What Happened To Bored Ape Yacht Club? The Untold Story

Introduction

If you’re a crypto enthusiast, you’ve probably come across the NFTs of Bored Ape Yacht Club and its token, $APE. What was once the crown jewel of the NFT world, the ultimate status symbol that celebrities and millionaires fought to own, has become one of crypto’s most dramatic cautionary tales.

We watched it all unfold—the meteoric rise, the insane hype, and the brutal crash that left many holders wondering what went wrong.

The Beginning: How It All Started

In April 2021, Yuga Labs launched Bored Ape Yacht Club with 10,000 unique cartoon ape NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain. The mint price? Just 0.08 ETH (around $190 at the time).

The concept was simple but brilliant: each Bored Ape was a unique digital collectible that doubled as a membership card to an exclusive club. Owning one gave you access to private events, merchandise, commercial rights to your ape, and most importantly—status.

At first, it was just another NFT project in a sea of thousands. But something clicked.

The 2021 Bull Run: From Rags to Riches

Then the magic happened during the 2021 crypto bull market.

The floor price—the minimum price to buy any Bored Ape—started climbing. And climbing. And climbing some more.

The rise was staggering:

• April 2021: Mint price of 0.08 ETH (~$190)
• August 2021: Floor price hit 20 ETH (~$60,000)
• September 2021: Floor price climbed to 40 ETH (~$130,000)
• April 2022: Peak floor price reached 153.7 ETH (~$430,000+)

Yes, you read that right. An NFT that cost less than $200 to mint was selling for nearly half a million dollars just one year later.

Celebrities jumped on board. Jimmy Fallon showed his ape on The Tonight Show. Eminem bought one for $460,000. Snoop Dogg, Paris Hilton, Stephen Curry, Justin Bieber, Madonna, Post Malone—the list went on and on. Having a Bored Ape as your Twitter profile picture became the ultimate flex.

We watched friends and strangers alike turn hundreds of dollars into life-changing money. The entire crypto community was buzzing. BAYC wasn’t just an NFT collection anymore—it was a cultural phenomenon.

The $APE Token: Doubling Down

In March 2022, riding high on success, Yuga Labs launched ApeCoin ($APE), the governance and utility token for the “APE ecosystem.” Every Bored Ape and Mutant Ape holder received a massive airdrop.

The token launched and immediately shot up to over $39 per coin within days. People who held Bored Apes suddenly had tens of thousands of dollars worth of $APE tokens dropped into their wallets for free.

It felt like the ecosystem was unstoppable. Yuga Labs raised $450 million in funding at a $4 billion valuation. They acquired CryptoPunks and Meebits. They announced plans for a metaverse game called Otherside. Everything they touched seemed to turn to gold.

The hype was real, and so was the FOMO.

The Cracks Begin to Show

But then, things started to shift.

The broader crypto market began cooling off in mid-2022. Bitcoin and Ethereum were bleeding. The Federal Reserve was raising interest rates. Luna collapsed. Celsius froze withdrawals. Three Arrows Capital imploded. FTX crashed in November.

Suddenly, the appetite for speculative assets like NFTs dried up completely.

The Fall: Back to Square One

The descent was as dramatic as the rise, maybe more so.

The crash:

• May 2022: Floor price dropped below 100 ETH
• August 2022: Floor price fell below 70 ETH
• November 2022: Floor price crashed below 50 ETH
• 2023: Continued bleeding throughout the year
• 2024-2025: Floor price sits around 10-15 ETH (~$25,000-$40,000)

From a peak of $430,000+ down to $25,000-$40,000. That’s over a 90% drop from the top.

$APE token fared even worse. After peaking near $27 in April 2022, it crashed below $1 by late 2023. As of now, it hovers around $1-2—a catastrophic 95%+ decline from its all-time high.

We watched portfolios evaporate. We saw celebrities quietly remove their Bored Ape profile pictures. The exclusive club that everyone wanted to join suddenly felt like a sinking ship.

What Went Wrong?

Looking back, several factors contributed to the downfall:

1. The Market Changed

The 2021 bull run was fueled by stimulus checks, low interest rates, and infinite liquidity. When that reversed, speculative assets got crushed first. NFTs were pure speculation.

2. Oversaturation

After BAYC’s success, thousands of copycat projects flooded the market. Everyone was launching an NFT collection. The market became diluted, and attention fragmented.

3. Utility Questions

What did you actually get for owning a $400,000 jpeg? Access to parties? Commercial rights? A metaverse game that hadn’t launched yet? When the hype faded, people realized the utility didn’t justify the price.

4. Celebrity Endorsements Backfired

When celebrities who were paid to promote BAYC quietly dumped their apes, it felt like a betrayal. The whole thing started looking like a coordinated marketing scheme rather than organic adoption.

5. Regulatory Pressure

The SEC started sniffing around NFTs and tokens. Yuga Labs faced lawsuits alleging $APE was an unregistered security. Uncertainty killed enthusiasm.

6. The Metaverse Flopped

Otherside, the ambitious metaverse game, launched to mixed reviews and failed to gain traction. The promised utility never materialized in a meaningful way.

7. Broader Crypto Bear Market

Everything in crypto crashed. NFTs just crashed harder because they were the most speculative assets in an already speculative market.

Our Perspective: Lessons Learned

We lived through this entire cycle. We saw the euphoria, the wealth creation, the influencers shilling, and ultimately, the crash.

Here’s what we learned:

Hype is not value. Just because something is popular doesn’t mean it’s worth the price. BAYC became a Veblen good—people wanted it because it was expensive, not because it was inherently valuable.

Celebrity endorsements mean nothing. When famous people promote crypto projects, ask yourself: are they true believers, or are they being paid? Most were paid.

The market is cyclical. What goes up dramatically will come down dramatically. Trees don’t grow to the sky, especially in crypto.

Utility matters. Long-term, NFTs need real use cases beyond “flex culture.” Profile pictures alone can’t sustain a multi-billion dollar market.

Timing is everything. The people who minted at $190 and sold at $200,000+ made life-changing money. The people who bought at the top lost everything. In speculative markets, when you enter and exit is more important than what you buy.

Where Are We Now?

Today, Bored Ape Yacht Club still exists. Some holders remain loyal, believing the brand will recover. Yuga Labs continues building, though with significantly less fanfare.

The floor price has stabilized somewhat around 10-15 ETH, but that’s cold comfort for those who bought at 100+ ETH. $APE token continues to languish, with little catalysts for recovery in sight.

The question is: was BAYC a revolutionary project that came at the wrong time, or was it always destined to be a temporary mania?

The Bottom Line

Bored Ape Yacht Club’s story is the NFT market’s story in microcosm. Explosive growth fueled by hype and easy money, followed by an equally explosive crash when reality set in.

We don’t know if BAYC will ever reclaim its former glory. Maybe it will if crypto enters another massive bull run. Maybe it won’t because the world has moved on.

What we do know is this: the rise and fall of Bored Ape Yacht Club taught an entire generation of crypto investors a painful but valuable lesson about speculation, hype cycles, and the difference between price and value.

For those who rode it up and cashed out, congratulations. For those still holding, hoping for a comeback—we feel you. And for those watching from the sidelines, consider yourself lucky you learned this lesson without paying tuition.

The Bored Ape experiment isn’t over yet, but the euphoria definitely is. What happens next will determine whether BAYC becomes a footnote in crypto history or a phoenix that rises from the ashes.

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