Bored Ape Yacht Club (often abbreviated to BAYC) is touted as one of the most prestigious Blue-Chip NFT collections to date, as since its launch in April 2021, it’s remained as an ever-present across leading NFT marketplace OpenSea’s top traded projects.

The Ethereum-residing project is the brainchild of Miami-based web3 outfit Yuga Labs. It consists of 10,000 unique PFP images of apes, with each presenting owners with access to a private online club, exclusive in-person events, and intellectual property rights over their respective image.

Due to its stature as one of the most successful NFT collections to stake its claim in modern day pop culture, several A-list celebrities have invested multiple hundreds of thousands (or even millions) of dollars in singular BAYC NFTs- such as Justin Bieber, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Madonna, and many more. To date, the most expensive BAYC NFT (#8817) sold for a whopping $3.41 million (819 ETH) in October 2021.

The lucrative IP rights that come with each holder’s BAYC NFT have since inspired multiple Bored Ape-branded commercial and creative innovations, such as the world’s first NFT fast food parlor ‘Bored & Hungry,’ a virtual band called ‘Kingship,’ a sitcom with a Bored Ape protagonist, and a music video from Snoop Dogg and Eminem which pays homage to their respective BAYC NFTs.

BAYC is the flagship NFT collection of Yuga Labs’ vast Blue-Chip web3 empire; an ecosystem which also includes offshoot projects such as Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC), and Bored Ape Kennel Club.

In turn, the popularity of such collections inspired Yuga Labs to team-up with fellow web3 powerhouse Animoca Brands to develop a new metaverse called ‘Otherside’. The platform is accompanied by a governance token called ApeCoin, which BAYC and MAYC NFT holders were airdropped in the Spring of 2022.