Yuga Labs, the web3 company known for its association with Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), CryptoPunks, Meebits, 10KTF, and Otherside, has announced its agreement to acquire Roar Studios, a firm at the intersection of gaming, social media, and the metaverse with deep technology and AI roots. The announcement was made on July 31, 2023.
Key Details of the Acquisition
Roar Studios’ Contribution: Roar Studios is the developer of ROAR, an immersive media experience that allows artists and fans to connect, collaborate, and compete in real time. The platform combines innovative proprietary technology with established MMO game and platform systems, creating an experiential, semi-autonomous music and entertainment world.
Integration with Yuga Labs: As Yuga Labs develops Otherside, its ambitious, interoperable metaverse, the Roar team will contribute their innovative technology, specialized expertise, and leadership. The acquisition aligns with Yuga’s vision of creating new ways for communities to connect and express themselves.
Leadership Changes: Eric Reid, Founder and CEO of Roar Studios, will join Yuga as the General Manager of Otherside. He will be responsible for evolving the vision and leading the development and production of the platform.
Yuga Labs’ Background: Yuga Labs has been shaping the future through storytelling, experiences, and community in the web3 space. Since their launch in April 2021, they have made headlines for releasing IP licenses to their NFT holders, acquiring rights to other top collections, and making web3 history with Otherside. In March 2022, Yuga Labs raised a $450M seed round at a $4B valuation.
Statements from the Companies
Daniel Alegre, CEO of Yuga Labs, stated, “Roar Studios has redefined what it means to experience media content in the metaverse. Roar’s dedication to creative content creation and social connections will accelerate our execution of our bold vision for Otherside and Yuga’s ecosystem more broadly.”
Eric Reid added, “Our team’s mission is to empower players to create and be social in a community-driven, open media experience, so our work fundamentally aligns with Yuga’s larger web3 metaverse strategy. When Daniel and Mike Seavers opened the door for us to contribute to Yuga’s paradigm-shifting approach to content and immersive experiences, we jumped at the opportunity.”
The acquisition of Roar Studios by Yuga Labs signifies a strategic move to enhance Yuga’s metaverse offerings and leverage Roar’s technological innovations. By integrating Roar’s immersive media experience and aligning with Yuga’s web3 metaverse strategy, the collaboration aims to redefine the way media content is experienced in the virtual world. The addition of Eric Reid to Yuga’s leadership team further strengthens the company’s vision for Otherside and its broader ecosystem.
Yuga Labs has revealed plans to onboard MeebitsDAO general manager Danny Greene as the new brand lead for Meebits at Yuga Labs.
The transition is best considered as a move to integrate Danny as a Yuga Labs veteran further but basically occupying the same role and tasks, he has been overseeing for MeebitsDAO over the past 8 months.
Since Yuga Labs acquired the Intellectual Properties attached to CryptoPunks and the Meebits non-fungible token (NFT) collection in March, the team has been making several strategic decisions to reposition the two pioneering collectables as the pride of the NFT world they once were.
At Yuga Labs, Danny will help in building a dedicated community for Meebits while also carving out creative utilities for the NFT collection. As Meebits brand manager, Danny will also be tasked with the responsibility of acting as a liaison between the brand and the broader Web2.0 and Web3.0 worlds, respectively.
Danny’s wealth of experience as a former VP, in charge of global marketing for Curio NFT, and a consultant to Activision Blizzard on matters pertaining to the launch of Call of Duty: Black Ops III, made him the ideal candidate to take up this challenge.
The entire Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) ecosystem is all about branding with collections like BAYC and CryptoPunks naturally speaking for themselves. Despite this, The Yuga Labs team employed Guy Oseary, Madonna’s brand manager, as the NFTs’ spokesperson and representative.
With the collective work that has been done thus far, BAYC has gained tremendous traction amongst top fashion brands, with the likes of Gucci recently integrating ApeCoin into its payments rail. The branding that Danny Greene is coming to commence is bound to be a build-up on what the other Yuga Labs collections have been able to pull thus far.
Following the CryptoPunks acquisition in March, non-fungible token (NFT) giant Yuga Labs will now receive 5% on all secondary sales conducted by Meebits.
The 3D voxel character creator, Meebits took to its Twitter page to announce the new move. According to the post, the move is necessary to help keep the Meeb party going.
