets, the Journal said "NFTs are among the most speculative." In December 2022, a programmer named Casey Rodarmor introduced a new way to add NFTs to the Bitcoin blockchain called "ordinals". By February 2023, the popularity of ordinals had led to an increase in bitcoin's payment fees and may have also partially contributed to an increase in bitcoin's price. A September 2023 report from cryptocurrency gambling website dappGambl claimed 95% of NFTs had fallen to zero monetary value. NFTs have been used to exchange digital tokens that link to
4928-486: The first three months of 2021, more than US$ 200 million were spent on NFTs. In the early months of 2021, interest in NFTs increased after a number of high-profile sales and art auctions. In May 2022, The Wall Street Journal reported that the NFT market was "collapsing". Daily sales of NFT tokens had declined 92% from September 2021, and the number of active wallets in the NFT market fell 88% from November 2021. While rising interest rates had impacted risky bets across
5016-495: The floor price of Bored Ape NFTs had decreased 88% from its April 2022 peak. According to the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) website, the NFT collection was created by four friends who "set out to make some dope apes, test [their] skills, and try to build something (ridiculous)." Bored Ape NFTs, like other NFTs created and used for digital art purposes aim to provide its owners the "original" artwork. Bored Ape NFTs owners are considered in possession of "a unique unit of data recorded in
5104-438: The form of NFTs. Artists involved in the entertainment-industry can seek royalties through NFTs. So far, NFTs have often been used in both the music- as well as the film-industry. By February 2021, NFTs accounted for US$ 25 million of revenue generated through the sale of artwork and songs as NFTs. On February 28, 2021, electronic dance musician 3lau sold a collection of 33 NFTs for a total of US$ 11.7 million to commemorate
5192-421: The formally published version of the standard in 2018. While experiments around non-fungibility have existed on blockchains since as early as 2012 with Colored Coins on Bitcoin, a community-driven paper called ERC-721: Non-Fungible Token Standard was published in 2018 under the initiative of civic hacker and lead author William Entriken and is recognized as pioneering the foundation for NFTs and enabling
5280-427: The founder. The NFTs were originally sold for 0.08 ether each, around $ 190 at the time of their April 2021 launch and were sold out in 12 hours. As BAYC "has made it clear that NFT holders have full commercialization rights to their ape," Bored Apes differ from other NFTs in that "whoever owns a Bored Ape can spin it into whatever film, music, TV, book, or media project they want." Two of the founders of BAYC, going by
5368-482: The growth of the wider eco-system. It introduced the formalization and defining of the term Non-Fungible Token "NFT" in blockchain nomenclature by establishing a standard for smart contracts known as "ERC-721" whose tokens would have unique attributes and ownership details, ensuring no two tokens are alike. The creation of derivative standards followed from its influence on Ethereum (like ERC-1155 enabling semi-fungibility) and other blockchains. Its versatility enabled
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#17327941998415456-560: The hacker's account. On April 30, 2022, Yuga Labs launched its metaverse Otherside , as a collaboration with Animoca Brands . Bored Ape NFTs feature in the music video for Eminem and Snoop Dogg 's song " From the D 2 the LBC ". In December 2022, Activision Blizzard COO Daniel Alegre succeeded Nicole Muniz as CEO of Yuga Labs in an effort to shift the company toward metaverse gaming projects. In January 2023, Yuga Labs launched an endless runner video game called Dookey Dash for holders of
5544-513: The monkey mostly unremarkable, generically familiar, and not very much to my liking if not wholly offensive," and added that "[celebrities] really want us to enjoy this monkey, clap for this monkey, know what this monkey is. They can't make me. I won't let them." Jonathan Jones of The Guardian was critical of the Bored Apes NFTs' impact on digital art . Jones opined that the NFT "should put an end to any romanticism about NFT art. It puts
5632-433: The most commercially successful NFT projects. In December, a clipart based collection featuring images of rocks called EtherRock emerged. in November 2017, the widely acclaimed blockchain game on Ethereum known as CryptoKitties launched and is credited with pioneering what is considered to be the first bona fide non-fungible token standard, known as ERC-721. It used an early version of ERC-721 that differed from
5720-428: The name non-fungible token). Proponents claim that NFTs provide a public certificate of authenticity or proof of ownership , but the legal rights conveyed by an NFT can be uncertain. The ownership of an NFT as defined by the blockchain has no inherent legal meaning and does not necessarily grant copyright , intellectual property rights, or other legal rights over its associated digital file. An NFT does not restrict
