Original author: duoduo
Original source: LooksRare Chinese Community
Original author: duoduo
Original source: LooksRare Chinese Community
In the past two weeks, the highlight moments of NFT belonged to Bored Ape Yacht Club. First, it acquired cryptopunks and meebits in one fell swoop, and then issued the token APE, and obtained investment from leading investment institutions such as A16Z at a valuation of US$4 billion. BAYC was issued at the end of April 2021, and it has not been a year yet, but it has grown from an unknown newcomer to an NFT leader.
Why is BAYC successful? What's so special about APE? The rise of BAYC is to unify the "ape universe" and become the only one, or to create a new world and lead the NFT track all the way forward?
The Looksrare Chinese community held the second tea party on the evening of March 24, 2022, and invited four senior NFT players to discuss the above issues. Dialogue guests include: HAZE, nicknamed "Chicken Brother", an old player in the currency circle, quickly cut into the NFT field; JIVA, nicknamed "Guan Teacher", photographer, founder of sccDAO; Brother Xiao Mao, founder of maoDAO; Tang Han, founder of seeDAO People, BAYC airdropped the young lady of Shanghai Semi-suite.
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Why BAYC: Right time, place, people and offensive spirit
Before the NFT bull market in January of this year, cryptopunks had maintained a leading position in the NFT space. This project was founded in 2017. It appeared earlier than CryptoKitties and the ERC721 standard. Its issuance and dissemination are also full of encryption spirit. Pixel avatars, free distribution, and OG popularity in the encryption circle have set high sales records in auctions such as Christie’s and Sotheby’s. In August 2021, the floor price reached an astonishing 150 ether. To this day, the cumulative transaction amount is still the first in NFT.
At that time, no one could have imagined that only half a year later, BAYC would successfully acquire cryptopunks.
In terms of timing, the emergence of BAYC is at the right time and place.
The guests reviewed the NFT market in April last year. In April 2021, the NFT market is still in a wild period, and there are only a handful of projects on the market with acceptable art quality. There are only a few projects such as cryptopunks and hashmask. At that time, hashmask led a wave of small market, using the joint curve issuance method. At the beginning of the sale, the price was set very low, and the price became more expensive as it went on sale. The last 3 avatars of hashmask were sold for 100 ether.
BAYC was the first to oppose this distribution method and proposed a fair sale with a very low price of 0.08 ether, which anyone could afford, which brought a refreshing feeling at the time.
All NFT projects are in the exploratory stage, and no one knows how to develop. BAYC provides a paradigm for the development of NFT projects, and also demonstrates the investment logic of NFT projects. And BAYC shows this core: cultural attributes as the core.
The name and image of BAYC have meme attributes, such as boredom, yachts, and monkeys, which are easy to hit people's emotional points.
From the perspective of team operation, people are harmonious, expand the community and bring benefits to the community. During the development of BAYC, it has been seriously thinking about what its NFT users can get, and has taken a series of measures to implement it.
On the one hand, the opening of copyright grants NFT holders the commercial use of the NFT they hold, which brings a large number of peripheral products and active marketing. This is in contrast to cryptopunks' conservative and ambiguous approach to copyright.
Judging from the spirit of the team, YugaLab has a Roman-style offensive spirit. This spirit makes them continue to expand the community and look for all the forces that can cooperate.
From BAYC, they got coverage from The New Yorker. With the help of the New Yorker's report, cooperate with the sports and entertainment celebrities in the web2.0 world, and turn the community into the most famous web3.0 community in the web2.0 world. Then issue MAYC to expand the community and get more people involved. Followed by the acquisition of cryptopunks and meebits. Then issue coins, sell land, open up a new space in the metaverse, enter the metaverse track from the NFT track, and compete with sandbox and decentraland.
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APE Highlights: Dare to tell a story that has never been told
The issuance of BAYC's token APE brings the biggest airdrop feast in 2022. In the field of NFT, BAYC is not the first to issue tokens, but it is the first to get out of the circle.
Regarding the pricing of APE, market value funds are also confused. During the first hour of the coin being live, there was a lot of volatility. The highest reached 200 knives, and the lowest hit 6 knives. In the end, APE couldn't hit anymore, and rebounded, basically stabilizing at around 10 knives. This is the process of finding value and discovering price of NFT tokens. As the first token of the NFT track, APE also has an anchoring effect, roughly framing the space for NFT track tokens.
The guests believed that the support of the value of APE tokens comes from its executive team, strong community, abundant funds and imaginative metaverse narrative, "dare to tell a story that has never been told before".
From the perspective of token mechanism, mainly governance, pledge, in-game tokens, etc., all belong to the functions of common tokens, and there are not many bright spots.
