Larvalabs responded that our expertise has always been in creating things early in the life of technology, and our personalities and skills are not well suited to community management, public relations, and the day-to-day management that such projects need and deserve. and guide them in this new, larger world. But this is not an acquisition of Larva Labs, we still have the Autoglyphs project and "a group of our favorite Punks and Meebs".
CryptoPunks, a milestone in the NFT industry, was released in 2017 and was the first successful NFT project that has been considered similar to Bitcoin in the cryptocurrency space, while BAYC emerged in 2021 as a newcomer to the industry because of its focus on branding, ecology and expansion, and is considered somewhat like the ethereum of the NFT industry. This is why some in the community are calling it the ethereum of NFT acquiring Bitcoin with a Litecoin thrown in for good measure.
Larva Labs first released the NFT series in 2017 with a glitch in the original smart contract, which led Larva Labs to scrap the first version (v1) of the contract and re-release the NFT. To the displeasure of the community, the Larva Labs creative team sold dozens of v1 Punks for profit themselves. Eventually Larva Labs had to apologize to the community.
In addition, Larva Labs adopted the NFT License (NFT License), which was first drafted by Dapper Labs, and has many restrictions on use and commercial use, a point of criticism. Bored Ape holders, on the other hand, can use the images they own for any purpose - including merchandise, metaverse, and branding. This is why BAYC's acquisition emphasizes that it will soon grant CryptoPunks and Meebits holders the same commercial rights as BAYC and MAYC holders.
Bored Ape Yacht Club is currently raising money at a $5 billion valuation with a16z participating and may have sold some $APE Token to VC investors. Later, BAYC member RDM_41 clarified that the $5 billion valuation is Yuga Labs (parent company equity) and not Ape Token. The openness of BAYC and the infinite expansion of its boundaries make it a benchmark for a truly new era of NFT, with all kinds of games and the official Token release (previously officially estimated for Q1 2022), which is the most talked about in the world, being planned.
However, the acquisition of PUNKS by BAYC also raised concerns about over-concentration in the industry. Currently the first, second, fourth and sixth places in the NFT market capitalization are in BAYC's pocket. BAYC's valuation alone could account for half of the industry. In the fledgling NFT industry, BAYC and OpenSea's excessive monopoly threatens to prevent innovation in the industry. The current valuation of OpenSea is close to the overall market capitalization of NFT, which is clearly not a normal phenomenon.
It is also worth noting that it has not been widely discussed in the NFT space, and the heat is not high. This also shows the recent winterization and bearishness of the NFT market from another perspective. The avatar-based NFT wave started by PUNKS and BAYC seems to have come to an end.
The essence is that the application of avatar-based NFT (PFP) is relatively narrow and not even a demand. Although Twitter, INS, FB, etc. have indicated that they want to make a strong binding between avatars and NFT, and Twitter even set up a special function to make avatar NFT recognizable, but the market response is very lukewarm and few users. After the celebrity-driven trend of avatar NFT, it has not entered the vision of the general public. head NFT such as BAYC PUNKS is expensive, and social media rights make it more like a game for the rich, ordinary people can not participate and are not interested in participating.
In the future, in the era of "post-PFP", how to "de-aristocratize" PFP NFT to enter the general public; And how NFT can advance in two larger and broader tracks of credentials and games to meet the strong demand beyond avatar applications are the trends that the industry can see.
Reference
BAYC ANN: https://mirror.xyz/0xEc9f53fA69682833FBd760C104B5D61aE29221E0/Km81y6Mc3O5LzS0wnrghVIV0HnZgLOd4wsnfcGw3_2I
Larva Labs ANN: https://larvalabs.com/blog/2022-3-11-18-0/yuga-labs-acquires-cryptopunks-and-meebits
CryptoPunks Controversy: https://decrypt.co/92155/cryptopunks-controversy-creators-apologize-v1-ethereum-nft
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