Bored Ape Yacht Club

Nifty News: Reddit NFTs surge into OpenSea top 10, judge likens NFTs to ‘luxury’ property and more

Reddit’s NFT collections have taken some of the top 10 spots on OpenSea and seen millions in sales volume over the past week.

Reddit NFTs among OpenSea’s top 10 collections

Reddit’s Polygon-based nonfungible token (NFT) venture continues to impress, with three of its tokenized avatar collections cracking the top 10 projects on OpenSea in terms of sales volume this week.

Looking at the 24-hour sales volume chart, Spooky Season by Reddit user poieeeyee is ranked second with 274 Ether (ETH), or $401,000 at the time of writing, worth of sales, behind only Yuga Lab’s Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) at 684 ETH.

The ninth and tenth spots are then taken up by Imagination Station from user Chipperdoodle and The Senses from user Rojom with 121 ETH ($177,400) and 120 ETH ($175,900) worth of sales over the past 24 hours.

Zooming out to the seven-day sales volume chart, Spooky Season is the sole Reddit project cracking the top 10 with its 880 ETH ($1.2 million) worth of sales, placing it as sixth at the time of writing.

Spooky Season NFTs: OpenSea

For anyone unfamiliar with Reddit’s NFT project, it offers a Collectible Avatars Creator Program which enables users to create and sell profile picture (PFP) NFT collections with artwork based on the Reddit mascot logo Snoo.

The move has been a hit so far, with Cointelegraph reporting on Oct. 24 that the number of wallets holding Reddit NFTs had hit around 2.8 million since launch in July.

NFT considered physical property like “luxury watches” in Singapore court

A judge from the High Court of the Republic of Singapore has drawn on existing property laws to grant a motion to refrain a defendant hodler from selling a BAYC NFT, as he likened the asset class to physical property such as luxury watches or fine wine.

The dispute in question involves Plaintiff Janesh Rajkumar, who alleges that defendant chefpierre.eth broke the terms of an NFT loan agreement and foreclosed on the token too early.

According to court documents, via the NFTfi platform, Rajkumar had borrowed crypto assets from chefpierre.eth by putting up his BAYC NFT as collateral but had set terms in which the asset would not be liquidated without giving “reasonable opportunities to make full repayment of the loan.”

After the NFT was liquidated, chefpierre.eth went on to list the NFT for sale. However, Rajkumar then filed a lawsuit and motioned for the court to bar the sale for the duration of the case.

Explaining his decision to grant the motion, Judge Lee Seiu Kin compared NFTs to physical collector’s items, noting that:

“Cars, books, wine and luxury watches … are a few examples of highly sought-after items for collectors, [f]or digital nomads, especially those steeped in the world of blockchain and cryptocurrencies, NFTs have emerged as a highly sought-after collectors’ item.”

Get a teardrop tattoo in the metaverse, your grandma won’t care

Freshly launched Australian Web3 tech firm Swallow is looking to expand the tattoo sector into the metaverse.

In a launch announcement this week, the firm outlined that it will allow “metaverse-goers and gamers to customize their avatars and accessories with tattoos and skins from the world’s most exciting tattoo artists.”

A key focus for the firm will be offering tattoo artists ways to expand their presence outside of their shops, bring more exposure to their artwork and designs and build a digital community.

“Giving people the ability to represent themselves online through wearable art is an important part of their digital experience. Likewise, tattoo artists are looking for ways to expand outside their physical studios and share their designs more broadly,” the announcement reads.

According to Swallow, more than 100 tattoo artists have signed on from the jump, such as popular podcaster Joe Rogan’s go-to artist Aaron Della Vedova. 25 business partnerships have also been penned, including two blockchain-based metaverses in Bloktopia and CrypCade.

Galaxy enters NFT royalties debate saying it’s a “core value proposition”

With the recent debate over whether royalties from NFTs are good for the industry or not, which some projects have opted to move away from the model, asset manager Galaxy has emphasized that the community should be careful about shifting away from what it deems as a “core value proposition of NFTs.”

In a lengthy report, Galaxy highlights data indicating that more than “$1.8 billion worth of royalties have been paid out to creators of Ethereum-based NFT collections” so far, suggesting a “strong contingent of users willing to pay royalties.”

Related: Potential US ban is a reminder that influencers should dump TikTok

Ultimately, the report notes that it is too early to tell which NFT sales model will be best, as more solutions will likely emerge with different platforms and companies going down different paths.