In March, NFT behemoth Yuga Labs acquired the intellectual property (IP) rights to Crypto Pinks and Meebits NFTs from Larva Labs. The NFT giant took possession of 423 CryptoPunks and 1711 Meebits at the time. Through the acquisition, Yuga Labs gained ownership of the brands, copyright in the art, and other IP privileges.
The merger provided Meebits and CryptoPunks holders with equal commercial rights as holders of Yuga Labs’ previous collections. Although Yuga Labs is the designer and creator of Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), the holders of Meebits and CryptoPunk NFTs are not obligated to take on the model which the club utilizes.
Yuga Labs explained that the merger is a window to align both collections with the Web3.0 ethos. The NFT giant advised other developers and community creators to induct both CryptoPunks and Meebits into their Web3.0 projects.
“By handing over these rights, we’re further aligning CryptoPunks and Meebits with the web3 ethos, and we expect a wide range of third-party developers and community creators to incorporate CryptoPunks and Meebits into their web3 projects. We’ll be building the overall brand right alongside them.” the announcement read.
Yuga Labs Charges a 5% Royalty Fee on Meebits NFTs
Since the acquisition, Yuga Labs along with its legal team has been working on drafting new terms and conditions for the CryptoPunks and Meebits holders. Most previous NFT collections connected to Yuga Labs all had royalty charged on them.
For Bored Ape Yacht Club and Bored Ape Mutant Club, a royalty of 2.5% is charged. Otherdeeds, the NFT connected to the Otherside virtual land plots charges 5% as royalty. Now, Meebits has joined the train and has now been made to pay a 5% royalty fee on all its NFT secondary sales.
Meanwhile, Yuga Labs investors are compiling a lawsuit with legal firm Scott+Scott to sue the NFT giant who they accused of instigating the community to invest in BAYC collection. The draft is yet to be completed and filed, as Scott+Scott is still trying to gather affected investor to solidify its class action lawsuit.
Larva Labs is the creator of the iconic CryptoPunks NFT collection.
The design studio also launched a collection called Meebits last year, banking $80 million in a day.
Larva Labs has taken a hard stance against CryptoPunks copycats and recently taken controversial action against V1 Punks born out of the original CryptoPunks smart contract.
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The CryptoPunks community is growing increasingly frustrated with Larva Labs. Crypto Briefing’s editor Chris Williams explains why.
How Larva Labs Tarnished Its Reputation
Throughout last year, I spent a lot of time cursing at all of the NFT blue chips I missed (the Crypto Briefing team is well aware of this; I talked about it enough on our daily calls). Of all the stuff I failed to pull the trigger on, I was most disappointed about CryptoPunks—it was such an obvious trade afterthatBeeple auction, so it didn’t really come as a shock when they were going for reasonably sized house prices over NFT summer.
But more recently, CryptoPunks have fallen out of favor, leaving me less salty about my miss. There are many reasons for the project’s fall from grace, including its community of occasional close-minded snobs who struck it lucky by being early to Ethereum, and a certain collection of apes that’s caught the attention ofParis Hilton and Jimmy Fallon. But the biggest reason CryptoPunks has lost its crown is down to its creator, Larva Labs.
Punk #7610, owned by Visa (Source: Larva Labs)
For those not aware, Larva Labs is a design studio formed by Matt Hall and John Watkinson. A pair of creatives who had previously worked on mobile apps and projects for companies like Android, they released the now iconic 10,000 pixel art Punk characters for free back in June 2017, long before anyone had to deal with whitelists or any other pre-mint shenanigans. Similar to other key crypto projects like Bitcoin and Yearn.Finance, the fair launch played into CryptoPunks’ wild success. It was also very early; by the timeThe New York TimesandTechCrunchwere writing about NFTs in 2021, CryptoPunks were already historical artefacts. Christie’s and Sotheby’s auctioned them, Jay-Z and Visa bought their own, and, well, we all know what happened to the floor prices after that.
