BAYC NFT is hot all over the world, but is Wall Street ready to shock NFT?

Experts have expressed their views on how the success of the Bored Ape Yacht Club has made some good changes in the landscape of the NFT industry.

In the months following its April 2021 launch, the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) has emerged as one of the main reasons Wall Street should take the nascent non-fungible token (NFT) market seriously, thanks to its recent Sales turnover of more than 1 billion US dollars.


BAYC is a big hit with celebrities

For the uninitiated, BAYC is a collection of 10,000 cartoons of anthropomorphic apes dressed in stylish costumes with tugging expressions. Each ape is actually an image file, which should be worthless in the normal world. However, they are consistently hitting staggering prices, sometimes to some of the world's biggest names.

For example, famous American TV presenter Jimmy Fallon bought an image of a bored ape wearing a striped T-shirt and heart-shaped sunglasses for nearly $220,000 last November. And just recently, Oscar-winning rapper Eminem paid nearly $462,000 for a somewhat similar ape.

Meanwhile, the rarest bored ape with golden fur sold for $3.4 million in an online auction at Sotheby's in October, breaking the record for another rare ape with laser eyes Sold to The Sandbox a month ago for $2.9 million.

But what is the selling point of BAYC?

The value of the BAYC series comes from NFT, a digital proof of ownership recorded on a public blockchain. Readers can think of Bitcoin (BTC), but each "NFT" is indivisible and unique in some way.

Meanwhile, most NFT projects, including BAYC, settle through the Ethereum blockchain, priced in its native token, ether (ETH).

But rarity isn't the only reason people are paying millions for BAYC. In addition to having a unique avatar, people also get admission to an exclusive membership club. This puts them into an elite inner circle, giving them status and more opportunities for profit.

Evan Luthra, CEO and founder of EL Group International and an exclusive club member of BAYC, discusses the allure of this elite association. The 26-year-old angel investor sees the membership as "very powerful for those on Wall Street."

"I think every day a new celebrity joins the club."

The Bored Ape’s collectibles also give its owners access to Discord’s private message boards and gain privileged access to other NFTs.

BAYC "floor price"

The Bored Ape family also enables its owners to access private message boards on Discord and gain privileged access to other NFTs. In addition, its rising "floor price" also reflects the value of these NFTs in the secondary market.

As of Jan. 7, BAYC had a floor price of 68 ETH, worth about $217,800, up 380% from its mid-August low.

Noelle Acheson, Head of Market Insights at Genesis Trading, believes that BAYC is more flexible in collaboration than CryptoPunks, one of the few previous collections of NFTs that has gained a lot of attention.

Specific collaborations include BAYC-inspired Adidas gear, a signed artist agency, a potential Bored Ape music group, and other related assets emerging around the languid ape character.

“So, the concept of a floor price — which drives institutional investment in NFTs, and their increasing use as collateral for loans — is no longer just about how much investors think others will pay in the future,” Acheson explained said, adding:

“The floor price, as well as the asset’s potential for appreciation, now also depends on what NFTs can be used for beyond display.”

Luthra agreed, adding that continued celebrity involvement in BAYC will further boost its recognition among retail and institutional investors. This could create more demand for its NFT series, which in turn will push up its reserve price.

"Meta" effect

Jelmer Rotteveel, co-founder of NFT series MoonwalkerFM, added another bullish support to BAYC's core valuation: continued hype around Meta, a rebrand from Facebook to Meta, to support the social media giant's metaverse ambitions.

He told Cointelegraph, “With the advent of Meta, we will enter a new way of communicating and doing business,” adding that NFTs will become an integral part of the metaverse realm, with users supporting unique digital avatars such as Bored Apes, Communicate with each other digitally.

He added:

“I believe people will pay more close attention to the development of NFT projects like BAYC, as you see with cryptocurrencies, and they will step in one by one.”

Acheson noted that Facebook/Meta has committed to spend about $10 billion on metaspace development, citing a statement from its CEO Mark Zuckerberg that they will be working on decentralized metaverse applications.

“Whether we believe him or not — investors are likely to consider getting in before these flows,” she added