The alpha:
- Yuga Labs’ new CEO, Daniel Alegre, bought a BAYC NFT for 50 ETH (about $90,000).
- The purchase was slightly above rock bottom at the time and the move helps demonstrate Alegre’s belief in the project and his understanding of the importance of the community.
Dive deeper:
Yuga Labs CEO Daniel Alegre just made waves in the NFT world. On May 10, 2023, he bought a Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT for 50 ETH on Blur. At that time, the purchase was equivalent to approximately $90,000. Why is this so remarkable? When Alegre made his purchase, the floor price for Bored Ape NFTs was around 44 ETH (about $78,000), according to CoinGecko.
Basically, Alegre used his own money to buy an NFT from his own company – and he bought it for a good chunk more than he needed to.
Through his purchase, Alegre likely hoped to demonstrate his belief in the BAYC NFT project and, more generally, Yuga Labs’ intellectual property portfolio. Currently, this portfolio includes almost all of the most well-known and valuable projects in the NFT space: Bored Ape Yacht Club, Otherside, Mutant Ape Yacht Club, Bored Ape Kennel Club, CryptoPunks, and Meebits.
The move also helps show Alegre’s understanding of how many people are in the NFT space value community and community interactions. Those committed to an NFT project are expected to follow others in space who are connected to the community, communicate regularly, and use an image of the community as their avatar.
Eventually, Alegre bought Bored Ape #3575, which depicts a chimpanzee wearing sunglasses and a sea captain’s hat. Shortly after purchasing it, he made it his Twitter avatar. “To my children: meet a new member of the family. Proud to Ape into BAYC #3575,” he wrote on Twitter.
What’s next:
Yuga Labs closed a $450 million funding round from Andreessen Horowitz last year at a valuation of $4 billion. Their goal is ultimately to create a media empire centered entirely around NFTs, starting with games and its own metaverse project (aka Otherside). In late 2022, Yuga Labs announced that Alegre would be joining as CEO to help the company fulfill its mission.
Alegre is a suitable candidate for the role. Prior to that, he was Chief Operating Officer at Activision Blizzard. There he helped create an impressive portfolio of internationally recognized gaming brands, including World of Warcraft, Duty, Diablo, OverexpectedAnd Candy Crush.
The Bored Ape Yacht Club is the largest blockchain collectible by market capitalization, nearly $800 million, according to CoinGecko, and Alegre’s latest move shows that the company is still going full steam ahead.