Bored Ape Yacht Club Buys CryptoPunks and Meebits from Larva Labs

What’s known as one of the most respected projects in the NFT space—Bored Ape Yacht Club (Yuga Labs)—has purchased CryptoPunks and Meebits from Larva Labs, meaning the iconic NFT brand owns two of the most significant IPs in Web3. This purchase includes the copyright in the art, IP rights, along with 423 Punks and 1,711 Meebits.

“Yuga Labs are the innovators of the modern profile picture project and the best in the world at operating these projects. They are the ideal stewards of the CryptoPunks and Meebits. In their hands, we are confident that they will continue to be vital, thriving projects in the emerging decentralized web.” — Matt Hall and John Watkinson, co-founders of Larva Labs, CryptoPunks and Meebits

To be clear, this acquisition doesn’t mean Matt and John are joining Yuga Labs, in fact, they plan to continue building Larva Labs as a reputable brand in the Web3 space.

CryptoPunks is best known as the first PFP NFT project on the Ethereum blockchain, with 10,000 unique cartoon characters in existence. Originally, Punks could be claimed for free by anyone who had an Ethereum wallet, but it didn’t take long for them to all be claimed.  

At the time of writing this, the floor price for owning a CryptoPunk is 68.95 ETH, and the collection has a total sales volume of $1.99 billion!

As for Meebits, they are 20,000 unique 3D voxel characters, created by a custom generative algorithm on the Ethereum blockchain. Currently, Meebits has seen about $250 million in trading volume and the current floor price is 4.7 ETH.

Now with new owners, CryptoPunks and Meebits are headed down a new path, and from what we know, the future looks bright for both.

One of the first things Yuga Labs is working towards for both CryptoPunk and Meebit holders is to offer them the same rights as Bored Ape Yacht Club holders.

Currently, Yuga Labs is working directly with their legal team to draft up terms and conditions for their newly acquired IPs along with all their holders, they will announce these terms to the community once everything is solidified.

By doing this, Yuga Labs aims to further align Punks and Meebits with the Web3 ethos, as well as enabling third-party developers and community creators to incorporate Punks and Meebits into their Web3 projects. 

What Yuga Labs doesn’t want to do, is put Punks and Meebits into a “club” model that they did with the BAYC brand. They still consider BAYC to be the core of the universe they are building, and Punks to be a significant part of NFT history.

Although Yuga Labs aims to provide additional value to both Punk and Meebits holders, they are in no rush to do so, in fact, they are taking into consideration thoughts from the community before moving forward with anything too drastic.

Yuga Labs understands that CryptoPunks and Meebits have fostered their own unique communities, and are excited to see what is executed on behalf of their IP rights. Ultimately, Yuga Lab’s vision has always been to build a community-owned brand that extends beyond NFTs, and now they are bringing CryptoPunks and Meebits along on their journey.

In addition to this exciting acquisition, Yuga Labs is projecting net revenue of $455 million this year, through sales of virtual land that will kick off this month. 

The virtual land sales is the beginning phase of the brand’s metaverse initiative, with the macro goal being “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,” Yuga Labs explained in its deck that was obtained by The Block.

Moreover, the pitch deck shines a light on the rumor that Bored Ape Yacht Club is launching its own APECoin token that will be utilized in their MetaRPG metaverse.

The MetaRPG aims to be a gaming-focused metaverse that will be compatible with several other NFTs. This includes a system described as an “in-game app store” that will allow players to create characters using the NFTs they own, or from scratch, that can then be used in the game, according to the deck.

APECoin will be used for transacting in Yuga’s planned app store, and the company also stated in its deck that it will also encourage “trading and bartering.”

Yuga is jumpstarting the MetaRPG with the sale of virtual land in the form of NFTs, which will be tied to plots in the metaverse game. Plots will contain unique traits like natural resources, artifacts, and even rare characters.

There is a total of 200,000 plots that will be available for purchase between two sales, one in March, and another in August this year. Of course, Yuga Labs will hold onto some of the virtual lands for itself.

Regardless of what Yuga Labs has planned this year, I think it’s safe to say that the future for Bored Ape Yacht Club, CryptoPunk, Meebits, and all respective holders is looking extremely promising.