5808-410: The owner possesses intellectual property rights to the digital asset the NFT purports to represent. Someone may sell an NFT that represents their work, but the buyer will not necessarily receive copyright to that work, and the seller may not be prohibited from creating additional NFT copies of the same work. According to legal scholar Rebecca Tushnet , "In one sense, the purchaser acquires whatever
5896-414: The ownership of an NFT on the blockchain does not inherently convey legally enforceable intellectual property rights to the file. It has become well known that an NFT image can be copied or saved from a web browser by using a right click menu to download the referenced image. NFT supporters disparage this duplication of NFT artwork as a "right-clicker mentality". One collector quoted by Vice compared
5984-493: The pioneering of numerous use cases, including digital artwork, deeds to physical items, real estate (including virtual), access passes, and game assets. Ultimately, the emergence of ERC-721 is recognized for having fundamentally changed the landscape of digital verification, authentication, and ownership. The term NFT, prior to the blockchain game CryptoKitties' adoption of ERC-721, is not known to have been used for earlier projects. Through discussion among stakeholders for
6072-469: The popularity of Bored Apes "a gimmick, plain and simple". Many Bored Ape NFT owners admitted to purchasing their Apes due to the potential marketing and branding projects that can be launched through owning the intellectual property of a Bored Ape NFT. In November 2021, Rolling Stone released Bored Ape magazine covers as an NFT magazine. A year later the same publication declared that "NFTs are finally totally worthless." Universal Music Group has signed
6160-508: The pseudonyms "Gargamel" and "Gordon Goner", describe themselves as "literary bros". The two told The New Yorker they initially bonded by arguing about the work of David Foster Wallace . The two of them grew up together in Miami . The other two founders go by the pseudonyms "No Sass" and "Emperor Tomato Ketchup", the latter deriving his alias from the 1996 Stereolab album of the same name . As of July 2023, three out of four founders have left
6248-592: The respective NFT to a third party. According to a report by Chainalysis these types of wash trades are becoming popular among money launderers because of the largely anonymous nature of transactions on NFT marketplaces. Looksrare , created in early 2022, came to be known for the large sums generated through the sale of NFTs in its earliest days, amounting to US$ 400,000,000 a day. These large sums were generated in large part through wash trading. The Royal United Services Institute said that any risks in relation to money laundering through NFTs could be mitigated through
6336-461: The respective events or artists performing there to receive royalties on the resale of each ticket. NFTs have been proposed for purposes related to scientific and medical purposes. Suggestions include turning patient data into NFTs, tracking supply chains and minting patents as NFTs. The monetary aspect of the sale of NFTs has been used by academic institutions to finance research projects. NFTs representing digital collectables and artworks are
6424-507: The respective industry. Digital art is a common use case for NFTs. High-profile auctions of NFTs linked to digital art have received considerable public attention; the first such major house auction took place at Christie's in 2021. The work entitled Merge by artist Pak was the most expensive NFT, with an auction price of US$ 91.8 million and Everydays: the First 5000 Days , by artist Mike Winkelmann (known professionally as Beeple)
6512-408: The sale of the copycat NFTs, plus $ 200,000 in damages for cybersquatting, plus attorneys' fees; the ruling was made public in October 2023. Non-fungible token A non-fungible token ( NFT ) is a unique digital identifier that is recorded on a blockchain and is used to certify ownership and authenticity. It cannot be copied, substituted, or subdivided. The ownership of an NFT is recorded in
6600-493: The second most expensive at US$ 69.3 million in 2021. Some NFT collections, including Bored Apes , EtherRocks , and CryptoPunks , are examples of generative art , where many different images are created by assembling a selection of simple picture components in different combinations. In March 2021, the blockchain company Injective Protocol bought a $ 95,000 original screen print entitled Morons (White) from English graffiti artist Banksy and filmed somebody burning it with
6688-477: The sharing or copying of its associated digital file and does not prevent the creation of NFTs that reference identical files. NFT trading increased from US$ 82 million in 2020 to US$ 17 billion in 2021. NFTs have been used as speculative investments and have drawn criticism for the energy cost and carbon footprint associated with some types of blockchain, as well as their use in art scams . The NFT market has also been compared to an economic bubble or
6776-586: The technology as "monetized graphics". This explicitly linked a non-fungible, tradable blockchain marker to a work of art, via on-chain metadata (enabled by Namecoin). In October 2015, the first NFT project, Etheria, was launched and demonstrated at DEVCON 1 in London, Ethereum's first developer conference, three months after the launch of the Ethereum blockchain. Most of Etheria's 457 purchasable and tradable hexagonal tiles went unsold for more than five years until March 13, 2021, when renewed interest in NFTs sparked