“Only time will tell if creators continue to reap benefits from secondary sales, or if they will lose out on potential income in favor of a ‘pure’ ownership model.”

Other Nifty News:

After recently enabling NFT purchase support on its app store, Apple has essentially reiterated that its 30% sales commission fee on all in-app purchases will apply to NFTs, as it will not enable apps to direct users to external avenues to purchase the NFTs.

Cointelegraph reported on Oct. 24 that search data from Google Trends shows that the keyword “Web3” has picked up steam and recorded an all-time high in terms of peak popularity in 2022, while global Google searches for “Bitcoin” has reached their lowest point in over a year.

Bored Ape creators and other NFT projects investigated by SEC probe

A source familiar with the matter said the SEC is looking into whether certain NFTs from Yuga Labs could be “more akin to stocks.”

Sources say that the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) probe into Yuga Labs is actually part of a wider investigation into the nonfungible token (NFT) market, which already came to light in March.

On Oct. 11, a report from Bloomberg, citing a source “familiar with the matter,” said the SEC is investigating Yuga Labs over whether certain NFTs are “more akin to stocks” and whether the sales of certain digital assets violate federal laws.

However, Cointelegraph understands that the investigation is part of the ongoing SEC probe into the wider NFT market, which is looking at whether certain NFTs and fractional NFTs could fall under federal securities laws.

In March, anonymous sources told Bloomberg that the SEC was investigating NFT creators and marketplaces regarding whether “certain nonfungible tokens […] are being utilized to raise money like traditional securities.”

A spokesperson for the SEC told Cointelegraph that it “does not comment on the existence or nonexistence of a possible investigation.”

Meanwhile, Yuga Labs appears to be looking at the bright side of things. In a statement to Cointelegraph, a spokesperson said, “It’s well-known that policymakers and regulators have sought to learn more about the novel world of Web3,” adding:

“We hope to partner with the rest of the industry and regulators to define and shape the burgeoning ecosystem. As a leader in the space, Yuga is committed to fully cooperating with any inquiries along the way.”

Bloomberg also reported the regulator is examining the distribution of ApeCoin (APE), which was given to the holders of Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and other NFTs.

Related: Anon news group makes numerous allegations against Yuga Labs and Bored Ape Yacht Club

According to the ApeCoin website, Yuga Labs is a community member in the ApeCoin DAO and will adopt APE as the primary token across its new projects.

Update (2:45 am UTC): Comments from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission were added to this article. 

Nifty News: Yuga Labs launches BAYC council, Animoca backs Cool Cats and more…

Solana NFT volume surged to $130 million in September and Gary Vaynerchuck’s VeeFriends are set to be released as collectibles at Macy’s and Toys “R” Us.

Yuga Labs has announced a new Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) community council to help the project “grow and thrive.”

The team revealed seven council members in an Oct. 5 blog post, noting that they are all OGs who have been around since the early days of the BAYC.

Yuga Labs said it assembled a new community council made up of “Apes with a proven track record of proactively and positively contributing to the club since the start.”

The members include, @beijingdou, @SeraStargirl, @TheMiamiApe, @OxEthanDG, @OxWave, @negithenagi, @peterjfang.

“This council was formed with the intention of representing the club at large and providing an avenue for new perspectives,” Yuga Labs wrote.

Yuga Labs stated that they will engage with the community and gather feedback for the firm, work with Yuga on community-driven initiatives such as commercial projects, meetups and charity work.

“Every Ape in our community has directly impacted our decisions-making from day one. This council, and future councils to come, puts a more formal, efficient and consistent process in place for Yuga leadership to get community feedback and advice on an ongoing basis,” it wrote.

Yuga Labs also teased that it could soon launch community councils for its other NFT projects including CryptoPunks, Meebits and the Otherside moving forward.

Animoca Brands partners with Cool Cats

NFT venture fund giant Animoca Brands has made a strategic investment into blue chip NFT project Cool Cats to help the project expand into new avenues such as gaming.

The Oct. 5 announcement from the duo states that the “partnership will drive Cool Cats’ mission to become the largest global NFT brand and a robust media and content company, including through expansion of its gaming offerings.”

Cool Cats was launched in July 2021 and consists of 9,999 cartoon cat avatars. The project has generated $369.2 million worth of NFT sales volume to date as per CryptoSlam data. The latest announcement has also coincided with Cool Cats sales volume pumping 220% over the past 24 hours.

