Hyperlink Sunday Edition Nº8—Yuga Labs' Metaverse
March 20th, 2022
Yuga Lab’s Metaverse Takes Form
Say what you will about the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC)—and there is plenty to say. Some like the collection, others don’t. Regardless of opinion, the fact is that BAYC is the largest and fastest growing NFT community on the market today. If we set aside the art for a moment, and the dynamics around celebrity marketing, what is left is a large community of people who hold these NFTs and participate in a loosely formed community which mostly takes place on Twitter and Discord. Some have parlayed the attention around the project into their own media brand centered around the specific ape they own. As the concepts underlying the metaverse begin to form, we should begin to look for the dynamics that will allow the first leader to emerge.
Many have thought a distributed metaverse comes from the technology first, followed by a community forming around the new tech. What Yuga may be able to prove over the coming months is that a minimum viable community is what is really needed to help the metaverse take hold. Community first, then tech.
The trailer below offers a glimpse into the way Yuga is thinking about the metaverse:
Polished, slick animation. A world building exercise with various regions. Multiple IP’s in one world. On the aesthetics alone, one is almost immediately reminded of Fortnite, Epic Games blockbuster cash-machine—which brought in a staggering $5.4 billion at its peak in 2018.
Why did Fortnite work so well for Epic? The base game attracted an audience of loyal players, and with that large built in audience, Epic was able to introduce novel cultural moments into its in-game world. Look to the Travis Scott virtual concert and popular DJ, Marshmello, who both made virtual appearances in the in-game world.
If Yuga can bring together its specific blend of IP, loyal community, strategic partnerships, and financial resources in a way that convinces the core of the BAYC to spend their time and money in Yuga’s metaverse—they have a real chance of unseating Meta (formerly Facebook) as the heir to the metaverse throne.
NFT Active Trading Volume Remains Steady
The number of active traders on OpenSea, as represented in the chart below, is on track to meet both January ‘22 and February ‘22 (which were the highest trading months in OpenSea’s history).
The likely cause is a wave of liquidity from Yuga Lab’s ApeCoin drop, which many BAYC holders likely sold off to acquire other projects.
