Since Bryant’s death, Curry has used a photo of himself and Bryant as his Twitter profile picture. He still has Bryant in the background, but his profile picture has been changed to a blue cartoon ape. In his biography, he describes himself as follows:
The rest is well understood, including Philippians 4:13, Curry’s credo “I can do all things,” but BAYC, perhaps, touches on the blind spot.
BAYC, full name Bored Ape Yacht Club, is an Ethereum independent digital collection made up of 10,000 ape NFT (Non-Fungible tokens) launched on April 23, 2021. Each ape is unique, with different hats, costumes, expressions and backgrounds. In the story set by BAYC, these apes from the crypto field have become billionaires, their lives have become boring after financial freedom, and they have formed the Boring Apes Yacht Club, partying and doodling together in small bars. The founding team of BAYC was very grassroots, just four real life best friends, two software engineers, a media person and a trader.
At the time of its initial launch, the product sold for $185 each. In early May, Pransky, a well-known collector in the NFT circle, paid attention to the project, and after the investment of hundreds of NFT projects announced on the social network that he had purchased more than 250 apes, BAYC’s sales and transactions surged, and the heads quickly sold out within two hours. Today, the cheapest BAYC collection on the market is worth more than $80,000.
But how? How can these icons be so expensive? They seem just digital pictures to me, so why are Internet celebrities & players & entrepreneurs & investors so fanatically following them?
In the early days of blockchain, everyone was using homogeneous tokens to replace things of value in reality. But it soon became clear that there were many valuable things in real life that were unique and irreplaceable. NFT (non-homogeneous token) catches our eye because of its non-interchangeable and non-detachable properties, so that it can anchor some things in the real world in the digital space. You can simply define it as proof of ownership of a piece of digital art. This digital artwork can represent a picture, a video, a piece of music, a piece of text. As soon as you buy the NFT of the artwork, the Internet recognizes it as yours for the rest of your life. You can trade it for profit, or you can collect it by holding it for a long time. In March, rock band Kings of Leon sold a deluxe edition of their album for $50 through NFT. The NFT version of former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s first tweet was bought by Malaysian cryptocurrency entrepreneur Hina Istavi for $2.9 million. As long as you want to collect, everything can be NFT, everyone is a collector.
For most NFT players, rather than simply digital art, they want to gain a sense of identity and community along with their profits – a feeling that any kid who collected anime or character cards as a child knows how lonely it can be to have a whole set of cards with no one to share the joy with.
The BAYC organization meets the needs of NFT players. In just a few months since its launch, it has grown into a huge community. If you buy a BAYC collection, you will be considered a member of the BAYC Club and will be able to interact with other members, paint on the club wall, and enjoy various club benefits. In the BAYC community’s Ape Follow Ape campaign, most BAYC holders set their social media profile pictures as apes and followed each other. In addition to Curry, Lamelo Ball, Josh Hart such as athletes, there are also Chen Bolin, Shawn Yue such film and television stars. In the NFT market in June 2021, the cumulative sales of grassroots BAYC was 39.71 million US dollars, surpassing the star products of NFT circle such as NBA Top Shot and CryptoPunks, and becoming the darling of the NFT market. In this optimistic environment, the price of BAYC’s ape head has naturally risen.
People who don’t understand NFT may wonder why they spend so much money buying a Mosaic of color blocks stacked on top of each other. But the logic itself makes sense: Many years from now, in a world where there may be no paper media, or even physical electronic screens, and everyone is wearing VR devices or holograms every day, how should we define the art we own in the next generation of Internet environments? And how do we define our own digital identity?
In my opinion, NFTs (or digital assets that can be owned and traded on blockchain platforms like BAYC), represent unique digital assets that individuals can own and trade on the blockchain. Individuals owning NFTs from BAYC enable themselves to express themselves digitally while creating their sense of identity within this community by symbolically owning one of its digital ape avatars; owning such NFTs also gives individuals access to its community features like virtual pet trading.
Enjoining and displaying valuable NFTs like BAYC can give a sense of status and recognition within the digital realm, much as traditional status symbols or possessions might. Just as they serve as tangible markers of identity or accomplishment for some individuals, having rare or desirable NFTs acts as a signal that distinguishes themselves among online social circles – often garnering admiration or respect from them all!
NFTs like BAYC often tap into artistic and creative outlets, providing individuals a means of self-expression through creativity. Owners can customize their ape avatars, design merchandise based on their NFTs, and contribute to overall narrative or culture surrounding their collection; all while showing off artistic talents while fortifying digital identities.
NFTs play an essential part in shaping digital identities; however, they should not be seen as the sole component of the larger landscape of digital existence. NFTs interact with identity according to many varying social, cultural, and technological influences and may vary for individuals as well as communities.
I learned a lot that I didn’t even know about from reading this post. I would say that you’ve done your research when it comes to NFT. This is a very interesting and different approach which has made me interested in NFT. Thank you, Great read.