As the NFT craze appears to be cooling down, Yuga Labs, the creator of the viral Bored Ape Yacht Club non-fungible token, announced a new round of layoffs on Friday.
YugaLab CEO Greg Solano announced that the startup will lay off an unspecified number of employees as part of a “reorganization” process.
“Simply put: Yuga has lost his way,” he wrote in one post. Statement posted on X. “Focusing ourselves on the right path means becoming a smaller, more agile and encrypted team.”
Boring Ape Yacht Club base price drops
The news comes as the base price for the popular NFT collection, which has been touted by celebrities like Justin Bieber and Paris Hilton, has dropped to its lowest level since its release in 2021.
The floor price is the lowest selling price of an NFT in a given collection. As of May 1, the bottom price of Bored Ape Yacht Club hovered around 13.395 ETH, According to OpenSea reports, worth nearly $40,000 at the time of publication.According to the data, this is lower than the peak floor price of 128 ETH on May 1, 2022 NFT price lower limitworth approximately $354,000 at the time.
This is a far cry from the highest ever sale price for Bored Apes. In September 2021, Sotheby’s auctioned off a bored ape for a fraction of the price. Over $24 million.
However, despite the significant reduction in Bored Ape Yacht Club’s base price, the NFT market is still showing some signs of vitality. On April 25, an anonymous collector spent nearly $12 million in ETH to purchase CryptoPunk NFT. According to OpenSea reports.
How YugaLabs started
Launched in April 2021, YugaLabs’ Bored Ape Yacht Club series contains 10,000 NFTs depicting cartoon apes with various colors, outfits, and facial expressions.
The startup subsequently released several other NFT collections, including Mutant Ape Yacht Club and CryptoPunks. In 2022, YugaLabs raised $450 million in seed funding and was valued at about $4 billion, according to its website.
However, the startup has also faced some controversy over the past three years. December 2022, YugaLabs Sued by investors They claim they were tricked into buying Bored Apes by celebrities promoting the NFT, without disclosing that they were being paid for it.
Collectors and investors should do their research
For digital assets such as NFT, investors should do their homework.
Similar to collectibles like trading cards or Beanie Babies, NFTs can have sentimental value. However, their monetary value only rises as others are willing to pay.
There is no guarantee that you will make a profit by selling an NFT, which is why financial experts recommend not spending more on NFTs than you are willing to tolerate in terms of potential losses.
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