The Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), known colloquially as Bored Ape, is a collection of 10,000 unique non-fungible tokens (NFTs) minted on the Ethereum blockchain. The collection consists of profile pictures generated using an algorithm. Ownership of the NFTs grants holders membership to an exclusive club that features perks. BAYC holders, which include celebrities, have access to an exclusive Discord server where they can chat.
Bored Ape holders have property rights to the images on their NFTs and can commercialize them. The BAYC collection was launched in April 2021 by Yuga Labs and quickly became one of the most popular NFT projects as celebrities flocked to buy into the collection. Jimmy Fallon, Serena Williams, and Justin Bieber are just a few of the prominent people who own BAYC NFTs. Companies have also followed suit, with Arizona Iced Tea and Adidas both purchasing Bored Apes. In total, the sales volume of BAYC NFTs has surpassed $1 billion.
Thanks to the popularity of the NFTs, ApeCoin, a token linked to the BAYC intellectual property, was launched in 2022. ApeCoin was airdropped to the holders of the Bored Ape NFTs.