NFTs have become an overwhelmingly popular phenomenon. Digital images that live on the blockchain are selling for seriously big bucks. One of the most popular NFT projects online today is called Bored Apes, which are NFTs featuring cartoon apes, no two of which are the same. 

These ape cartoons aren’t just fun to look at, they’re bringing in seriously big bucks. 

Set of Bored Ape NFTs Sells for $24.4 Million

On Thursday, September 9th, a set of Board Apes, consisting of 101 unique images that are part of a collection of 10,000 unique apes, sold at Sotheby’s Auction for a whopping $24.4 million. 

These unique images feature different combinations of clothing, facial expressions, and accessories. Not to mention, the purchase came with the option to generate six new “mutant” Bored Apes. 

At the auction, the purchaser also bought pets for the apes, known as “Bored Ape Kennel Club,” or BAKC, NFTs, which are a set of dogs. The BAKC NFTs brought in an extra $1,835,000, bringing the total sale to about $26,000. 

Board Apes aren’t just digital images of cartoon monkeys, they represent far more:

  • Bored Ape Yacht Club Membership. First and foremost, along with your unique image of a Bored Ape, when you purchase one of these NFTs, you become a member of the Bored Ape Yacht Club, a club of like-minded people that enjoy investing and taking part in the NFT community. 
  • Intellectual Property Rights. As with all NFTs, when a Bored Ape

    is purchased, the buyer receives the intellectual property rights to the image. As a result, the image can be used legally on apparel, websites, or wherever else the owner decides to put it. The owner can also sell the right to use the image to buyers and has legal recourse if someone else uses the image without his express written permission. 

Beyond the legal IP rights, and membership in the Bored Ape Yacht Club, there’s some serious underlying value in owning one of these apes, or any NFT for that matter. 

You see, Bored Apes are hosted, and sold, on the ethereum blockchain, using ether as the currency used for purchases. This means that the value of NFTs is measured in ether, rather than United States dollars, or any other currency for that matter. 

Because of how NFTs are bought and sold, they act somewhat as a derivative investment. Not only are you investing in the artwork you purchase when buying one of these assets, you’re investing in value derived from the cryptocurrency used to trade them.

For example, if you were to buy a Bored Ape for three ether today, your investment would be worth about $9,900 because each ether is worth about $3,300. Let’s say you held onto that Bored ape for three years and decided to sell it for the same amount of ether you purchased it for, three coins. However, in three years, a single ether may cost $10,000, so your sale would be worth $30,000 total, netting you a more than $20,000 profit. 

Growth in Excitement Is Likely to Continue

NFTs and the excitement surrounding them have exploded, and that growth is likely to continue. This can be seen by looking at the sales volume on OpenSea, the number one outlet for buying and selling these digital pieces of art. 

In August, sales volume on the platform reached a whopping $3.4 billion, more than ten times the sales volume the platform experienced in July. Among these sales, Bored Apes are a hot commodity. 

In fact, the average weekly secondary market price for these artworks has rocketed from about $1,500 when they hit the marketplace in April to nearly $72,000 last week. Not to mention a sale that took place Monday, September 6, 2021, fetching 740 ether for a single Bored Ape. That works out to an overall value of around $2.9 million!

Experts in the industry say the excitement we’re seeing surrounding these digital artworks is just the tip of the iceberg. After all, NFTs are the first asset in history that provides a completely secure way to transfer ownership of art and other assets, ownership that can be verified down the line. 

Beyond the excitement surrounding the new technology, the cryptocurrency that drives the industry, and the artwork itself, experts point to the perks for the artist as another reason excitement is likely to continue. After all, when an artist sells a painting, that painting is owned by the buyer, including all profits from any secondary sales. However, with NFTs, artists are paid royalties each time their artwork trades hands, meaning that NFTs bring value to the artists time and time again as their work becomes more and more valuable. 

Think about it, if this technology was around when Picasso was around, his family could still be collecting royalties on sales to this day!

Final Thoughts

NFT values are growing tremendously and showing no signs of slowing. The recent multi-million dollar sales of Bored Apes is a testament to just that. Moreover, these sales point to the fact that investors are seeing tremendous value in owning these assets, assets that are only likely to grow in popularity ahead!