The move also follows a partnership with Animoca Subsidiary GAMEE from Sept. 1, a virtual platform focused on connecting creators, brands and players in the GameFi space.

Solana NFT sales volume surges past $100M in September

NFT sales volume on the Solana blockchain tagged $130.1 million in September, with that figure marking an 82.2% increase compared to the $71.4 million posted in August.

While the figure still places Solana well behind Ethereum, which hosted $354.3 million worth of NFT sales volume last month, the difference between the two’s number of unique buyers is much smaller.

According to CryptoSlam data, Solana NFTs saw 143,997 unique buyers in September (up from 95,516 in August) compared to Ethereum’s 166,168 that month (down from 202,467).

While the figures may indicate that Solana is making up some notable ground on Ethereum, the latter still hosts the majority of blue chip NFT projects.

Looking at data over the past 30 days, only one Solana NFT project makes the top 10 in terms of sales volume with tenth ranked y00ts mint t00b’s $13.3 million worth of sale volume. In comparison, eight Ethereum-based projects make the top 10 during that time frame.

Mommy, I want that NFT!

Gary Vaynerchuck’s NFT project VeeFriends has penned an exclusive deal with Macy’s and Toys “R” Us to sell physical plush and figure collectibles featuring VeeFriends NFT characters.

The collectibles will be available in stores from Oct. 17th, and will be priced from $9.99 to $29.99. The characters include Common Sense Cow, Willful Wizard, Practical Peacock, Gratitude Gorilla, Genuine Giraffe and Be The Bigger Person.

Related: Three Arrows Capital’s NFT collection to be liquidated

Hodlers who own the NFT version of the characters will receive the associated physical collectibles, with the more expensive plush and six inch figures going to season one NFT holders.

Notably, the hodler’s won’t get a kick-back from the sales of the physical toys however.

Collectible toys: VeeFriends

Other Nifty News:

Horizon Blockchain Games, the developers of popular NFT card game Skyweaver have raised $40 million in Series A funding, the company disclosed on Oct. 4. The round was led by Brevan Howard Digital and Morgan Creek Digital, with additional participation from Polygon, Take-Two Interactive, and Ubisoft to name a few.

NFT marketplace OpenSea announced in a series of tweets on Oct. 5 that the platform will officially allow its users to bulk list and bulk purchase up to 30 digital collectible items in a single flow.

Nifty News: Yuga Labs launches BAYC council, Animoca backs Cool Cats and more

Solana NFT volume surged to $130 million in September, and Gary Vaynerchuck’s VeeFriends are set to be released as collectibles at Macy’s and Toys “R” Us.

Yuga Labs has announced a new Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) community council to help the project “grow and thrive.”

The team revealed seven council members in an Oct. 5 blog post, noting that they are all OGs who have been around since the early days of BAYC.

Yuga Labs said it assembled a new community council made up of “Apes with a proven track record of proactively and positively contributing to the club since the start.”

The members include Beijingdou, SeraStargirl, TheMiamiApe, OxEthanDG, OxWave, Negithenagi and Peterjfang.

“This council was formed with the intention of representing the club at large and providing an avenue for new perspectives,” Yuga Labs wrote.

Yuga Labs stated that it will engage with the community and gather feedback for the firm, working with Yuga on community-driven initiatives such as commercial projects, meetups and charity work.

“Every Ape in our community has directly impacted our decision-making from day one. This council, and future councils to come, puts a more formal, efficient and consistent process in place for Yuga leadership to get community feedback and advice on an ongoing basis,” it wrote.

Yuga Labs also teased that it could soon launch community councils for its other NFT projects including CryptoPunks, Meebits and the Otherside, moving forward.

Animoca Brands partners with Cool Cats

NFT venture fund giant Animoca Brands has made a strategic investment into the blue-chip NFT project Cool Cats to help the project expand into new avenues such as gaming.

The Oct. 5 announcement from the duo states that the “partnership will drive Cool Cats’ mission to become the largest global NFT brand and a robust media and content company, including through expansion of its gaming offerings.”

Cool Cats was launched in July 2021 and consists of 9,999 cartoon cat avatars. The project has generated $369.2 million worth of NFT sales volume to date, according to CryptoSlam data. The latest announcement has also coincided with Cool Cats sales volume pumping 220% over the past 24 hours.

The move also follows a partnership with Animoca Subsidiary GAMEE from Sept. 1, a virtual platform focused on connecting creators, brands and players in the GameFi space.