But even as CryptoPunks cemented its place as a cultural gem, Larva Labs managed to tarnish its reputation on multiple occasions. Hall and Watkinson dropped an uninspiring project called Meebits at the May top and set a Dutch auction starting at 2.5 ETH—around $8,000 at the time—knowing that people who were priced out of Punks would buy into the hype (in fairness, Punk holders could mint a Meebit for free). Theymade $80 millionin a day. Nothing has happened with Meebits since then, and the collection has underperformed every notable NFT avatar project in price terms.
They also signed a Hollywood deal that would allow for their NFTs to be used in Hollywood movies. Though Punk holders applauded the move, it was a warning of what was to come: around the same time, the pair got more aggressive in issuing copyright takedown notices to the various Punk knock-offs that surfaced on Ethereum and other blockchains.
V1 Punk #6083 (Source: V1 Punks)
Most recently, Larva Labs has taken issue withV1 Punks, a set of algorithmically generated Punks that are almost indistinguishable from those in the main collection (unlike their more famous tokenized cousins, V1 Punks have a pink background). V1 Punks were born out of the original bugged CryptoPunks smart contract, and while Larva Labs scrapped them back in 2017, a community has since formed around them by wrapping them as ERC-721s and acknowledging their OG status.
Larva Labs doesn’t like how V1 Punks have grown in popularity as it apparently ruins the main collection’s prestige. As Cobiesummed upwell this week, while Hall and Watkinson usually take a back seat from any form of community building, they recently responded to the latest V1 Punks rally by dumping 210 ETH worth on the market and going all guns blazing on copyright charges. In a Discord post, Hall said he wants to stop V1 Punks from using the CryptoPunks name or artwork. Curiously, he then added that the 210 ETH would go to the Rainforest Foundation.
CryptoPunks command a floor of about 69 ETH today—obviously I wish I owned one. However, they’re far from the most valuable NFT avatar out there these days. That title goes to Bored Ape Yacht Club, the celebrity-endorsed collection that’s seen a meteoric rise by embracing Web3 values. The team behind the project, Yuga Labs, gave its holders copyright ownership and lucrative airdrops, partnered with global powerhouses like Adidas, and will soon issue a token. As I noted the week after Bored Ape Yacht Club launched, maybe Larva Labs could have learned something from them.
Don’t get me wrong: CryptoPunks will probably have huge historical significance, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see the entry price for a Punk soar in the future. But that’s assuming its creator doesn’t completely kill the project’s legacy first.
Disclosure: At the time of writing, the author of this feature owned ETH and several other cryptocurrencies. They also had exposure to YFI in a cryptocurrency index.
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The information on or accessed through this website is obtained from independent sources we believe to be accurate and reliable, but Decentral Media, Inc. makes no representation or warranty as to the timeliness, completeness, or accuracy of any information on or accessed through this website. Decentral Media, Inc. is not an investment advisor. We do not give personalized investment advice or other financial advice. The information on this website is subject to change without notice. Some or all of the information on this website may become outdated, or it may be or become incomplete or inaccurate. We may, but are not obligated to, update any outdated, incomplete, or inaccurate information.
You should never make an investment decision on an ICO, IEO, or other investment based on the information on this website, and you should never interpret or otherwise rely on any of the information on this website as investment advice. We strongly recommend that you consult a licensed investment advisor or other qualified financial professional if you are seeking investment advice on an ICO, IEO, or other investment. We do not accept compensation in any form for analyzing or reporting on any ICO, IEO, cryptocurrency, currency, tokenized sales, securities, or commodities.
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Meebit #13824 sold for 14,700 Ethereum on LooksRare this afternoon.
LooksRare is a new OpenSea competitor offering trading rewards to incentivize users, which may explain the sale.
Trading volumes for Meebits and Loot have soared on LooksRare this week, likely because the two collections do not charge royalties on secondary sales.
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LooksRare is currently offering trading rewards divided pro rata between users, which may explain the eye-watering price tag.
Meebit NFT Fetches $49.5M on LooksRare
A Meebit NFT just sold for eight figures, but the trade looks very suspicious.
The sale took place on LooksRare, a decentralized OpenSea competitor that launched with a token airdrop this week, earlier this afternoon. The buyer paid 14,700 Ethereum forMeebit #13824, the equivalent of around $49.5 million at today’s prices. The transaction can be viewed onEtherscan.
