Imitation, they say, is the best form of flattery. Meaning if you're doing something and people start to copy you, then you should take that as a compliment, because it means you're doing something right!
In the NFT world imitation seems to be the standard. If Dapper Ducks does well then expect a whole host of duck NFTs to flood the market.
It's not just in the name either, sometimes the copycat project will lift the artwork as well, maybe changing a pixel or two here and there, and voila! A brand new project that's almost the same as the old successful one.
Great.
However there is one project that people just can't help copying. Everyday there are more and more apes appearing on my timeline.
It is growing to epic proportions, Solana is fast becoming the Planet Of The Apes.
Aping Into The NFT World
It all started over on Ethereum with the Bored Ape Yacht Club, otherwise known as the BAYC.
If you'd like to pick up a BAYC, it will cost you a minimum of 48 $Eth, which at the time of writing is worth approximately $243,000
The most expensive BAYC ever sold is the one above, Bored Ape #2087 for around $2.3 million dollars worth of $Eth.
The top ten BAYCs ever sold total around $18 million dollars, with Forbes reporting that the entire collection is now worth $1 Billion dollars. That kind of moola inevitably attracts attention from hungry devs who want to recreate that success.
In the same way a new investor to crypto might feel they have missed out on Bitcoin, and so look for an altcoin to make their fortune in. So too must green NFT buyers turn to more affordable assets.
This is amplified even more in the NFT world, because you can't buy a part of an NFT, it's all or nothing, which goes on to fuel the "ape derivatives", the copycats, the mutants.
Mutant Ape Club anyone?
But You're Just A Copycat! Don't You Mean Copyape?
If you type in the word 'ape' (don't even get me started on 'monkey') into the Opensea.io search bar, you will come up with over 24.6 million items from God only knows how many collections.
Some of them don't even look like apes, the devs have literally just put the word 'ape' into the title hoping that this action alone will be enough to propel their NFT project to the stars, one day making it worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Needless to say this tactic is not working, most of the various mutant and copycat apes on Ethereum are listed for such low amounts, that the gas fees involved in buying them will almost certainly be worth many times the actual token. Meaning you'll be the proud owner of negative NFT equity.
Nice.
However the story doesn't end with 24.6 million ape NFTs on Ethereum, because of course NFTs exist across multiple chains, not least on Ethereum's biggest competitor Solana.
Solana has gained in popularity in the NFT world simply because the fees involved in buying, minting, listing and selling NFTs are tiny, or even nonexistent (listing is free on Solana).
These features have attracted a lot of the Ethereum NFT buyers who have been stung by high gas fees that can sometimes run into thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars.
Whether this is fuelling the rise of the apes on Solana or not is hard to say, however the point is moot. The simple fact remains that like it or loathe it, for now at least, the simian invasion is in full swing.
Say It Loud! I'm A Deriv And I'm Proud!
Magic Eden has established itself as the main site to buy and sell NFTs on the Solana chain. The platform is awash with ape derivatives, so much so that they have even started randomly popping up in wallets.
I opened my Phantom wallet the other day and I had been airdropped an Ape Squad NFT. I have no idea what comp I entered or how they came to have my address, and nobody has claimed responsibility. So I know have two apes and a monkey sitting in my wallet.
Basically the whole situation has transcended the "deriv" moniker and become a meme instead.
However as I was researching this article, the Picasso Ape Yacht Club caught my eye. Not just for the sheer ridiculousness of their name, or the fact that they have just put an RGB standard-set Photoshop filter over the original BAYC.
No, they caught my eye because of their profile bio, which proudly states that they are a derivative and they are intent on making their NFT a utility token.
This is interesting because it shows that even the most rudimentary and even ridiculous markets, follow the same rules as any complex financial organism.
As with cryptos, it is fast getting to the point in the NFT world whereby it is no longer just good enough to exist for your own sake. Investors want to know what your NFT does.