Solana NFT sales volume surges past $100M in September

NFT sales volume on the Solana blockchain tagged $130.1 million in September, with that figure marking an 82.2% increase compared to the $71.4 million posted in August.

While the figure still places Solana well behind Ethereum, which hosted $354.3 million worth of NFT sales volume last month, the difference between the two’s number of unique buyers is much smaller.

According to CryptoSlam data, Solana NFTs saw 143,997 unique buyers in September, up from 95,516 in August, compared with Ethereum’s 166,168 that month, down from 202,467.

While the figures may indicate that Solana is making up some notable ground on Ethereum, the latter still hosts the majority of blue-chip NFT projects.

Looking at data over the past 30 days, only one Solana NFT project makes the top 10 in terms of sales volume, with 10th-ranked Y00ts Mint T00b’s $13.3 million worth of sale volume. In comparison, eight Ethereum-based projects make the top 10 during that time frame.

Mommy, I want that NFT!

Gary Vaynerchuck’s NFT project VeeFriends has penned an exclusive deal with Macy’s and Toys “R” Us to sell physical plush and figure collectibles featuring VeeFriends NFT characters.

The collectibles will be available in stores from Oct. 17 and will be priced from $9.99 to $29.99. The characters include Common Sense Cow, Willful Wizard, Practical Peacock, Gratitude Gorilla, Genuine Giraffe and Be The Bigger Person.

Related: Three Arrows Capital’s NFT collection to be liquidated

Hodlers who own the NFT version of the characters will receive the associated physical collectibles, with the more expensive plush and six-inch figures going to season one NFT holders.

The hodlers won’t get a kick-back from the sales of the physical toys, however.

Collectible toys from VeeFriends.

Other Nifty News

Horizon Blockchain Games, the developers of popular NFT card game Skyweaver, raised $40 million in Series A funding, the company disclosed on Oct. 4. The round was led by Brevan Howard Digital and Morgan Creek Digital, with additional participation from Polygon, Take-Two Interactive and Ubisoft, to name a few.

NFT marketplace OpenSea announced in a series of tweets on Oct. 5 that the platform will officially allow its users to bulk list and bulk purchase up to 30 digital collectible items in a single flow.

The Sandbox’s Instagram account compromised, hackers try to rent BAYC NFTs

Hackers redirected The Sandbox followers to a fake raffle giveaway URL and even tried to rent Bored Ape NFTs from Instagram users.

Metaverse platform The Sandbox saw its Instagram profile hacked and used to try and rent out Bored Ape Yacht Club nonfungible tokens (NFTs) from a number of users on the social media platform.

The voxel-powered NFT platform’s profile was compromised by hackers on Thursday, promoting a fabricated raffle ticket event that touted a season 4 LAND giveaway to unsuspecting users.

The firm indicated that its two-factor authentication and other security measures had been bypassed to promote the fake giveaway. The profile’s website URL was changed, with one user claiming to have lost NFTs after clicking the fake link.

Cointelegraph managed to follow the link to the fake website — which prompts users to connect web-based wallets for a chance to win the fraudulent raffle.

In a bizarre twist, Sandbox co-founder and chief operating officer Sebastien Borget revealed that the hackers then reached out to a number of users on Instagram with Bored Ape Yacht Club profile pictures in an attempt to “rent” out the NFTs — offering 40 Ether (ETH) to use the BAYC NFTs for 24 hours.

According to Borget, The Sandbox managed to recover control of its Instagram account a few hours later, while stories promoting the fake giveaway were still live on the account at the time of publishing (4:00 pm EST).

The NFT-powered Metaverse platform has collaborated with major brands and celebrities since its Alpha launch in November 2021. The likes of Paris Hilton and Snoop Dogg have partnered with the platform, while notable clothing retailers like Adidas launched NFTs wearables that are compatible with The Sandbox and other Metaverse platforms.

The Sandbox team told Cointelegraph that it is working with Instagram’s security team to complete a security review and audit of the incident and would not be drawn to comment further until more details are known. 

Users affected by the incident can contact The Sandbox team through its support channel by emailing support@sandbox.game.

Looks bare: OpenSea turns into NFT ghost-town after volume plunges 99% in 90 days

An ongoing debt crisis at lending platform BendDAO is also increasing the risk the NFT bubble will burst.