The $49.5 million price tag makes the token one of the most valuable NFTs ever sold, behind Beeple’s “Everydays: The First 5,000 Days” and Pak’s “The Merge,” which respectively fetched $69.3 million and $91.8 million last year. However, several signs suggest that the trade may not be legitimate.
The buyer’s wallet contains 18 other Meebits and three CryptoPunks, which suggests that they are a big fan of Larva Labs NFTs (Larva Labs is the design studio behind the two collections). However, while the rarest CryptoPunks frequently trade for millions of dollars, Meebits are typically much less sought after. On both LooksRare and OpenSea, the cheapest Meebits are trading for roughly 4 Ethereum at press time. Meebit #13824 also has more common traits than other NFTs in the collection, which makes it less valuable. Prior to today’s sale, the highest offer it had received on LooksRare was 3.95 Ethereum.
LooksRare Rewards Incentivize Wash Trading
LooksRare’s token reward distribution may explain the sale. To incentivize users, the marketplace is paying out 2,866,500 LOOKS tokens to traders daily for its first 30 days. The LOOKS token is currently trading at $4.12, which equates to $11.8 million in daily rewards. The rewards are distributed pro rata according to each user’s trading volume, which means generating more volume can earn a greater portion of the $11.8 million.
As the Twitter user dingaling suggested in aWednesday tweet storm, some LooksRare users could have engaged in wash trading to receive a greater share of the rewards. Wash trading involves buying and selling products to create artificial activity to manipulate markets and prices. It’s illegal in traditional markets. In this instance, the original owner of Meebit #13824 may have sold the NFT back to themselves through another wallet to secure a greater share of the rewards pool. Crypto Briefing analyzed the transaction history on theseller’s walletbut did not find any prior connection to the buyer.
In addition to Meebit #13824, many other NFTs have sold at inflated prices relative to their market value over the last few days. Meebits and Loot are particularly susceptible to the wash trading hack as neither collection charges a royalty to the creator on secondary sales, which isn’t the case for most other NFTs. As a result, the relative cost basis for a wash trader is much lower. Meebits has seen 107,238 Ethereum in trading volume on LookRare in the last few days, while Loot has processed 40,416 Ethereum. On OpenSea, the two collections have seen only 80,500 Ethereum and 72,600 Ethereum since the marketplace launched.
LooksRare is set to continue paying trading rewards in four phases that will gradually reduce distribution over the next year. While the marketplace is yet to comment on the wash trading issue, for now it seems a little early to rank the Meebit #13824 sale alongside Beeple and Pak just yet.
Disclosure: At the time of writing, the author of this feature owned ETH and several other cryptocurrencies.
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The information on or accessed through this website is obtained from independent sources we believe to be accurate and reliable, but Decentral Media, Inc. makes no representation or warranty as to the timeliness, completeness, or accuracy of any information on or accessed through this website. Decentral Media, Inc. is not an investment advisor. We do not give personalized investment advice or other financial advice. The information on this website is subject to change without notice. Some or all of the information on this website may become outdated, or it may be or become incomplete or inaccurate. We may, but are not obligated to, update any outdated, incomplete, or inaccurate information.
You should never make an investment decision on an ICO, IEO, or other investment based on the information on this website, and you should never interpret or otherwise rely on any of the information on this website as investment advice. We strongly recommend that you consult a licensed investment advisor or other qualified financial professional if you are seeking investment advice on an ICO, IEO, or other investment. We do not accept compensation in any form for analyzing or reporting on any ICO, IEO, cryptocurrency, currency, tokenized sales, securities, or commodities.
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Fine art auction house Christie’s has successfully sold a batch of NFTs from top collections CryptoPunks, Bored Ape Yacht Club, and Meebits for a combined total of $12 million.
Christie’s Raises $12M in NFT Drop
NFTs are continuing to command high prices at the world’s premier auction houses.
Christie’s, the biggest auction house by sales volume, concluded its “No Time Like Present” sale Tuesday morning, with the NFTs in the collection totaling a combined sales value of $12 million. The online sale was conducted by Christie’s Hong Kong and included several NFTs from CryptoPunks, Bored Ape Yacht Club, and Meebits.
Of the 14 NFTs sold, a CryptoPunk took the top spot, selling for $4.3 million. While the rare zombie Punk, of which only 88 exist, was the highlight of the sale, it fell short of breaking the record for the most expensive CryptoPunk ever sold. In June, an even rarer alien Punk sold at rival auction house Sotheby’s for $11.75 million.
