Nfts
Sotheby’s Bored Ape ‘Gold Fur’ NFT Auction Will Retest Art World Demand
A curated batch of Bored Monkeys Yacht Club-central Ethereum Yuga Labs’ NFTs are scheduled to be auctioned at Sotheby’s on June 18, providing a white-glove test of the staying power of monkey-themed assets in the fine art community.
The collector’s set includes a NFT profile picture (PFP) of the Bored Ape Yacht Club, adorned in a leather work vest and a “sushi chef headband”. Known as Monkey #8552one of the main selling points of the NFT is its former owner, now bankrupt, apart from of course the monkey’s solid gold fur.
Once an asset owned by Three Arrows Capital (3AC), a crypto hedge fund wiped out amid the widespread market tumult of 2022, the NFT comes alongside other digital art. These include two golden furry NFTs from Yuga’s Mutant Ape Yacht Club collection and a depiction of a dog from Yuga’s Bored Ape Kennel Club range.
NFTs from profile photo collections usually include various random traits. In addition to the provenance of a collectible, they can have an outsized influence on the value of an NFT.
The cheapest monkey listed for sale on a secondary market, for example, would cost around $48,000 today, according to NFT floor price. But only 46 of the 10,000 monkeys were minted with golden fur, and the last one sold for $933,000 or 247 ETH in March.
Chain sales followed by the NFT marketplace Open Sea, nine of Bored Ape’s 12 highest sales involved monkeys with golden fur. And this trait has already benefited Sotheby’s. In 2021, art house set a record $3.4 million sale of a bored monkey with golden fur.
Referencing the year Yuga Labs launched its Bored Ape line, Michael Bouhanna, head of digital art and NFTs at Sotheby’s, described the Bored Ape as a “relic of 2021” on Twitter (aka X).
Meanwhile, NFT researcher who posts under the name Punk9059 on Twitter Underlines the prices that 3AC initially paid for the assets. Upon scooping up the Ape and Kennel Club NFTs in July 2021, the account said 3AC coughed up 106 ETH, or about $401,000 at today’s prices.
As a spin-off collection launching in August 2021, Mutant Apes could be created using a “mutant serum » token granted to existing holders of the Bored Ape Collection. Bored Ape holders had to “transform” their existing monkey or purchase one from the batch of 10,000 additional mutant monkeys released by Yuga during a public sale.
Even though ultra-rare bored monkeys can still command high prices, prices for the most common monkeys have fallen dramatically since monkeys were created. minimum maximum price from nearly $430,000 in April 2022. Over the past year, this figure, known as the price floor, has fallen to $47,500 (12.6 ETH) from $84,250 (46 ETH) in the middle of Ethereum’s own rise.
Artworks belonging to the aforementioned 3AC, which were sold by liquidators to cover unpaid debts, have already caused a stir at Sotheby’s. A year ago, Ringers #879, a generative artwork known as “The Goose,” drew a $6.2 million saleincluding auction house fees.
Decrypt contacted Bouhanna and other Sotheby’s representatives for more details on the planned Bored Ape auction, but did not immediately receive a response.
Edited by Andrew Hayward