Summary
- Mutant Ape Yacht Club is an NFT collection containing 20,000 unique Mutant Apes.
- Mutant Ape Yacht Club is the 2nd NFT collection in the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) ecosystem owned by Yuga Labs.
- MAYC is minted by injecting a “Mutant serum” into a BAYC NFT.
What Is Mutant Ape Yacht Club?
Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYCs) is a non-fungible token (NFT) collection belonging to Yuga Labs. Featuring up to 20,000 Mutant Apes, MAYC is the sequel to the highly successful Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) collection, released four months after BAYC launched in April 2021.
Most BAYCs have some similarities, but the rarest MAYCs look completely different.
The public sale of the MAYC NFT collection was an instant success as the first 10,000 Mutant Apes were sold in the first hour of launch, raising $96 million. It has gone on to surpass $1 billion in sales. Being a MAYC holder offers benefits like exclusive access to the MAYC community.
How Does Mutant Ape Yacht Club Work?
Serums are what separate Mutant Ape Yacht Club from Bored Ape Yacht Club.
A Mutant Ape is created when Bored Apes are injected with special serums i.e. M1 and M2. When Bored Apes are injected with M3 serums, Mega Mutants are created. These look very different from the average Mutant Ape and usually have rarer attributes.
M1 serums are the most common with 7,500 vials in creation, while M2 serums follow shortly behind with 2,492 vials. M3 serums are very scarce, with only 8 serums in existence.
Some of the common Bored Ape mutations include bulging eyes, wacky deformed teeth, and protruding skin growths. Some Mutant Apes will even feature different clothes and skin slime.
Bored Apes can only be exposed to Mutant serum once before the vial is burned. The original Bored Ape belonging to the owner is not affected during the mutation process.
Mutant Ape #8428 going for 15.9 ETH ($20,827.25) (Source: OpenSea)
Who Created Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC)?
Mutant Ape Yacht Club was created by Yuga Labs. Yuga Labs was founded by Greg Solano and Wylie Aronow, both of whom had been crypto HODLers and investors since 2017. However, they soon saw massive opportunities in NFTs. In a bid to join the trend, Yuga Labs partnered with two software designers, Emperor Tomato Ketchup and No Sass.
Yuga Labs have been heavily involved in NFTs since they launched. In March 2022, Yuga Labs also purchased CryptoPunks and Meebits, two of the biggest competitors of MAYCs.
How to Mint Mutant Ape Yacht Club?
Mutant Apes are minted by exposing Bored Apes to Mutant serums, using smart contracts. The process does require a network fee, however. Each MAYC NFT is an ERC-721 token, meaning it’s compatible with the Ethereum blockchain. The first 10,000 pieces were minted by Yuga Labs, while the remaining 10,000 pieces were minted by BAYC holders who were given Serums that would mutate their Bored Ape into a Mutant Ape.
Is Mutant Ape Yacht Club Worth it?
Deciding whether mutant ape NFTs are worth buying is a bit tricky. As you all know, cryptocurrency is extremely volatile, and NFTs even more so.
However, MAYC is one of the top NFT collections in the world. The team behind the project has a history of meeting the tasks set in their roadmap. For example, the plan for MAYC NFT collection was drawn up before BAYC was launched. Yet they were able to deliver within the first couple of years.
There are also a few factors that indicate that the MAYC NFT collection may be a future blue chip NFT project. These factors include:
- Popularity: NFTs rely heavily on positive market sentiment for any price movement. As such, famous NFT projects are more likely to succeed–especially NFTs that are used as profile pictures. MAYC, as part of the largest NFT brand in the world, has surpassed $1 billion in sales in its first year.
- A solid team: BAYC NFTs have a strong team behind the project. In the cryptocurrency world, investors and individuals don’t have enough market history to judge how a crypto-based project like an NFT will perform. For this reason, they turn to the team behind the project. Projects with a solid team and a history of delivering projects in their roadmap give investors more confidence. These projects strike investors as genuine since the team behind the project put a lot of effort into the project’s developments. Yuga Labs has a solid record of consistently delivering project goals and this reputation plays off well on MAYC.
- A strong community: A strong community is crucial to the success of any cryptocurrency – especially to meme coins and NFTs. Projects with large communities are seen as having stability and longevity. Being part of the BAYC brand, MAYC definitely is part of an engaged, active community
- Strong partnerships: Another factor that indicates future success for mutant ape NFTs is its number of partnerships. Yuga Labs has announced partnerships with several game studios with a view of bringing BAYC NFTs to the metaverse. Yuga Labs also purchased Cryptopunks and Meebits which are some of the biggest competitors MAYC and BAYC face. This partnership will surely boost MAYC in the long term.
How to Buy Mutant Ape Yacht Club?
There are several NFT marketplaces to buy MAYC NFTs, including OpenSea and Rarible. Some NFT marketplaces also aggregate the price of particular NFTs from several listings, allowing buyers to select from different prices.
Here is a simple step-by-step guide for buying Mutant ape NFTs for those who have never purchased an NFT.
- Set up an online wallet: Since MAYC NFTs are built on Ethereum, investors need to hold some ETH before purchasing them. Online crypto wallets can be downloaded from app stores from different software providers including iOS, Android, and Windows. Common online wallets include Metamask and Trezor.
- Purchase Ethereum: Purchasing Ethereum is as simple as signing up with a trading platform. Most trading platforms will require some verification – usually KYC (Know your customer) before setting up the account. Once the account is set up, it should be funded with some fiat currency before using it to purchase Ethereum. Once the Ethereum is purchased, the buyer sends it to their wallet which will require a small gas fee.
- Buy MAYC: Once the individual’s crypto wallet contains enough ETH, they can head over to an NFT marketplace to select their buys from the Mutant Ape Yacht collection. The buyer would need to connect their wallet to OpenSea before they can buy any NFTs. Once that’s set up, the user can choose from different offers for the MAYC NFTs they want to buy.
Conclusion
The crypto industry is a very lucrative industry that’s filled with a lot of risk – especially when it comes to NFTs. While some projects are duds, some NFTs seem poised to become major industry players. MAYCs are one of those NFT collections whose potential has raised a lot of eyebrows in the crypto community, but with its BAYC association, may well gain the hallowed “blue chip NFT” status in time to come.
