A few days ago, Phunky Ape Yacht Club launched as a free mint and an aggressive copycat soon followed. Both battled for Flipped Ape Supremacy commanding millions worth of $ETH in liquidity.
Both were delisted from OpenSea and Rarible but several other media outlets recognized Phunky Ape Yacht Club as the OG collection.
Phunky Ape Yacht Club is currently the last ape standing in what was a wild few days to end the year. The other flipped ape project was upfront about its intentions – Show up, command liquidity, make money, and disappear.
They made a whopping $1.8 million for only being around for a few days.
However, the OG Phunky Ape Yacht Club, a free mint and protest against corporate Web3, continues its quest to build a decentralized marketplace. While they aren’t associated with Phunks, their mindset and reasoning are similar.
The entire reasoning for Web3 was to get rid of centralized intermediaries and corporations, not invite them into the ecosystem. Now we have big brands such as Addidas and big-name celebrities with deep pockets entering Web3, which is pissing off decentralization maxis.
Phunks and PAYC are somewhat of a Web3 battle of good vs. evil. Think galactic empire vs. rebel alliance with PAYC on the side of the rebel alliance. So while you can’t buy PAYC on OpenSea anymore, you can still buy them on nftrade.com until their decentralized marketplace goes live.
Why Would Anyone Buy a Fake Bored Ape?
I’m sure that many of you are asking this same question, and there are multiple reasons we can consider.
FOMO: People who feel they missed out on the OG Bored Apes or Phunks want to take a shot at flipped apes.
Trolling: Some people see it as a way to troll the BAYC.
Act of Rebellion: Some people enjoy rebelling and want to protest against the sky-high prices of BAYC.
Protest: An act of protest against the centralization of Web3 from corporate America
Gambling: This is a low risk, high upside shot for NFT traders
Whatever you believe, the Phunky Ape Yacht Club is doing what art is supposed to, which is to evoke an emotional response. It also shines a light on one of the main reasons you should ever bet on an NFT project which is great developers.
Great developers in Web3 are few and far between, and a team with a lot of developer power will oftentimes succeed. In this case, the Phunky Ape Yacht Club appears to have several helping spin up a decentralized 0 fee marketplace.
When Apes and Punks Collide
It seems like there’s a new NFT ape project showing up everywhere you look. A recent one that was also a free mint is called CryptoApes, which combines apes and punks.
CryptoApes was spun up by a one-person show named Shoegan, who created the art and wrote the contracts. Capped at 6969, CryptoApes has already commanded 43 ETH in volume on opensea and appears just to be getting started.