Memeland Splashes Out $1.3 Million On Bored Ape NFTs

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Memeland, a startup factory based on web3, just bought 8 high-priced Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) nonfungible tokens (NFTs). The company spent nearly 800 ETH, $1.3 million, on the NFTs all of which bear the rare hat accessory attribute, that is 6 with the Seaman’s hat and 2 with the Trippy Captain Hat that only 65 apes have.

EIGHT APES » @Memeland Purchased Eight Bored Apes Today For $1.3 Million USD

Check out the eight apes here: https://t.co/JfLdN3H4hF pic.twitter.com/8MGFLYJ9BJ

— The Bored Ape Gazette🍌 (@BoredApeGazette) February 6, 2023

The BAYC NFTs acquired were 128, 4024, 4673, 8293, 9286, 2929, 9299, and 2059.

BAYC 2059 was the most pricey of the eight, costing 132.7 ETH or around $215,000. The accumulative cost of the eight pieces was 796.87 ETH which based on current pricing translates to $1,304,000 million.

The NFTs are held on the 9GAG (memeland.eth) address which holds all the other collections created by Memeland and 9GAG. 9GAG is a Hong Kong-based online platform and social media website. It enables users to publish and share user-generated media as well as works from other social networking platforms.

On the one hand, Memeland is a web3 venture studio that aspires to give every community in the world ownership. Memeland claims that 9GAG has a “global audience of 200 million across various social channels.”

Together, the duo has created The Potatoz, The Captainz, and You The Real MVP NFT collections. According to Colin Wu who is a Chinese industry observer, their address holds NFTs worth more than 5900 ETH, which is about $9.6 million.

"Meme Factory" 9GAG (memeland.eth) spent 796.87 ETH today to purchase 8 BAYC (9299, 128, 2059, 2929, 4024, 4673, 8293, 9286), the common feature is that they have hats. Currently this address holds NFTs worth more than 5900 ETH (about $9.6 million). https://t.co/osHrnOqfzE

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) February 6, 2023

Based on the screenshot from the Memeland Discord channel uploaded by Cirrus, a cryptocurrency investor, Captainz may end up raffling off the ape NFTs. The news on the potential raffling has stirred conversation leading to several comments from Memeland holders with most expressing their excitement and anticipation.

“Holy shit thats actually amazing,” Choppedandscrewed. Eth tweeted, “Good job @9gagceo.”

State of affairs in the NFT Market

The NFT market just like the entire crypto industry took a dip courtesy of the series of collapses and bankruptcies experienced among major firms last year. According to the market tracker on NonFungible, NFT sales continue to remain low as the market still struggles to recover from the plunge in 2022. For instance, on February 5, the market tracker recorded revenues of roughly $15 million. In comparison, numerous days in February 2022 had sales of $60 to $70 million. Regardless, the market and related firms still strive to make a comeback.

The recent signs of life in the NFT sector have resulted in a large increase in market activity in January, with organic trading volume up 38% from December, based on DappRadar data. Not only did organic trading volume increase in January, but so did the overall number of NFTs traded. DappRadar recorded more than 9.5 million NFT purchases in January, the highest count in over a year, since February 2022. This is a 42% increase over the 6.7 million NFTs sold in December.

In addition to that, every major blockchain protocol saw NFT sales growth in January, with Ethereum sales volume increasing from nearly $558 million in December to over $772 million in January, and Solana sales volume increasing from $69.5 million in December to nearly $86 million in January as recorded by DappRadar.

The gain in the marketplace in January can partly be attributed to the release of Yuga Labs’ Sewer Pass, an NFT access pass only available to existing Bored Ape Yacht Club and Mutant Ape Yacht Club owners. The pass allowed holders to play a new web game, Dookey Dash, for rewards. According to CryptoSlam, the Sewer Pass resulted in over $64 million worth of trading it was launched in mid-January.

It is important to note that the recent gains in NFT trading volume and asset sales come after a series of smaller month-over-month increases and it correlates with rising crypto prices in recent weeks. Despite many NFT critics proclaiming the sector dead after the recent decline in returns, statistics suggest that the overall activity and prices for many key projects are returning.