Christie’s sold Beeple’s NFT artwork Everydays: The First 5,000 Days for $69.3 million. The widely reported result helped move NFTs from a niche crypto practice into a headline art-market topic. This surge in attention set the stage for profile-picture (PFP) communities like Bored Ape Yacht Club to grow quickly.
Yuga Labs released Bored Ape Yacht Club as a 10,000-item NFT collection on Ethereum. The project framed ownership as both a collectible and a membership pass, encouraging community activity around a shared visual identity. BAYC quickly became a central reference point for NFT art communities built around avatars and online clubs.
Yuga Labs launched the Bored Ape Kennel Club (BAKC), a companion collection linked to BAYC. The drop rewarded existing holders and encouraged more trading, collecting, and identity signaling within the same community. This kind of “ecosystem expansion” became a common strategy for NFT art projects.
Yuga Labs launched Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC), adding up to 20,000 related NFTs. Existing BAYC holders could create mutants using “serum” NFTs, while additional mutants were sold to the public, creating a lower-priced entry point. The move strengthened BAYC’s community by expanding who could participate while keeping the original collection distinct.
Sotheby’s held a dedicated auction for a bundle of 101 Bored Ape NFTs, signaling that major auction houses were treating these collections as a new art-and-collectibles category. The high-profile sale brought additional attention from traditional art audiences and media. It also reinforced the idea that NFT communities could build cultural status alongside market value.
The first ApeFest ran during the NFT.NYC week in New York City, turning the BAYC community into a visible in-person subculture. Events, parties, and brand tie-ins helped translate Discord and Twitter activity into real-world networking and status. This shift mattered because it showed how NFT art communities could function like membership scenes, not just marketplaces.
Adidas Originals publicly linked its metaverse and NFT plans to BAYC and other Web3 partners. The collaboration illustrated how major consumer brands tried to connect to NFT communities to gain credibility and access to ready-made audiences. It also reinforced BAYC’s role as a recognizable cultural symbol beyond crypto-native circles.
Yuga Labs bought the intellectual property rights for CryptoPunks and Meebits from Larva Labs. The acquisition consolidated influential NFT “blue-chip” collections under one company and signaled a shift toward brand management, licensing, and long-term ecosystem building. Yuga also said it would grant commercial rights to the CryptoPunks and Meebits communities, aligning them more closely with BAYC-style ownership expectations.
ApeCoin ($APE) launched as an ERC-20 token tied to governance and utility for the broader BAYC-associated ecosystem, with an airdrop to eligible NFT holders. This expanded the community from owning images to participating in token-based voting and ecosystem funding through a DAO (decentralized autonomous organization). The change also increased the project’s financial complexity and public scrutiny.
Yuga Labs announced a major fundraising round reported at $450 million and a $4 billion valuation. The scale of the raise suggested investors were betting on BAYC as more than a single art collection—closer to a media and metaverse platform. This funding helped set expectations that the community would expand into games, “land,” and broader entertainment.
Yuga Labs’ Otherside “land” sale led to extremely high Ethereum transaction fees (“gas”) as users competed to mint NFTs at the same time. The event became a public example of how blockchain limits could affect large cultural drops, frustrating buyers and drawing criticism of the process. Yuga later refunded some costs from failed transactions, highlighting both the transparency and the risks of on-chain launches.
Attackers used a compromised Discord account to post phishing links in official BAYC and Otherside channels, leading to theft of NFTs. The incident showed how NFT art communities depended on social platforms and wallet-signing habits that could be exploited. It also marked a turning point where “community management” increasingly included operational security and scam prevention, not just culture and events.
NFT Art Communities and Bored Ape Yacht Club (2020–2022)