OpenSea, the world’s largest nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace, has witnessed a substantial drop in daily volumes as fears about a potential market bubble grow.

OpenSea volume plummets to yearly lows

Notably, the marketplace processed nearly $5 million worth of NFT transactions on Aug. 28 — approximately 99% lower than its record high of $405.75 million on May 1, according to DappRadar.

OpenSea users, volume and transactions statistics. Source: DappRadar

The massive declines in daily volumes coincided with equally drastic drops in OpenSea users and their transactions, suggesting that the value and interest in the blockchain-based collectibles have diminished in recent months.

That is further visible in the falling floor prices — the minimum amount one is ready to pay for an NFT — of leading digital collectible projects.

For instance, the floor price of Bored Ape Yacht Club dropped by 53% to 72.5 Ether (ETH) on Aug. 28 vs. a high of 153.7 ETH on May 1. 

BAYC floor price history. Source: CoinGecko

Similarly, the floor price of CryptoPunks, another top NFT collection, dropped almost 20% from its July high of 83.72 ETH.

NFT bubble is bursting

NFT prices are quoted in the native currency of the blockchain on which they are launched. So, a digital collectible created on Ethereum is purchased using Ether, which also means that NFT prices will fall if ETH’s market valuation plummets.

A bearish ETH market appears to be one of the primary drivers behind the poor NFT statistics. Notably, the price of 1 ETH has fallen from $4,950 in November 2021 to below $1,500 in August 2022.

ETH/USD 3-day price chart. Source: TradingView

BendDAO votes to improve NFT liquidity

Last week, BendDAO, a decentralized autonomous organization that enables NFT owners to collateralize their digital collectibles to take loans (in ETH) worth 30% to 40% of the NFT’s floor price, voted to change its protocol’s code to make its NFT collateral more liquid.

The vote occurred after a rise in Ether’s price increased the value of ETH-denominated loans in dollar terms. Meanwhile, on the other hand, NFT prices plummeted, reducing the value of the collateral held by BendDAO.

As a result, BendDAO is now facing its own debt crisis moment, where borrowers cannot pay their dollar-denominated loans due to falling ETH prices, while lenders are finding it difficult to recover their loaned amounts due to falling collateral valuations.

Related: Prosecutors want to claim NFTs as securities, alleges legal team of former OpenSea employee

BendDAO’s latest vote has changed its NFT liquidation threshold from 95% to 70%. It has also reduced the time offered to borrowers to avoid liquidation from 48 hours to fo hours to attract more bids for their NFT collaterals.

In other words, the floor price of NFTs, including BAYC, risks plunging further if the market’s liquidity continues to dry up.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.

Nearly $55M worth of Bored Ape, CryptoPunks NFTs risk liquidation amid debt crisis

Analysts are divided on whether the potential NFT liquidation event is a buy-the-dip opportunity.

Many owners of precious Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and CryptoPunks nonfungible tokens (NFTs), who used them as collateral to take out loans in Ether (ETH), have failed to repay their debts. The situation could lead up to the NFT sector’s first massive liquidation event.

BAYC “death spiral” incoming?

DoubleQ, the founder of Web3 launchpad Double Studio, says lending service BendDAO could liquidate up to $55 million worth of NFTs to recover its loans, fearing the so-called “health factor” of these debts could fall below 1.

Notably, an NFT collection’s floor price is important in determining the health factor. BendDAO offers 30%–40% of the NFT’s floor price as loans. But the protocol sells the NFT if its floor price falls too close to the amount borrowed—a liquidation threshold, as explained below.

BendDAO’s NFT liquidation protocol. Source: Official Website

Meanwhile, the floor price of BAYC has fallen from 153.7 ETH in May to 69.69 ETH in August—a nearly 55% plunge in three months. Simultaneously, the health factor of at least 20 loans with BAYC as collateral has fallen to 1.1 as of Aug. 19, data on BendDAO shows.

Borrowers have 48 hours to repay the loan or their NFT collateral will be liquidated. According to doubleQ, these liquidations could lead to “a death spiral for the BAYC ecosystem and NFT market as a whole,” given BendDAO’s exposure to other NFT projects, including CryptoPunks and Doodles.

“OpenSea volume is at the lowest point ever in the last 12 months,” the analyst warned, adding:

“There’s simply not enough volume to save these liquidations.. It’s inevitable.”

BendDAO NFT holdings distribution. Source: doubleQ

OpenSea is the leading NFT marketplace by volume.

