A Brief Discussion on My Understanding of NFTs in the Past
This semester, I enrolled in a course related to blockchain and realized that I didn’t actually have much prior knowledge in this field. My understanding of the virtual currency market, the metaverse, and so on was mostly based on what I had read from others’ shared content, and I only had a superficial grasp of it. Therefore, I’m really looking forward to learning from this course. It seems like the course won’t focus too much on theory, but will instead place more emphasis on practical market operations and hands-on learning. For me, this is a rare learning opportunity, and I hope to gain something valuable from it. From this, it's not hard to see that my understanding of NFTs is rather superficial.
So for this week's journal entry, I’d like to briefly talk about my initial understanding and impressions of NFTs. The content probably won’t have any educational value lol. So just think of it as reading someone else’s diary. I first became aware of NFTs around 2021, when many celebrities and artists suddenly started changing their profile pictures on social media.
The 'monkey profile picture' was a popular NFT artwork in 2021, developed by the American team Yuga Labs. Their website 'Bored Ape Yacht Club' (BAYC) was launched in April 2021. Based on the founders' preferences, it featured monkeys as the main theme, generating 10,000 richly detailed images through random combinations. These were then released as NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain. One memorable moment was when NBA player Stephen Curry became fascinated with NFT digital avatars. He spent 55 Ethereum (about NT$6.31 million) to purchase a 'Bored Ape' image. After changing his profile picture, a large number of fans followed suit, replacing their avatars with ones from the 'Bored Ape' series. Subsequently, many celebrities in Taiwan also began purchasing avatars from the series or changing their social media profile pictures to different Bored Apes.
Later, I looked up some information about BAYC and summarized a few points about what makes BAYC so special. If you own a BAYC NFT, you can become a member of the 'Bored Ape Yacht Club.' The membership benefits are as follows:
Access to a private Discord server exclusively for BAYC members.
NFT collectibles are airdropped into members' wallets, which can be sold for profit.
By using the free airdropped serum, apes can be transformed into 'Mutant Apes.' Like the airdropped NFTs, these Mutant Apes can also be sold.
Eligibility for the airdrop of BAYC's newly launched cryptocurrency, ApeCoin, with a 90-day grace period.
However, as of 2024, it seems that BAYC has been affected by internal disputes at the NFT lending platform ParaSpace and the suspected misappropriation of customer funds. A large number of users have withdrawn their BAYC from ParaSpace and sold them, either to gain liquidity or reduce leverage. This led to a 6.15% drop in BAYC's floor price within 24 hours, hitting a new low since 2021. This has also caused a drop in the floor prices across the entire YugaLabs series.
I might do more research on market trends next week, but it’s clear that the NFT market remains very volatile. Lastly, I’d like to share with everyone the official BAYC website that I browsed during my research. The website’s design is incredibly fun, and you can spend a long time exploring it. I highly recommend checking it out!
BAYC website: boredapeyachtclub.co...
