Why is Yuga Labs worth $4 billion?
Author: Mandy
Produced by | Odaily Planet Daily (ID:o-daily)
I am a player who knows a little about the fur of NFTs, and the NFT with the name has participated in most of them, and still holds bayc, Azuki, Doodles, CoolCats, Mfers and other series; I was once an author in the field of entertainment, interviewed many IP incubation and operation-related companies; I am also a person who likes to collect a little modern art and fashion play.
When the NFT appeared, I was quickly fascinated by it, addicted to its rich and extensive consumption attributes, investment attributes, collection attributes, trend attributes, about what NFT is, why it has become a trend, why it must be paid attention to, from the identity of a player, I have some of my own views, I believe it will be somewhat different from the existing interpretation in the market.
Talk about NFTs from an IP perspective
The focus of recent industry traffic has been BAYC and its parent company Yuga Labs, on March 12, when seeing Yuga Labs acquire Crypto Punks and Meebits series from Larva Labs, I lamented the pattern of Yuga Labs on Twitter, in this acquisition story, Larva Labs is more like a top IP incubator, but Yuga Labs is not only its own but also the acquisition of empowered IP operating platform The former is like Pixar, the latter is Disney.
Subsequent Yuga Labs also further demonstrated its vision as the first IP platform for NFTs, including describing its vision as "bridging the gap between culture and web3" in the new deck, and describing its plans to break the boundaries of the "metacosm", further build new IP, acquire old IP, and even release a video clip of their NFT family metaverse "the Otherside".
There are also other media outlets that use the positioning of "Disney in the web3 era" to describe Yuga Labs, so is it too exaggerated to use a company that sells small pictures to benchmark the century-old entertainment giant Disney? I don't think so at all.
My starting point is not the full release market capitalization of APE tokens of more than 10 billion US dollars, nor the 4 billion US dollar valuation it has just completed, a16z led by A16z, and the 450 million US dollar financing involving Adidas Ventures, Animoca Brands, Samsung, Google Ventures, etc., but the changes and laws of IP incubation operations and copyright commercialization over the past century.
A few years ago, the founder of an IP company said something to me that I took for granted. The core problem that IP companies are always thinking about is "low cost, high traffic", how to obtain higher traffic at a lower cost, and the content, channels, and marketing means are all based on this core formulation and change.
A hundred years ago, widescreen sound movies were new media, in 1928, Disney launched the first sound animation in history, "Steamboat Willie", film and television was a new content carrier of that era, and the Mickey family was the first IP that rose in this channel, and also became the originator IP in the hearts of global moviegoers.
In the past hundred years, Disney has also encountered many growth bottlenecks, and has always continued to innovate its IP and expand new distribution channels to maintain its leading position, including the development of entertainment program production, theme parks, toys, books, games, media networks and other businesses, the acquisition of Pixar, Marvel, 21st Century Fox, and vigorously develop the streaming media business Disney+ during the epidemic, and even recently announced that it will enter the meta-universe.
But I'd rather talk about Sanrio, which was founded in 1974, and this is the favorite example of all IP people. No one knows its most well-known IP HelloKitty, the amazing thing is that HelloKitty does not have any film and television works, or even any advertising, but Sanrio established the earliest full set of IP licensing and management chains. In addition to the special category of tobacco and alcohol, Sanrio has jointly licensed copyrights to almost all fields, including clothing, accessories, daily necessities, automobiles, offline shops and so on.
Against the backdrop of the rapid development of commodity markets and international trade in the second half of the 20th century, I believe you'll hardly escape buying one or two things with the HelloKitty family printed on it. When you drink water with the HelloKitty kettle and write with the HelloKitty pencil, you become the propagation node of this IP while consuming.
Another interesting example is Line Friends, LINE is a social application developed by NHN Japan, a Japanese subsidiary of the Korean Internet group NHN, as a line comes with emojis, brown bear, Kennie Rabbit, Sally's popularity with the popularity of this instant messaging software, LINE FRIENDS has also become an independent brand, operating role IP, business including games, animation, theme parks, coffee shops, etc., in 2019 revenue exceeded 1.2 billion yuan.
What I want to say is that from the three examples of film and television works, daily necessities, and memes, we can see that with the change of communication media, the cycle of cultivating IP is shortened, the chain of commercialization is also shortening, the communication mode is lighter, and the reach efficiency is growing geometrically. At the same time, the design style and presentation of IP are also constantly iterating.
This is like the evolutionary process of print media, Internet media, social media, the way and medium of obtaining information and attention are changing, and what people and things in each era are accidental and irreproducible, but they are indeed the only choice of the times.
The limitless potential of BAYC and Yuga Labs
So when I look at NFTs, I know it's going to be a real, completely new change.
As an IP, NFT's communication cognitive speed is the real "sitting on the rocket", in August 2021, NBA superstar Curry purchased a BAYC and replaced it with a Twitter avatar, which is not only the headline news of the Crypto industry, but also the first hot search on Twitter and the first hot search on Douyin on the same day. Recently I went back to my hometown, a relative (an ordinary person in an eighth-tier city, completely unaware of what blockchain is) looked at my WeChat avatar and said, Are you a monkey with the same style as Curry?
Since then, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, TOP 100 DJ Steve Aoki, The Chainsmokers, Marshmello, Mike Shinoda of Lincoln Park, singer Post Malone, rap superstar Snoop Dogg, football star Neymar, celebrity Paris Hilton, as well as Justin Bieber and Eminem And other superstars (probably only one-tenth of the current star holders) have bought the BAYC series and replaced their avatars.
