As the niche crypto asset market continues to heat up, a set of 107 non-fungible tokens (NFTs) representing cartoon ape images were sold for US$24.4 million in an online auction at Sotheby’s auction house on Thursday.
These images are “Boring Ape Yacht ClubA collection of NFT-a group of 10,000 computer-generated cartoon apes, manufactured by the American company Yuga Labs. The owners of the Ape NFT become members of the online club.
NFT is a digital asset that uses blockchain technology to record who owns digital objects, such as images, videos, or in-game items. Although anyone can view the relevant assets, only the buyer can say that they are the “official” owners.
Images from Sotheby’s website, in which the “boring ape” NFT worth US$24.4 million was sold in an online auction.
Picture from Sotheby’s
Unlike the NFT, the buyer of Bored Apes also obtained the intellectual property rights of the image. They are often used as profile pictures on social media.
The batch contains 101 these anthropomorphic apes, with different combinations of features, such as clothing, accessories, and facial expressions, as well as the option to generate six new “mutations”.
The auction also includes a large number of 101 “boring ape kennel club” NFTs-a group of dogs, sold as pets of apes. The auction for this group was US$1,835,000, and the auction for this group of apes was US$24,393,000, bringing the total transaction price to US$26,228,000.
Sotheby’s allows payments in cryptocurrencies Bitcoin, Ethereum, USDC, and fiat currencies.
Rapid growth
The enthusiasm for NFT shows no signs of slowing down. Sales of OpenSea, the largest NFT market, reached US$3.4 billion in August, ten times that of July. Some speculators “flip” their NFT within days or even hours to obtain dizzying profits.
According to data from NonFungible.com, a website that tracks the NFT market, the average weekly secondary market price of Bored Ape has soared from approximately US$1,500 when it was launched in April to US$71,942 last week.
On Monday, a boring ape was sold for 740 ether (approximately US$2.9 million).
Sotheby’s contemporary art expert Michael Bouhanna (Michael Bouhanna) said that despite financial speculation on NFT, he treats boring apes as works of art. He said that the NFT market is not a bubble.
“People are talking about bubbles in March, June, etc., and then we see that the market is stronger today, so I think they have been proven wrong…I think it’s a very organic market, with I really appreciate the art of collectors,” he said.
(Reporting by Elizabeth Howcroft; Editing by Sujata Rao and Timothy Heritage)
