The 101 Bored Ape NFTs Go for a Record $24.4 Million at Sotheby’s

On Thursday, September 9, the 101 non-fungible tokens (NFTs) from the Bored Ape Yacht Club were sold for a record bid of $24.4 million at British auction house Sotheby’s.

Bored Ape creators Yuga Labs kickstarted the auction last week on September 2. The auction quickly gathered steam as the bid valued surged to $19 million earlier this week on September 6.

Just like CryptoPunks, the Bored Ape Yacht Club is a collection of 10,000 unique computer-generated cartoon apes. However, Sotheby’s had auctioned 101 Bored Ape NFTs from the Yacht Club. Additionally, the auction house also conducted a sale of 101 Bored Ape Kennel Club NFTs for 1.8 million. Thus, the bundle of Bored Ape NFTs went for a total of 26.6 million in the sale.

The Bored Ape Kennel Club NFTs also included a set of dogs, marketed as pets for the apes. The buyers of the Bored Ape NFTs also get the intellectual property rights for the images.

Major Trading Volumes on OpenSea

The Bored Ape NFTs are among the top three NFT projects on Etheruem-based NFT marketplace OpenSea. After Loot and CryptoPunks, these NFT drive the third-highest trading volumes on the platform.

Since their release in April 2021, the Apes have exploded in popularity. Last week, Bored Ape #3749, with sailor’s cap, gold fur, and laser-beaming eyes sold for a record of $2.6 million. Michael Bouhanna, the contemporary art specialist at Sotheby’s, said that there’s a growing number of traditional art buyers interested in NFTs. He further added:

“People were talking about a bubble in March, in June, etc, and then we see that the market is even stronger today so I think they’ve been proven wrong … I think it’s a very organic market with great collectors who have great appreciation of art”.

Ethereum-based OpenSea has emerged as one of the top NFT marketplaces. Last month in august, OpenSea clocked a record-breaking $3.4 billion in NFT trading volumes.