Someone just paid $1.4 million for a golden BAYC NFT – Here’s why

FreeLunchCapital, the pseudonymous founder of Floor Protocol, paid $1.43 million worth of 588 ETH for a Non-Fungible Token (NFT). The NFT is linked to a golden Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) previously belonging to the bankrupt FTX’s vault.

In particular, the sale occurred on October 11 for the BAYC #7940, which has golden skin as its primary trait. Another pseudonymous member of the Bored Ape Yacht Club, Xeer, said on X it “Might be the cleanest, most aesthetic gold ape in the entire collection.”

A BAYC NFT purchase revenge story against FTX and SBF

This purchase has made waves in the cryptocurrency market, and the new owner of the BAYC #7940 explained his reasons. In a post on October 12, FLC_FlooringLab told a brief revenge story against the bankrupt FTX.

“I had 20M worth of assets buried in FTX. SBF [Sam Bankman-fried] took some from me. Now, I am taking something that was his. Simple and fair.”

– FreeLunchCapital (@FLC_FlooringLab)

The post also linked an announcement from Erick, co-founder of The OTC Network, listing and offering a series of rare NFTs from the FTX vault.

Interestingly, it all happened a few days after FTX got legal clearance to repay billions of customers, as Reuters reported on October 8. The repayments total up to $16.5 billion in recovered assets that will be sent in the following 60 days.

Is the bull market starting with million-dollar-worth NFT purchases?

This astonishing NFT transaction could mark the comeback of what the market saw in 2021-2022 during the previous bull cycle. At that time, JPEG images linked to these non-fungible tokens on Ethereum were changing hands for millions of dollars.

According to data Finbold retrieved from The Block and CryptoSlam, the NFT trade volume peaked above $3 billion in 2021. The two golden years for NFTs saw a consistent volume above $1 billion, which is now far below that mark.

Even a surge from November 2023 to April 2024 did not approach 2021-2022, registering around $300 million in trade volume. As of this writing, this volume is below $100 million, but things could start changing after FreeLunchCapital’s $1.4 million BAYC purchase.

Notably, the Bored Ape Yacht Club remains the leading NFT collection, as the metrics we gathered at DefiLlama show. On October 12, BAYC’s daily volume was 668.88 ETH; the golden #7940 unit represents 83.4% of the total.

In summary, FreeLunchCapital paid 588 ETH for an NFT attached to what enthusiasts deem one of the collection’s “most aesthetic” golden BAYC units of the collection. The sum is worth around $1.43 million, suggesting a renewed interest in trading these rare tokens.

Moreover, FTX receiving a clear path to repay its customers will inject billions of dollars of liquidity into the market, besides releasing a list of desired NFTs previously locked in the bankrupt company’s vaults. All things aligned, this recent event could be the missing spark for a so-awaited crypto bull market in 2024.

On that note, Ali Martinez believes an altcoin season is “just around the corner,” while Finbold reported other indicators suggesting an altseason is starting. Furthermore, Perplexity AI collected updated insights from the web, forecasting Bitcoin price will make new highs this year.