Can you stake it? Is it a token in a game? Can it be used for airdrops? If the answer to these questions are positive, then people don't care what it looks like. There are plenty of utility NFTs that have just one picture that's not even varied. Because you can use it to stake a coin and make a return that way, so who cares what it looks like?
It would take an almighty push to get any BAYC derivative project noticed above the screaming crowd apes, and even then it totally depends on how good the utility of the coin is.
If it's like the Stoned Ape Club whereby each NFT holder is getting a certain amount of the $Puff token, then that's what will ultimately drive people to your deriv project.
Who Needs Utility When You Have Hype?
If the King of the Apes on Ethereum is the BAYC, then on Solana it is the Degenerate Ape Academy.
These puppies will set you back a minimum of just under 40 $Sol (c. $5500 USD) and they do appear to be trading hands fairly regularly.
Then of course, there are the multitude of monkey projects, or monke, or even monkee as the NFT world often likes to spell it.
These various spellings of the word, and the fact that a lot of them don't even use monkey in the project name, mean that it is difficult to get an exact estimate for the number of monkey projects on either Solana or Ethereum. But rest assured, there are tens of millions of monkey NFTs swinging around out there.
And here's the thing, some of them for some (usually hidden) reason or another, go on to be worth quite a lot of money, and it's really starting to piss some people off.
Why You So Mad?
Even if you're not into the NFT world, but you are on Twitter, then you could do worse than start following a bunch of NFT accounts.
That way you get to witness the NFT drama unfolding in front of your very eyes.
At the moment one of the big dramas is that of the Bored Ape Solana Club and the Solana Bored Folks.
Both of these NFT collections are derivatives of the original BAYC, with the artwork and all of the attributes resembling the originals.
The Solana metaverse seems to be split into two camps, the ones that say;
So what? Everything's a copy, this is what decentralisation's all about!
Whilst the other camp says;
No way! These kind of cheap derivative knock-offs harm the Solana blockchain and will impact negatively on genuine, original projects!
One such person in the first camp is a chap called nftpotato.sol on Twitter, rather than explain, I'll let you read the evolution of his tweets.
Lol.
Monkey Money Talks
As I mentioned, a lot of these derivatives popping up (one particular Twitter user claimed four new ape derivatives were being made everyday), are popular and are making money.
As you saw from the shots above, the Ape Solana Club* and the Solana Bored Folks have minimum prices of around 18 and 9 $Sol respectively, roughly $2500 and $1250 USD at today's prices.
So as long as they keep doing well, people will buy them, Magic Eden's tolerance seems to hinge on just how closely the ape/monkey/monke/monkee/wukong has copied the original BAYC or Monkey Kingdom projects. Although some are claiming it is more to do with the influence of the community behind the deriv project.
I for one think they're all skating on thin ice, whilst I would have loved to get in on one of the ones worth a couple of grand now, it feels to perilous to invest that at the moment. I've seen countless NFT projects go from a healthy daily trading volume, to tumbleweeds in the space of just 24 hours.
That's not to say there aren't some great ones out there, as mentioned above the Stoned Ape Crew are an excellent community on Solana.
I wanted to get in at 0.7 Sol because I liked the artwork, however now the cheapest one would set you back, around 35 $Sol ($4800).
If you are going to take the plunge and try and jump on a monkey's back and swing into the jungle of good fortune, all I've got to say to you is good luck. I think with this one, you could do all the research in the world and still end up with a dud.
If Magic Eden flags it with the dreaded derivative of BAYC flag, the project will effectively be worthless. That may change in the future, perhaps the Picasso Apes will be the catalyst that sees derivative projects take on a life of their own.
Only time will tell, so if you have the stomach for it, just enjoy these crazy times!
HAVE YOU BOUGHT ANY APE OR MONKEY NFTS? WHAT ARE SOME OF THE FUNNIEST DERIVATIVES YOU'VE SEEN? ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT GETTING AN APE NFT?
AS EVER, LET ME KNOW BELOW!
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5. NFTs & Me - NFTs Are Not Crypto!
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Cryptogee