Bored Ape Yacht Club launched on April 30, 2021, as a collection of 10,000 cartoon apes with randomly generated traits. The mint price was 0.08 ETH — about $200 at the time. Created by Yuga Labs, a pseudonymous team later revealed to be Greg Solano and Wylie Aronow, BAYC was not the first PFP NFT project. But it became the most culturally significant one, and its rise from a niche Ethereum experiment to a global lifestyle brand happened in under a year.
By January 2022, BAYC floor prices had exceeded 100 ETH — roughly $300,000 per ape. Celebrity holders included Jimmy Fallon, Paris Hilton, Steph Curry, Eminem, and Snoop Dogg. Yuga Labs raised $450 million at a $4 billion valuation in March 2022, making it one of the most valuable startups in crypto. The team acquired CryptoPunks and Meebits from Larva Labs, launched the ApeCoin token, and announced Otherside — an ambitious metaverse project.
The bear market hit hard. By late 2022, BAYC floors had dropped below 30 ETH. ApeCoin crashed from $25 to under $2. Otherside’s development slowed. The narrative shifted from “NFTs are the future” to “NFTs are dead.” But Yuga Labs continued building, and BAYC holders continued wearing their apes as PFPs and attending real-world events, maintaining a community identity that survived the price crash.
BAYC’s historical importance transcends any single price point. It proved that NFTs could be more than collectibles — they could be identity, community membership, and brand. The “PFP as social status” pattern that BAYC pioneered became the template for every subsequent NFT project. And the idea that owning an NFT gives you commercial rights to the artwork — a Yuga Labs innovation — opened possibilities for user-generated licensing that traditional IP models hadn’t attempted. Whatever happens to ape prices, the model they created is permanent.
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