In the wild world of NFTs, the Bored Ape Yacht Club is near-impossible to avoid. How could you? It is one of the most popular and valuable NFT collections in the world, with its pieces being bought by celebrities like Madonna and Justin Bieber.
At this point, it is safe to say that the Bored Ape Club has conquered NFTs. Now, the club seems to have set its sights on an even bigger goal; taking over the metaverse. This comes via a recent interview with Chris Dixon, the head of crypto at Andreessen Horowitz.
Bored Ape Metaverse?
According to Dixon, there is some concern about the monopoly that Meta, Facebook’s parent company, could have on the metaverse in the future. Facebook famously rebranded last year to Meta and has teased some exciting projects within the space.
Given that Facebook and the platforms it owns have billions of users, a scenario where the company has massive control of the metaverse is not far-fetched. But perhaps the Ape Club is here to change that.
A few weeks ago, Yuga Labs, the Ape Club’s parent company, raised $450 million in a funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz. With this new infusion of funds, Yuga Labs is primed to take on the metaverse.
It seems the way this takeover will work is through digital real estate. More specifically, with Otherside, its incoming digital world which will connect to NFTs. How the NFTs come in is that Yuga Labs will be selling plots of digital land as NFTs.
These plots of land will have distinct features such as natural resources and will be connected to NFTs. In total, Yuga Labs intends to sell around 200,000 metaverse plots between March and August 2022.
But even with all these developments, Yuga Labs is not forgetting about its Bored Ape Club roots. According to a leaked pitch deck, the parent company plans to “build something that expands the universe of the BAYC, but also invites the larger NFT community (and those priced out of BAYC membership) to join.”
The Value of Digital Land
The Otherside project is nothing short of ambitious, especially considering that the company wants to go up against a heavyweight like Meta. But this brings up the question of what is the value of digital land in a metaverse? The answer; a lot.
People are already paying top dollar for land in the metaverse, with one user paying hundreds of thousands to get a plot next to Snoop Dogg last year. Yuga Labs clearly sees the value in this project, as it is projecting to make $356 million from the sale of these plots.
While Meta might have billions of users at its disposal, Yuga Labs has ownership of some of the top NFT collections in the world, including The Bored Ape Yacht Club and newly-acquired collections like CryptoPunks and Meebits.
While it cannot be said just yet who will come out on top in the meta-wars, Yuga Labs is clearly a top contender.
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