However, from the perspective of token issuance and construction of the metaverse, this process is very interesting. BAYC is the leader of PFP. If we want to continue to use the main IP to create a larger world and imagination, we need to consider the economic system. People are willing to use BAYC as their social media image, and they are naturally willing to enter the Metaverse with BAYC's image. This is the process of mapping the real image to the virtual world, and it has been completed in the process of PFP dissemination. Accompanying it is that the real economy is mapped to the virtual world, therefore, the issuance of token APE is inevitable.
From the perspective of community expansion, the issuance of APE also enables more people to participate in the BAYC community, and can build a larger economic system. After the token is issued, market funds will inevitably pay more attention to the narrative of the token and the narrative ability of the team.
Judging from the existing information, the future of APE is not just to be BAYC's own metaverse, but to be a big ecology. In this metaverse, a lot of content is needed to fill in, and it needs to cooperate with other projects.
In this regard, it should be noted that issuing coins is not a panacea and may not necessarily support the development of the main IP. For some small projects, without the support of community consensus and sufficient narrative, it is difficult to achieve good results when tokens are issued.
You can pay attention to high-quality NFT projects. If there is an expectation of currency issuance, it is a better investment opportunity. The surge of azuki in the past two days is also partly due to the impact of the expected token issuance. NFT veteran player dingaling bought 7 azuki from gem, 6 of which came from the LooksRare platform. This move has boosted market investment sentiment.
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The influence of BAYC "Ape Universe": leading by demonstration effect, project cooperation has become a trend
Regarding the future development of BAYC, it mentioned the issue of land, the construction of metaverse, and the multi-party cooperative development of games, etc. This is after completing the internal integration of the NFT track, and began to break through outwards, looking for new growth points and value support points. This is dubbed the metaverse = "ape universe".
From the perspective of development path and community activity, BAYC has a good community foundation in the construction of metaverse. Its NFT holders are the first generation of aborigines, and the group brought by APE currency is the second generation of aborigines, which is the first community Then there is the metaverse. On the other hand, decentraland and others have metaverse first, and then attract groups to enter. The community activity is not as active as the original community of BAYC.
From the perspective of the overall impact of the industry, one is the demonstration effect. The development process and model of BAYC have given the latecomers a clear path. Second-time blue chips can play according to this, or they can cooperate with BAYC to join Ape Universe and play together. The second is the cooperative effect, and the cooperation between projects has become a trend. In the newly released video of BAYC, the final spaceship shows cool cats, women of world and other items. Different projects can be added to the APE Metaverse, relying on the ecology to achieve development. The third is that this shows the possible new development direction of NFT infrastructure. NFT infrastructure, such as lending, fragmentation, etc., has been talked about for several years, but it has not really developed yet. If, as BAYC plans, an endogenous trading market is established in the metaverse, then the infrastructure is built around the community.
At present, cooperation and teamwork have become a trend, and it is no longer suitable to go it alone. This can be seen in current projects, such as the previous cooperation between Kumao and roboto, deadfellaz and other projects, and the cooperation between captrue house and uwucrew. For the project side, since the APE metaverse needs enough content, it may support creators to develop content in it, and small creators can consider related opportunities. For investors, it is recommended that when looking at projects in the future, they need to pay attention to the relationship network behind the project, as well as which ecological development they may enter, and whether the relevant ecology has a large room for development.
Regarding whether BAYC will dominate, the guests believed that the NFT track is still an incremental market with a lot of opportunities. For funds that pursue certainty, invest in top blue chips. For the pursuit of high-yield funds, it is necessary to go deep into the community and use small things to make big gains.
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Audience Q&A:
What is the standard for judging whether an NFT project is of high quality?
All the guests emphasized that aesthetics, art style, and picture quality are the first. They have emotions and puncture points, which can capture people's emotions and become fans. If the quality of the pictures cannot be guaranteed, it is hard to believe that the team can do other things well. In line with the public aesthetics, the American style is greater than the Japanese style. It is best to have a unique, innovative, and memorable art style. Don’t be too similar to a successful product, otherwise it will be considered an imitation.
The second is the community and the team. Does the team continue to do things, can continue to meet the expectations of the community, and build the confidence of the community. There are some communities that are good at the beginning, but when there is a problem with the team's behavior, the confidence of the community is damaged, people will leave, and the project cannot be launched.
The guests believed that the advantages of individual NFT players are that they are more sensitive, flexible, and closer to the community than institutions. The NFT project is highly community-based, and a lot of information can only be understood by individuals. In the specific field of NFT project investment, NFT players with aesthetic ability and influence can do better than large institutions.
At present, when institutions enter the NFT field, they mainly invest in infrastructure, underlying tools, and hardware facilities. These projects require more technical support and strong funds, and are more suitable for institutional investment.
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