Bored Ape Metaverse frenzy raises millions, crashes Ethereum
Yuga Labs, the creator of the popular Bored Apes Yacht Club collection of NFTs, launched a sale Saturday of virtual land related to its highly anticipated metaverse project, raising about $320 million in the largest offering of its kind. Demand was so strong that activity related to the event caused ripple effects across the entire Ethereum blockchain, disrupting activity and sending transaction fees soaring.
Holders of the ApeCoin cryptocurrency who verified their identities jockeyed to buy deeds for 55,000 parcels of virtual land in Otherside, the project’s planned metaverse game and the latest extension of the Bored Ape franchise. Anticipation that interest would be strong for the plots -- Ethereum-based NFTs called Otherdeeds -- had pushed up the price of ApeCoin last week ahead of the sale.
Each plot cost a buyer around $5,800 based on ApeCoin’s price of $19 as of Saturday, plus transaction costs, or “gas fees,” in Ether, which skyrocketed after the sale went live at 9 p.m. New York time as the land grab attracted heavy demand. Transaction costs just to mint Otherdeed NFTs after the launch reached $123 million, with each Otherdeed requiring about $6,000, or 2 Ether, in transaction fees to mint, according to data from Etherscan -- or more than the price of the deed itself.
“Yuga Labs’ virtual land sale has triggered one of the highest spikes in transaction fees on Ethereum,” said Jason Wu, founder of decentralized lending protocol DeFiner. “I have seen other NFT launches causing high gas fees, but this is definitely one of the highest.”
Minting a token or making a transaction on Ethereum requires token creators or traders to pay a fee to those that order transactions on the network. Transaction fees go higher when the
Read more on tech.hindustantimes.com
