Key Takeaways:
- The floor price of iconic NFT collection Bored Ape Yacht Club is continuously tanking
- According to available data, the BAYC floor has fallen from 128 ETH to below 35 ETH
Experts believe the recent drop could be due to a major whale dumping his collection
YEREVAN (CoinChapter.com) — Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) has lost its shine. The floor price of the iconic NFT collection continues to tank as the industry experiences a turbulent period. According to on-chain data, the prices of the Yuga Labs creation collectibles have never been this low since October 2021.
As per the tracking website NFT Price Floor, BAYC has shed over 25% since the beginning of this month alone. The cheapest Ape on OpenSea currently costs just 37.65 ETH or $69, 650.
This is a massive discount from the whopping 128 ETH floor price from May 2022. In just a year, the BAYC floor price has dropped nearly 75%. Last week, collectors were able to obtain an ape at a relatively meager price of 33 ETH or around $63,300.
Released in April 2021, the Bored Ape Yacht Club soared on the charts, fetching unprecedented top dollars for what seemed like nothing more than digital images of weird Apes.
For example, just months after their release, in October 2021, Bored Ape #8817 fetched an astounding $3.41 million, or 819 ETH at Sotheby’s Metaverse.
Why is the BAYC floor price down?
Various fundamental factors have contributed to the changing fortunes of the BAYC collection. General market pessimism, perceived loss of utility, whale sell-offs, and decreased media attention are among the key factors. However, industry insiders believe that recent activities in the Blur ecosystem have had the most significant overall impact.
Jeffrey Huang, a renowned NFT collector also known as Machi Big Brother, played a crucial role in creating a frenzy around BAYC NFTs. Huang’s series of sales and subsequent acquisitions from the collection caused significant instability in the NFT’s price.
According to data from Blur, a well-known NFT marketplace, Huang sold approximately 50 Apes. In a single transaction recently, he sold 19 Apes for 651 ETH, equivalent to nearly $1.2 million at the time of the sale.
Also Read: NFT Project Open Foodie Raises $500K in Seed Round
The big crypto lawsuit affecting BAYC Price
According to Guy Turner, the founder of the popular Crypto news and analytics channel Coin Bureau, the Bored Ape Yacht Club floor price dip could have something to do with a messy court case.
Earlier this month, Machi Big Brother filed a defamation lawsuit against self-styled rug pull investigator ZachXBT. The case came in response to an article published in June 2022 accusing the Taiwanese-American musician and tech entrepreneur of embezzlement.
The article, published on Medium, alleges that the crypto whale profited from several pump-and-dump tokens and NFT projects which he launched.
The journalist, who can’t possibly match the wealth of Machi, took to Twitter to raise funds for the lawsuit. According to him, the NFT whale is trying to use his financial recourses to silence and intimidate him.
“It is sickening to see it come to this but I knew one day this would happen as the price of telling the truth is sometimes people dislike what you say. I have always kept my research as objective as possible and let the data and historical record speak for themselves,”
he wrote.
According to a recent report by Galaxy Research, the entire NFT market is witnessing a decline in 2023. The fall is characterized by a notable decrease in daily trading volumes compared to previous peaks. Amid the overall decline, the BAYC floor price is among the biggest losers.