To buy the dip or not?

Nevertheless, doubleQ believes the incoming BAYC liquidation could offer an opportunity to buy the NFTs at cheaper rates.

On the other hand, Naimish Sanghvi, CEO of India-based crypto news outlet Coin Crunch, wonders if there would be any buyers due to a lack of arbitrage opportunities. 

“Your bid has to be more than 95% of the floor value and higher than the debt amount,” explained Sanghvi, noting that there could no room for making money from arbitrage between these values.

“The auctions don’t begin until the first bid is placed, so there may be several NFTs in limbo at a given point in time if the prices are unfavorable. And that should scare the Liquidity providers.”

This scenario would have BendDAO wait for borrowers to repay their loans—or to wait for the re-emergence of liquidators after a market recovery—to subside its “temporary floating loss.”

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.

Gucci becomes first major brand to accept ApeCoin payments

Gucci has ramped up its Web3 initiatives by allowing crypto nerds to purchase its products with ApeCoin in its stores, adding to a list of 12 other digital assets it accepts for payment.

High-end Italian fashion giant Gucci has become the first major brand to accept payments in the form of the Bored Ape Yacht Club-affiliated ApeCoin (APE).

The move was announced on Monday and could provide the ApeCoin project with significant mainstream exposure along with bringing further utility to the cryptocurrency.

Gucci customers in the United States will now be able to purchase items in-store with APE, while the payment infrastructure will be provided by BitPay, a firm that has helped big names such as AMC Theaters accept crypto payments in the past.

Despite the ongoing crypto bear market, the fashion brand has taken a serious plunge into the crypto sector this year.

In February, Gucci kicked things off with the “SUPERGUCCI” NFT collection in collaboration with vinyl toy brand SUPERPLASTIC. The following month, Gucci rolled out the “Gucci Grail” NFT collection targeted toward owners of top NFT projects such as the BAYC.

In May, the firm then went on to announce plans to accept 12 crypto assets as payment methods across 111 stores in North America. The list included Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Ether (ETH), Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC), Litecoin (LTC), Shiba Inu (SHIB), Dogecoin (DOGE), and five U.S. dollar stablecoins.

BAYC collectors seem to have shown strong support for Gucci’s crypto moves so far, with pseudonymous Twitter personality NBATopShotEast claiming to be the first person to pay for Gucci items in ETH at the brand’s Wooster Street location in New York City in July. Another two BAYC members claimed to be the second and third people to do so.

In response to the latest APE announcement, NBATopShotEast outlined plans to once again be the first person to use the asset in the Wooster Gucci store.

The Apecoin community

APE was launched following much anticipation earlier this year in March. Its accompanying decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) and governance community has since remained highly engaged and has overseen important decisions such as the vetoing of a proposal to port APE from Ethereum to a new blockchain in June.

Last month, the DAO voted in favor of several notable proposals, such as studying the feasibility of hosting an NFT conference and festival and providing APE funding for the Bored Ape Gazette to become a 24-hour news site. Additionally, the project is working on rolling out APE staking in response to a strong push from the community.

At the time of writing, APE is priced at $6.74 after pumping 11.4% over the past seven days. APE has shown a strong resurgence of late, due in part to positive developments in the affiliated Otherside metaverse project, with the price increasing by 49.1% over the past month.

Related: Tiffany & Co turning CryptoPunk NFTs into $50K custom pendants

Its current market cap of roughly $2.06 billion makes APE the 33rd largest asset in crypto. However, APE is still down 74.8% from its all-time high of $26.70 on April 28.

Yuga Labs ‘inappropriately induced’ BAYC investors: Class action

Law firm Scott+Scott alleges that Yuga Labs promoted a chance at huge returns on investment to “unsuspecting investors.”

A proposed class-action lawsuit alleges that Yuga Labs “inappropriately induced” the community to buy Bored Ape Yacht Club non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and the project’s affiliated ApeCoin (APE) token.

The proposed class-action driven by law firm Scott+Scott was published on July 21, claiming that Yuga Labs used celebrity promoters and endorsements to “inflate the price” of the BAYC NFTs and the APE token.

It also alleges that Yuga Labs promoted the growth prospects and chance for huge returns on investment to “unsuspecting investors.”

“After selling off millions of dollars of fraudulently promoted NFTs, YUGA LABS launched the Ape Coin to further fleece investors.”

