Industry giant BAYC is reportedly on the brink of collapse. This comes after BAYC dropped from 150Ξ to 8Ξ. A total of two factors have been identified as the main reasons for this decline: hitting a bonding curve price and the departure of Gordon Goner, the original founder of the NFT collection.
BAYC sold all its 10,000 units in May 2021. Each unit went out for 0.08Ξ. The unique monitoring process was necessary because it eventually became increasingly expensive to mint NFTs. BAYC decided to correct this by introducing a fixed currency price. This strengthens the 10K model. Bored Ape Yacht Club had gone to X to announce that they were all sold out on May 1, 2021. Kelano, a prominent figure in the NFT segment, believes this marked the beginning of BAYC’s decline.
Several prominent personalities supported BAYC in its initial stages. People like Jimmy Fallon, Faze, Paris Hilton, Justin Bieber, and Gary Vaynerchuk all got a piece for themselves. In fact, Gary purchased six monkeys in 2021, the first three monkeys on June 8, 2021 and the remaining three monkeys in December.
Gordon Goner resigned from his position at the end of 2022 due to health reasons. He was replaced by Daniel Alegre, who shifted the focus of Yuga, the parent company behind BAYC, to a gaming company.
The shift to a gaming company gave rise to the idea of launching Otherside as early as possible. The company made no mention of a preliminary release, but published the first glimpse in June 2022. That satisfied the community’s curiosity and told members that something was up. What followed was a series of delays, as the teaser wasn’t released until January 2023. The teaser faced backlash from the community for having a low frame rate. Community members based their expectations on the launch of the teaser and concluded that the game was not quite ready yet.
The acquisition of Moonbirds the following month contributed to the decline. In addition, there were numerous discussions about insider trading. They controlled the ecosystem to add fuel to the fire. The most recent misstep was when the team launched a limited airdrop of CryptoPunks, a Nina Chanel collection. Many members called it a woke up collection and began to lose faith in Yuga.
Yuga Lab certainly had a lot of fun when it was at the top. It is still credited with being able to create Blue Ocean for itself. Yuga Labs was unchallenged in the market for a long time, which allowed them to introduce key concepts such as celebrity endorsements, the formation of a core culture and community, differentiation and value innovation.
Innovation is essential in the NFT market; any stop at any point will likely lead to a decline. Transitions are generally well received within the sector; however, it is critical to determine if the community is amenable to it and what the timeline for a new launch should be.