Along with the zombie Punk, five other CryptoPunks, four Bored Apes, and four Meebits were also up for sale. Those looking to purchase the NFTs were able to bid with either Hong Kong dollars or Ethereum in the online auctions.
Today’s NFT sale is one of several similar auctions conducted by top auction houses this year. In February, Christie’s kicked things off, being the first to host a major NFT sale with the digital artist Beeple’s “Everydays: The First 5,000 Days.” Since then, NFTs have become a somewhat regular feature at fine art auction houses. Most recently, Sotheby’s concluded a sale for a troupe of 101 Bored Apes. The auction closed at $26.6 million, a Sotheby’s record for an NFT sale.
Disclaimer: At the time of writing this feature, the author owned BTC, ETH, and several other cryptocurrencies.
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The information on or accessed through this website is obtained from independent sources we believe to be accurate and reliable, but Decentral Media, Inc. makes no representation or warranty as to the timeliness, completeness, or accuracy of any information on or accessed through this website. Decentral Media, Inc. is not an investment advisor. We do not give personalized investment advice or other financial advice. The information on this website is subject to change without notice. Some or all of the information on this website may become outdated, or it may be or become incomplete or inaccurate. We may, but are not obligated to, update any outdated, incomplete, or inaccurate information.
You should never make an investment decision on an ICO, IEO, or other investment based on the information on this website, and you should never interpret or otherwise rely on any of the information on this website as investment advice. We strongly recommend that you consult a licensed investment advisor or other qualified financial professional if you are seeking investment advice on an ICO, IEO, or other investment. We do not accept compensation in any form for analyzing or reporting on any ICO, IEO, cryptocurrency, currency, tokenized sales, securities, or commodities.
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Larva Labs, the team behind the outrageously popular NFT project CryptoPunks, has penned a deal with Hollywood agents United Talent Agency (UTA).
According to an Aug. 31 article from the Hollywood Reporter, UTA will represent Larva Labs for intellectual property (IP) deals in TV, film, video games, licensing and publishing. Two other NFT projects from Larva Labs, Meebits and Autoglyphs, will also be represented by UTA.
CryptoPunks was launched back in 2017 and is one of the first NFT projects created on Ethereum. The IP-related deal with UTA marks a significant milestone for Larva Labs, as it is one of the first examples of content created in the blockchain sector that has entered the mainstream entertainment industry.
Lesley Silverman, head of UTA Digital Assets told the Hollywood Reporter:
“I would say that it is one of the first opportunities for an IP that fully originated in the crypto-world to enter a broader entertainment space, and they earned it.”
“They really have hit the zeitgeist in a tremendous way,” he added.
The CryptoPunks project maintained a relatively niche following for most of its short history, before exploding in popularity this year amid a growing wave of interest in the NFT sector which saw $2.5 billion worth of sales in the first six months of this year.
According to data from the CryptoPunks website, the Larva Labs OG NFTs have generated a whopping $1.18 billion worth of total sales since 2017, with $304.8 million worth of sales in the past seven days alone. The cheapest CryptoPunk on sale is currently priced at 115 Ethereum (ETH) worth around $391,000 at the time of publication.
Related: CryptoPunks clone PolygonPunks booted from OpenSea marketplace
Public figures such as rapper Jay Z, electronic dance musician Steve Aoki and entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk all reportedly own CryptoPunks. Cointelegraph reported on Aug. 23 that payments tech giant Visa purchased CryptoPunk 7610 — a female figure with a mohawk, clown green eyes and lipstick — for 49.50 ETH worth $150,000 at the time of purchase.
The Cryptopunks have done ~$140M worth of transactions in the past 24 hours, and have now passed $1B in lifetime transaction volume. pic.twitter.com/SCBY6F22Ho
— Larva Labs (@larvalabs) August 28, 2021
There are 10,000 CryptoPunks NFTs in total, all of which were computer-generated from a set of unique features to create the individual pixel art avatars. They were initially claimed for free, with TechCrunch reporting in April this year that a collector who goes by the name “mr703” online snatched 703 Punks at initial launch — keeping hundreds of the NFTs in a collection now worth tens of millions at current prices.
