Okay, riddle me this: when was the last time you saw $18 million materialize in less time than it takes to brew a decent cup of pour-over? If your answer isn’t “about five minutes ago when I checked Crypto Twitter,” I’ve got news.
Wait, They Raised How Much in 23 Minutes?
I was half-doomscrolling, half-pretending to be productive when the alert popped up: Bored Apes Yacht Club 2 (I’m calling it BAYC2 because my thumbs can’t handle the full name) sold out its 7,180-piece mint in—get this—23 minutes. The math nerd in me instantly did the back-of-the-napkin: 7,180 NFTs × 0.23 ETH mint price ≈ 1,651 ETH. At Tuesday’s ETH/USD rate, that’s just north of $18 million.
So yeah, I nearly spit out my cold brew.
Here’s What Actually Happened
The collection sports artwork by Tyler Hobbs, the same generative wizard behind Fidenzas—arguably the art blocks piece that launched a thousand wallet-connects. Each token is a Hobbs twist on the OG primate: fewer cigarettes in the mouth, more splashy palette knife vibes. Think art-school Bored Ape who now hangs out at MoMA instead of a dive bar.
Numbers? We’ve got numbers:
- 7,180 minted, 100% sold out
- Buyers came from 122 countries (shout-out to the four wallets that hit from Iceland—dedication!)
- Floor on X2Y2: 1.4 ETH barely an hour after mint. That’s a 6× pop from the mint price. Welcome to JPEG Vegas.
- The rarest piece (only 0.05% probability trait combo) flipped for 279 ETH. Someone literally traded a house outside Austin for a cartoon ape. Respect.
And yes, I double-checked on Dune dashboards because sometimes those early floor prices are glitchy. Looks legit—2,800 ETH volume in the first evening.
Why Everyone and Their Dog (Literally Snoop’s) Jumped In
If you’re wondering how a sequel drop could move this fast during a market that feels like it’s running on decaf, the answer is a cocktail of celebrity juice, utility promises, and good old-fashioned FOMO.
Snoop Dogg tweeted a picture of his pup wearing a BAYC2 hoodie an hour before public mint—instant dopamine rush. Jimmy Fallon followed up with “gm fam” plus a pizza emoji. Is it silly that these posts move markets? Absolutely. Does it work? Also absolutely.
The team dangled some real goodies too: in-game perks (they keep teasing something Roblox-meets-Metaverse), physical merch collabs with Gucci and Burberry, and governance rights, which basically means we all get to argue in Discord about color palettes and gala venues. Speaking of Discord, their server ballooned to 60,025 members—I swear at least 1,000 of them are bots pitching the next alpha, but still, giant crowd.
Are We in an NFT Bull Revival or Just FOMO on Steroids?
I’m torn. On the one hand, a 23-minute sell-out feels 2021-romantic. On the other, macro still looks like my college roommate’s ramen pot—boiling, then suddenly ice-cold. ETH’s been pinned under $1,900 for weeks, so the fact people yolo’d 1,600-plus ETH in under half an hour is either blind optimism or money reallocating from meme coins that fizzled last month (looking at you, PEPE).
In my experience, rare-trait concentration often drives early flips. Only about 5% of BAYC2 boast the ultra-scarce backgrounds, and OpenSea’s activity shows those are what fueled the first 24-hour volume spike. But once the rares settle into diamond hands, floors can sag. We saw it with Moonbirds last spring. So if you’re considering aping in at 1.4 ETH, maybe set an alert on Blur before going full send.
There’s also the looming competition: CloneX and Moonbirds just teased similar drops for next month. If all three fight for the same liquidity pool, something’s gotta give. The math simply doesn’t support infinite 6× multiples—unless, of course, ETH finally rallies and we party like it’s $4k again.
What I’m Watching Next
“Utility is the new rarity.” —random comment I liked on Nansen
The BAYC2 roadmap is ambitious: metaverse gaming, tokenized governance, annual gala tickets (location TBD; I’m voting for Lisbon). If even half of that ships, these JPEGs become membership cards on steroids—more Soho House, less static profile pic. But we’ve been promised play-to-earn nirvana before. Remember Pixels Online? Exactly.
Personally, I’m eyeballing the Gucci + Burberry angle. Luxury fashion dipping toes into Web3 isn’t new, but using an existing NFT as the storefront’s loyalty card could be how normies finally bridge L2 wallets without realizing it. If my cousin buys a BAYC2 hoodie at the mall and gets airdropped a digital twin, boom—on-chain without MetaMask anxiety.
Final random thought: Tyler Hobbs’s art style is peak décor for tech-bro apartment walls, and you just know someone will fractionalize a rare Ape into ERC-20 shards so the plebs (myself included) can snag 0.0007 of it. If that happens, I’ll probably throw in fifty bucks, just for the party story.
TL;DR: 23-minute sell-outs are back on the menu. Whether it’s a sign of sustained NFT strength or a well-timed hype storm, I’m cautiously optimistic—heavy on the cautious. Either way, it was nice to feel that 2021 mint adrenaline again.
