Yuga Labs’ Otherside NFT Sales Break $310M

A new Metaverse by Bored Ape Yacht Club creator Yuga Labs has taken the virtual world by storm, bringing in more than $310 million in its hotly-anticipated NFT drop this weekend.

Break On Through

On Saturday, Apr. 30, Yuga Labs minted its first round of Otherdeeds NFTs, making 55,000 NFTs available to pre-approved wallets. At 305 APE apiece—which traded for just under $20 at the time of the mint—the drop brought in over $310 million into Yuga’s coffers.

It is widely assumed, though not confirmed, that the Otherdeed NFTs will represent land in the Otherside Metaverse. Otherdeeds could be purchased only in ApeCoin (APE) and, until recently, what their actual price would be was unknown. This predictably drove up the price of APE over the weeks leading up to the mint.

Otherside is a highly anticipated Metaverse world set to incorporate the brand imaging of various high-profile NFT favorites, most notably Bored Ape Yacht Club, but also Meebits, Cool Cats, CryptoPunks, and more. The project is developed by Yuga Labs in partnership with Animoca Brands, the Hong Kong-based venture capital company behind the popular but still unreleased Metaverse game, The Sandbox.

Otherdeed NFTs sold for a flat price, though there had originally been plans to launch the project via Dutch auction. This plan was ultimately abandoned, however, in order to avoid “a gas war of historic proportions” during what was expected to be one of the largest NFT mints in history.

Gas prices did in fact spike during the sale, and there was such demand for the NFTs that, at one point, Etherscan crashed.

Only those who pre-registered before Apr. 1, which included undergoing KYC requirements, were eligible to participate in the mint. The deeds could only be purchased with ApeCoin (APE), which was launched in March by ApeCoin DAO—an organization that is not affiliated with Yuga Labs, according to comments Yuga Labs gave to Crypto Briefing last month.

ApeCoin has capitulated in the wake of the sale, drawing down to under $17 and erasing more than $23 million from Yuga’s earnings within the first few hours after the sale.

At the time of writing, Otherdeeds were trading on OpenSea at a floor price of 7.5 ETH.

Disclosure: At the time of writing, the author of this piece owned ETH and several other cryptocurrencies.