With a Punk now being a VISA mascot we are living through the end of an era: a fringe art experiment is turning into a corporate marketing tool. Happy, as it will propel #cryptopunks valuation through the roof.
— mr703 (@mr703_punks) August 27, 2021
Larva Labs’ other NFT projects also follow the computer-generated route of CryptoPunks. The Meebits NFTs were launched this May, and consist of 20,000 unique 3D voxel characters that are built for use in the Metaverse and NFT gaming.
Autoglyphs launched in 2019 and is a generated art project that is limited to 512 NFTs, where users generate a “Glyph” by donating a creation fee of 0.20 ETH ($687) to the chosen charity of Larva Labs, 350.org — an organization aimed at combating climate change.
Legendary NFT developers Larva Labs were the victims of an exploit this morning, as an attacker found a way to mint a rare NFT worth over $700,000 from the “Meebits” collection.
The attacker, 0xNietzsche, teased the exploit on Twitter this morning, saying he anticipated making “$300,000 per hour” throughout the duration of the attack. He has since deleted the Tweets, saying that they came off as “douchey.”
Definitely sent out some regrettable tweets in the last few hours. After coming down & processing it all they do sound VERY douchey.
— 0xNietzsche (@0xNietzsche) May 8, 2021
His attack essentially centered on “rerolling” his Meebit mints until the contract gave him one he wanted. The Meebits contract includes a zipped Interplanetary File System file, one which reveals the characteristics of each Meebit’s ID. The IDs of the remaining Meebits are public knowledge, but until knowledge of the IPFS leak spread, their characteristics were not. As a result, 0xNietzsche simply needed to make a list of desirable IDs, and design a contract that minted Meebits over and over, but cancelled the transaction if he didn’t get a favorable ID.
An Etherscan address shows 345 total transactions, hundreds of which are failed “rolls” to obtain desirable Meebits. The only successful roll appears to be for Meebit 16647, a “visitor” or alien. 16647 was bought by the collector-whale Pranksy for 200 ETH. Per Opensea, the next lowest-price Visitor Meebit is listed for 300 ETH.
Step 1) Get tagged in @larvalabs @discord.
Step 2) See Visitor #Meebit for 200 ETH ($700K) on @opensea.
Step 3) Buy #Meebit
Step 4) Hear about mint exploit, exploit closed by @larvalabs.
In a pinned post in their Discord, Larva Labs announced that they have since shut down the marketplace.
“We have temporarily paused community minting and trading in the Meebits contract. The contract is safe, all Meebits are safe, and trading is working just fine,” the announcement reads in part.
While the Meebits minting period was scheduled to conclude on Monday, some CryptoPunk and Authglyphs owners (each of whom are entitled to a Meebit on a one-to-one basis) may not have redeemed theirs yet. As a result, the Larva Labs team plans to “provide a form where you can use your wallet to sign a message that proves ownership of your punks/glyphs, and we’ll mint the Meebits for you using the ‘devMint’ function,” allowing users to continue to mint through the weekend while preventing others from utilizing the exploit.
By 0xNietzsche’s own estimations, his exploit could have been far more successful. Per posts in the Discord, given the length of the attack before the market shutdown he felt he “should’ve gotten two meebs in that time.” He also noted that his contract cost “~$20k an hour in gas fees” and that he had to purchase punks with unredeemed Meebits in order for the exploit to work, meaning his total haul was reduced due to associated costs:
In a now-deleted Tweet, he said he raked in “50 ETH and 5 floor punks” from the exploit.
An anonymous source told Cointelegraph that other NFT collectors were aware of the attack vector, but did not choose to exploit it as they felt it would be “unethical.” Tweets from yesterday indicate that others were indeed aware of the IPFS leak and had identified the rarest remaining Meebit, 10761, a “dissected,” which was among 0xNietzsche’s targets.
One more Dissected Meebit is “missing”, out there to be minted still.
The community is currently publicly debating what this will mean for prices across the Meebits and wider Larva Labs space. Many believe that the exploit could, paradoxically, increase floor prices for the projects due to “narrative.”
Historical significance can play a major role in the price of NFTs. Earlier this year, digital archeologists uncovered “Mooncats,” thought by many to be the second-ever NFT project, leading to a temporary buying frenzy. 0xNietzsche himself is a Mooncats enthusiast.
