Bored Ape Yacht Club and CryptoPunks are among the most famous and expensive NFT projects ever minted. Which one of the two is the better investment?
Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of each:
CryptoPunks
CryptoPunks was one of the first examples of an NFT project and is known as the first NFT project to attain international fame. Most of the CryptoPunks are among the fifteen most expensive NFTs ever sold. CryptoPunks is made up of 10,000 NFTs and its first collection was launched in June 2017.
It could be minted for free for those willing to pay for the gas fees. It released a second collection in April 2021, offering each at 0.08 ETH.
Bored Ape Yacht Club had never surpassed CryptoPunks in floor price, until October 2021. BAYC’s floor price reached 69 ETH, with the Punks sitting just below at 68 ETH. CryptoPunks hasn’t been able to surpass BAYC ever since. The lowest-priced Punk right now is at 69.7 ETH, while the Apes trade for nearly 100 ETH.
It’s believed that part of the reason why this sudden price change happened was because Yuga Labs offered the IP rights to the NFT’s artwork if they owned it. On the other hand, CryptoPunks owners didn’t have the option of purchasing IP rights when they purchased or acquired a Punk.
On the other hand, none of the Apes have reached the final auction price that the most expensive Punks have done. CryptoPunk #7523, one of the Alien Punks, was sold for $11.8 million, and all of the other punks have reached spots in the most expensive NFTs sold at an auction.
However, none of the Apes have reached these spots, with the most expensive ape selling for the relatively short price of $3.4 million at a Sotheby’s auction.
Their second collection was launched in April 2021, offering 0.08 ETH.
Despite the CryptoPunks selling for higher auction prices, in the end, Yuga Labs ended up purchasing Larva Labs, the developers of CryptoPunks and Meebits.
Many Punk owners, such as Punk4156, tweeted about the issue. Punk4156 is one of NounsDAO’s founders, and once tweeted on December 5, 2021: “I love punks, but the copyright issue kind of broke my heart” and also it’s not about copyright vs no copyright, it’s about making the pixels as censorship resistant as the token they’re attached to. if you don’t assign the token and the image the same rights, what’s the point of binding them together eternally on a blockchain?”
NounsDAO is the governing body of the Nouns experiment on the Ethereum blockchain.
This sparked one of the most heated debates in the crypto and NFT community: should founders own the IP rights after their NFTs are purchased, or do holders obtain the right to use their NFTs as they deem fit without the project’s pioneer’s permission?
Larva Labs has received some flak for their hands-off approach towards creating an immersive community project with CryptoPunks, especially considering their integration with social media and the precedence of their project.
Bored Ape Yacht Club
Most crypto enthusiasts agree that Bored Ape Yacht Club took inspiration of creating their randomly generated ape avatars from CryptoPunks. Despite the similarities, Yuga Labs went ahead and marketed Bored Ape Yacht Club as not only an NFT project, but also an exclusive community where just owning one of the apes puts you in the same bracket as celebrities like Justin Bieber., Steve Aoki, Paris Hilton, Serena Williams, Stephen Curry and more. This is because Yuga Labs created a concierge service for celebrities to become owners of apes.
Bored Ape Yacht Club innovated by adding more intellectual property rights than CryptoPunks, to the point where Jimmi McNelis, the owner of 3 Bored apes and 1 Mutant Ape, was able to come up with a never-seen-before music group consisting of NFT characters from Bored Ape Yacht Club. He called the music group “Kingship” and partnered with Universal Music.
The Meebits and CryptoPunks NFTs are owned by those who acquired them, but the intellectual property rights of each character has always been the projects’ creators property. After Yuga Labs purchased Larva Labs, they signaled they will be giving full commercial rights of the NFTs to the individual holders.
With this purchase, Yuga Labs owns 423 Punks and 1711 Meebits, trademarks and logos for both collections. Part of their long term plan is to transfer IP, commercial rights and licensing rights to owners of Meebits and Punks, eventually providing them with as many commercial rights as Bored Ape Yacht Club holders possess.
On top of that, Bored Ape Yacht Club went further and provided holders with extra NFTs, the Bored Ape Kennel Club and the Mutant Ape Yacht Club collections. They also offered a free amount of ApeCoin (APE) when the native token of ApeDAO was released, essentially giving out money to all BAYC members.
In short, what allowed Bored Ape Yacht Club to rival and take over their main competitor was providing its holders with intellectual property rights of lasting value and provide them with benefits further than simply owning an ultra-expensive NFT.
What are PFP NFTs?
These NFTs are considered PFP NFT’s, as are other PFP projects such as Azuki. PFP NFTs are short for picture for proof non-fungible tokens, a trend on the NFT space where the NFT artwork represents a digital persona through punks or apes respectively, but can use other profiles such as robots, aliens and toads depending on the NFT project.
PFP NFTs are possible due to Twitter integrating your NFT with a crypto wallet, allowing you to showcase an NFT as your avatar. Other social media platforms, such as Reddit, Meta and even OnlyFans are attempting to integrate NFTs as profile pictures.
Final words about CryptoPunks vs Bored Ape Yacht Club
Both CryptoPunks and Bored Ape Yacht Club are considered to be among the most successful NFT collections.
At the end of the day, both projects are worth investing. Bored Ape Yacht Club and CryptoPunks are the most famous NFT projects in the crypto space. Owning just one legitimate NFT of either collection is a sign of wealth and power.
Check out our other guides on What are NFTs here.