“Once it was revealed that the touted growth was entirely dependent on continued promotion (as opposed to actual utility or underlying technology) retail investors were left with tokens that had lost over 87% from the inflated price high on April 28, 2022,” it added.

The law firm is currently seeking impacted investors who suffered losses on BAYC NFTs and Apecoin between April and June of this year.

During this timeframe, APE surged to its all-time high of $26.70, before dropping roughly 82.5% to $4.66 at the end of June, while the floor price went from 151.5 Ether (ETH) down to 92.9 ETH.

The community seems to be relatively unfazed by the proposed lawsuit, with BAYC hodler @SoapBoxCar suggesting via Twitter on July 24 that a bunch of people are mad they bought at the top and “got rekt.”

User @briann6211 also highlighted an interesting point in that Yuga Labs “never created a token… Apecoin DAO created a token which was then adopted” by the firm. Several members also noted that the Apecoin tanked after a free airdrop to BAYC holders, while the broader market was also suffering from a sharp downturn at the time.

If the lawsuit eventually gets taken to court, it appears that Scott+Scott will need to prove that Yuga Labs and its celebrity promoters failed to disclose their paid advertisements, as they are legally required to do so.

As the law firm is also claiming a pump and dump occurred, it would need to prove that Yuga Labs engaged in such practices, which may difficult given the strength of Yuga Labs’ projects.

Pump and dumps, or rug pulls usually imply that a project has dumped artificially inflated assets on a community before abandoning the project altogether.

Related: ApeCoin price eyes 45% rally following Otherside metaverse demo

The nature of Apecoin and BAYC NFTs may also be tricky, as the law firm may have to argue that they were promoted as investment contracts under the category of unregistered securities.

Cointelegraph has reached out to Yuga Labs for comment on the proposed lawsuit, but is yet to hear back from the company.

Yuga Labs ‘inappropriately induced’ BAYC investors: Class action

Law firm Scott+Scott alleges that Yuga Labs promoted a chance at huge returns on investment to “unsuspecting investors.”

A proposed class-action lawsuit alleges that Yuga Labs “inappropriately induced” the community to buy Bored Ape Yacht Club nonfungible tokens (NFTs) and the project’s affiliated ApeCoin (APE) token.

The proposed class-action driven by law firm Scott+Scott was published on Thursday, claiming that Yuga Labs used celebrity promoters and endorsements to “inflate the price” of the BAYC NFTs and the APE token.

It also alleges that Yuga Labs promoted the growth prospects and chance for huge returns on investment to “unsuspecting investors:”

“After selling off millions of dollars of fraudulently promoted NFTs, YUGA LABS launched the Ape Coin to further fleece investors.”

“Once it was revealed that the touted growth was entirely dependent on continued promotion (as opposed to actual utility or underlying technology) retail investors were left with tokens that had lost over 87% from the inflated price high on April 28, 2022,” it added.

The law firm is currently seeking impacted investors who suffered losses on BAYC NFTs and Apecoin between April and June of this year.

During this timeframe, APE surged to its all-time high of $26.70 before dropping roughly 82.5% to $4.66 at the end of June, while the floor price went from 151.5 Ether (ETH) down to 92.9 ETH.

The community seems to be relatively unfazed by the proposed lawsuit, with BAYC hodler SoapBoxCar suggesting via Twitter on Sunda that a bunch of people are mad they bought at the top and “got rekt.”

User briann6211 also highlighted an interesting point in that Yuga Labs “never created a token… Apecoin DAO created a token which was then adopted” by the firm. Several members also noted that the Apecoin tanked after a free airdrop to BAYC holders, while the broader market was also suffering from a sharp downturn at the time.

If the lawsuit eventually gets taken to court, it appears that Scott+Scott will need to prove that Yuga Labs and its celebrity promoters failed to disclose their paid advertisements, as they are legally required to do so.

As the law firm is also claiming a pump and dump occurred, it would need to prove that Yuga Labs engaged in such practices, which may be difficult given the strength of Yuga Labs’ projects.

Pump and dumps, or rug pulls, usually imply that a project has dumped artificially inflated assets on a community before abandoning the project altogether.

Related: ApeCoin price eyes 45% rally following Otherside metaverse demo

The nature of Apecoin and BAYC NFTs may also be tricky, as the law firm may have to argue that they were promoted as investment contracts under the category of unregistered securities.

Cointelegraph has reached out to Yuga Labs for comment on the proposed lawsuit but has yet to hear back from the company.