The NFT market has not been faring that well. On one hand, trade volume has been on the decline. On the other hand, the number of sellers has been eclipsing the number of buyers, making it another cause of concern. According to press time data, the market welcomed over 7,838 buyers over the past 24 hours. In the same time period, however, the market was characterized by 8,542 sellers.
Even in the midst of such a turbulent environment, Yuga Labs, the creator of the Bored Ape Yacht Club, continues to dominate the NFT market. A recent report from DappRadar noted that it accounted for around 35% of the total NFT trading volume. This was during the six-month period from October 2022 to March 2023.
Apart from Bored Ape Yacht Club, Yuga Labs’ name is also associated with Mutant Ape Yacht Club and Otherside for Metaverse NFT collections. The company also went on to acquire CryptoPunks and Meebits from Larva Labs last year. All of Yuga Labs’ projects generated around one-third of the total NFT sales volume between Q4 2022 and Q1 2023. Specifically, the report noted,
“Presently, Yuga Labs’ 16 NFT collections account for 34.6% of the entire NFT industry, having achieved a total trading volume of $2 billion in the past two quarters alone.”
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Decoding the reasons behind Yuga Labs’ strong market presence
According to Dappradar, the company’s success can be attributed to “its commitment to integrating art, identity, ownership, utility, interoperability, and culture in order to advance the crypto/NFT space.”
The Bored Ape Yacht Club collection has the highest floor price of 51.45 ETH in the NFT industry. CryptoPunks stands right behind, at 49.49 ETH. Parallelly, Otherdeed for Otherside is the “top-performing” Metaverse NFT collection. It boasts of $322 million in trading volume over the past two quarters. Furthermore, Yuga Labs’ acquisition of WENEW and 10KTF was also a success. In fact, the latter ended up scooping up 74% of Q1 2023’s, total NFT fashion trading volume. With respect to Yuga Labs’ market stature, the report attributed,
“The Bored Ape Yacht Club’s impressive floor price, the meteoric rise of Otherdeed for Otherside in the metaverse, and Yuga Labs’ successful acquisitions, all contribute to its strong market presence.”
It is also important to acknowledge that Yuga Labs’ Apecoin is currently the market’s largest gaming token. At press time, APE’s market cap reflected a value of $1.5 billion. DappRadar pointed out that its growth has been “remarkable” when compared to other established gaming companies like Ubisoft and Square Enix.
Other gaming project tokens from the space like The Sandbox and Decentraland that existed in the space before ApeCoin’s launch currently rank lower. At press time, APE was trading at $4.08, after noting a 1.6% incline over the past day.
Also Read: NFTs Face ‘Sell Pressure’ As ‘Q1 Interest’ Begins To Fade