Larva Labs, the creators of the iconic CryptoPunks and Autoglyphs NFT collections, unveiled a new metaverse-focussed series called Meebits yesterday.
Punk and Glyph owners could mint their own Meebits for free, while a public release of 9,000 NFTs sold out within a few hours.
Initially priced at 2.5 ETH, the series has been divisive. Some have since sold for six-figure sums on the secondary market.
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Larva Labs, the creatives behind the beloved CryptoPunks and Autoglyphs NFTs, have launched a new collection. Meebits caused a storm yesterday, but some raised eyebrows at the entry price.
Larva Labs Unveil Meebits
“Meebits” is a series of 20,000 distinctive 3D avatars designed to be used in the metaverse. In a blog piece announcing the collection, Larva Labs wrote that they “hope that the Meebits will be the 3D avatar for virtual worlds, games, and VR.”
In some ways, the collection closely resembles that of CryptoPunks. Each Meebits character comes with different attributes that denote a level of scarcity. Skeletons, visitors, and robots, for example, are much more scarce than humans.
The collection initially went live with a community grant that allowed Punk and Autoglyphs owners to mint their own Meebits for free. One character could be minted per Punk or Glyph, which allowed those with multiple Larva Labs pieces to take a significant supply of the Meebits collection. The community minting period is live for one week.
Shortly after the community grant started, a public sale of 9,000 Meebits went live in a Dutch auction format.
They were initially priced at 2.5 ETH—about $8,400 at today’s prices. The price of the NFTs then fell as time went on, though most of the pieces were quickly snapped up. Within six hours of going live, the public release was sold out. This meant that one Meebit was priced above 2.4 ETH at sellout time.
According todata from Dune Analytics, Larva Labs made a staggering $79,947,566 million from the public sale.
Meebits Sale Proves Divisive
Although the Dutch auction format was used to establish the fair market value of the series, many crypto followers took shots at the initial price tag.
Some pointed to the recent LazyApes sale that went live last week and became the talk of the NFT community over the weekend. They were priced at a much more affordable 0.08 ETH, but the creators don’t have the same prestige that Larva Labs do.
Larvalabs royally fucked up the meebits sale.
20,000 meebits & they want 2.5 eth ($8000) each for the 9000 they’re selling.
Targeting $72M net on the public sale.
High price with no scarcity, no historic value like punks.
Comes off like a straight cash grab. Hard pass from me
— davis 🐺🦊 (@basedkarbon) May 3, 2021
Moreover, by generously rewarding early Larva Labs supporters, the community grant effectively enriched those who have already benefited from Larva Labs (Punks and Glyphs fetch eye-watering sums on the secondary market these days). While such airdrops are often looked on favorably in the NFT and DeFi space, they rarely allow users to hoard multiple pieces in a rare series.
The community minting period runs into next week, which means that some new pieces may start appearing on the secondary market over the next few days. Several of the more common human Meebits are already listed on OpenSea with a floor price below 2.4 ETH.
However, as expected, the rarer characters in the series have quickly commanded high price valuations. Yesterday, a visitor, which loosely resembles the sought-after aliens in the CryptoPunks series,sold for303 ETH.Meanwhile, a robot and skeleton sold for110 ETHand99 ETHrespectively.
A dissected character, thought to be among the most scarce in the collection, has received multiple million-dollar offers. It’scurrently listedfor 2,888 ETH.
Amid the conversation on Crypto Twitter, Larva Labs shared a note expressing their thanks to the community. “What an amazing day, thank you everybody!” they wrote.
😶😶 The Meebits are sold out! 😶😶 The Community Grant will remain open for the rest of the week, so still plenty of time for punk/glyph owners to claim theirs. What an amazing day, thank you everybody! 😶
— Larva Labs (@larvalabs) May 3, 2021
The Meebits launch isn’t the only thing Larva Labs is working on this month: on May 11, nine CryptoPunks will go on sale at Christie’s, the auction house that sold Beeple’s magnum opus NFT for $69.34 million in March. The set is estimated to fetch $7-9 million.
Disclosure: At the time of writing, the author of this feature owned ETH and several other cryptocurrencies.
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