6864-648: The three-year anniversary of his Ultraviolet album. On March 3, 2021, an NFT was made to promote the Kings of Leon album When You See Yourself . Other musicians who have used NFTs include American rapper Lil Pump , Grimes , visual artist Shepard Fairey in collaboration with record producer Mike Dean , and rapper Eminem . A paper presented at the 40th International Conference on Information Systems in Munich in 2019 suggested using NFTs as tickets for different types of events. This would enable organizers of
6952-634: The use of " KYC best practices, strong cyber security measures and a stolen art registry (...) without restricting the growth of this new market". Auction platforms for NFTs may face regulatory pressure to comply with anti-money laundering legislation. Gou Wenjun, the director of a monitoring centre for the People's Bank of China , said that NFTs could "easily become money-laundering tools". He pointed to unlawful exploitation of cryptographic technologies and said that illicit actors often presented themselves as innovators in financial technology. A 2022 study from
7040-440: The user" instead of the game developer if they can be traded on third-party marketplaces without permission from the game developer. Their reception from game developers, though, has been generally mixed, with some like Ubisoft embracing the technology but Valve and Microsoft formally prohibiting them. NFTs have been proposed for use within the film-industry as a way to tokenize movie-scenes and sell them as collectibles in
7128-434: The value of a purchased NFT (in contrast to an unpurchased copy of the underlying asset) to that of a status symbol "to show off that they can afford to pay that much". The "right-clicker mentality" phrase spread virally after its introduction, particularly among those who were critical of the NFT marketplace and who appropriated the term to flaunt their ability to capture digital art backed by NFT with ease. This criticism
7216-549: Was accompanied by the sale of 333 NFTs, while each of the episodes were themselves made into NFTs. It was executive produced by American rapper 2 Chainz . Matthew Gault of Vice wrote of its first episode, "It sucks. The animation is bad, the writing terrible, and the voice acting atrocious." In November 2023, guests reported burning pain in their eyes and vision problems after attending a Bored Ape event known as "ApeFest," in Hong Kong. Potential causes include UV lights used at
7304-439: Was accused of copycat NFT avatars. In June 2022, Yuga Labs launched a lawsuit against Ryder Ripps . Ripps is accused of false advertising and trademark infringement, with Yuga Labs requesting financial reimbursement and saying Ripps was executing a "calculated, intentional, and willful" plan to damage the reputation of the project. Ripps made a statement saying that the buyers of his NFTs were informed that they were not related to
7392-410: Was mocked by users on Twitter . Wired described the segment as having the "stiff, cheery cadence of a bad infomercial", and wrote that the clip going viral was "fueled by people making fun of how off-putting it was". Writing for the publication, Kate Knibbs wrote negatively of Bored Apes, and contrasted it to Comedian , a 2019 artwork by Maurizio Cattelan of a banana duct taped to a wall, where
7480-403: Was not the sole illustrator of the artwork, but the "lead artist of the original collection" and that the ape's body is "exactly line-for-line" her drawing. BAYC co-founder Gargamel stated that "Thomas Dagley, Migwashere, and a couple who chose to remain anonymous" handled traits and environments. Seneca did however, "develop some of the major traits, like the grinning mouth, the popping eyes, and
7568-566: Was one of the first marketplaces to host various types of NFTs. In July 2019, the National Basketball Association , the NBA Players Association and Dapper Labs, the creator of CryptoKitties , started a joint venture NBA Top Shot for basketball fans that let users buy NFTs of historic moments in basketball. In 2020, Rarible was found, allowing multiple assets. In 2021, Rarible and Adobe formed
7656-417: Was promoted by Australian programmer Geoffrey Huntley who created "The NFT Bay", modeled after The Pirate Bay . The NFT Bay advertised a torrent file purported to contain 19 terabytes of digital art NFT images. Huntley compared his work to an art project from Pauline Pantsdown and hoped the site would help educate users on what NFTs are and are not. NFTs that represent digital art generally do not store
7744-475: Was used to build tokenomics for their products. The token smart contract has been audited by Certik and Softstack (formerly Chainsulting). On April 25, 2022, the official Instagram account of the company was hacked and a phishing link was posted on it. As a result, four Bored Ape NFTs, along with ten more from related collections by Yuga Labs, were stolen with a total estimated worth of approximately $ 3 million. $ 1 million worth of funds were transferred into
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