Some people will argue that these influences cannot be monetized through licensing to bayc creator Yuga Labs, or that there are hidden dangers in the decentralized open copyright of NFTs, and I can only say: Friends, you are too small, you know nothing about the world of Web 3.0.
As of January 2021, Hello Kitty has generated $84.5 billion in revenue in its 47 years of existence, and it is the second-highest-grossing IP in global history (the number one is pokémon born in 1996, generating $100 billion in revenue).
Less than a year after bayc was born, the total turnover has exceeded $1.5 billion, MAYC's seven-month turnover has exceeded $1 billion, the crypto Punk series has a total turnover of $2.7 billion, ape coin is currently trading around $12, and the token market value is $12 billion. And these figures are far from covering their business value.
What's more important, though, is not the numbers, but what BAYC brings to the holders.
Copyright system in the web3 era
Curry bought a BAYC for 55 ETH in August 2021 and a BAKC at 5.7 ETH, which translates to about $198,000 at the then-ETH price.
Curry has since been featured on the global social media hot search list and hailed as a leader in the Web3 world, becoming a global ambassador and shareholder of ftx, a major crypto trading platform, on September 8, and on December 22, he partnered with FTX. US released Stephen Curry's "2974" series of NFTs with $1.46 million in sales, all for philanthropy, and on December 24, he released five "Genesis Curry Flow" sneaker series NFTs on the Polygon network, with total sales of more than $3 million on the same day.
Last week, ApeCoin (APE), a token associated with the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BYAC) NFT ecosystem, was officially launched. Holding both Bored Ape and Kennel Club will pick up 10,950 pieces, and Curry's airdrops will be worth $130,000 if sold today. Today, the floor price of the BAYC series is 101 ETH, and the floor price of BAKC is 8 ETH, which is already 2 times the buy price of Curry.
That is to say, Curry has not only obtained nearly 3 times the return on investment in the six months that Curry has held monkeys, but also jumped from a sports star to a NEW FIELD OF KOLs. The era of the metaverse is far from coming, but we have already felt, how to achieve fame and fortune in the real world through virtual digital IP, is there anything more "future" than this?
Even more remarkable is the "decentralized copyright" that subverts the traditional licensing model, let's see what the decentralization of copyright will bring.
This is also one of the most hotly discussed points of discussion after Yuga Labs Crypto's acquisition of Punks and Meebits, because they plan to grant all the commercial rights to the CryptoPunks and Meebits series to their respective owners, bearing in mind that Larva Labs has been criticized for not having enough Web3 and not opening up copyrights.
So what are the consequences of allowing NFT owners to commercialize such a powerful IP? Let me give you a few random examples:
1. In December last year, Adidas co-branded Bored Ape Yacht Club released adidas Originals Into The Metaverse NFT, with sales of 5924 ETH (about $23 million) and nearly $100 million so far.
2) Universal Music Group purchased Bored Ape Yacht Club #5537 this month to form Kingship's virtual band group, with three members from the Bored Ape Yacht Club and another from the Mutant Ape Yacht Club.
3. Tomorrowland, the world's top electronic syllable festival, announces that NFT artist Ape Rave Club will premiere on the main stage on July 24, becoming the protagonist of this year's festival. Ape Rave Club is a digital artist from the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT series that plans to release original, encrypted native music through the NFT platform.
When I interviewed the popmart founding team a few years ago, I asked them if they would do content based on Molly, and they immediately replied no, and told me that Molly could be anyone, any profession, any personality, they would not do thankless content, limiting her as a platform IP. As time went on, I immediately felt very reasonable.
In the NFT universe, I see a new ceiling, the world's top clothing brands, entertainment giants, big stars are sparing no effort to use their decades of accumulated resources for BAYC to do communication, from their own point of view to give it top content, match the best channels.
This is the power of openness, the copyright system in my eyes in the Web3 world — the holding community determines the height of ip, and the community here can be people, enterprises, or Dao organizations.
Consumer goods, art, luxury goods
Finally, I would like to talk about some subjective experiences.
The NFT was born in a very interesting era, in addition to subverting the grand narrative of the business world of IP and copyright, when someone asks me what it is, I will say: it is a work of art and not only a work of art, it is a consumer product and not only a consumer goods, it is a luxury and not only a luxury (here I mean the narrow Avatar class of NFTs).
In fact, the concept of the definition of the above concepts is itself blurring the boundaries.
Many practitioners explain to "newcomers outside the circle" why a rough little picture that does not seem to have much artistic technique when NFT is worth a lot, and it is indeed appropriate to use Andy Worhal and Pop Art as a metaphor.
Pop Art is an art that draws style and themes from popular culture: television, Coca-Cola, comics, cans, dollars, printed wallpaper, and at first, many traditional bigwigs were uneasy about such art because they rejected commercial culture, rejected the commercialization of art, and thought it would threaten the survival of modernism and "high culture". The trend of rebellion, the dissolution of authority, and the face of commercial society is irreversible and real.
NFT is the more extreme extensiveization, marketization, and commercialization of modern art, and you can dislike it and look down on it, but you can't stop it from happening.
A more interesting example is the trend of luxury goods going street and trending for several years. Luxury designs have come down the altar, slogans have been printed on clothes, illogical oversize, subcultures that have lost their sources, co-branding with street brands, the use of social media influencers as brand ambassadors...
Behind this phenomenon is the increase in the number of the global middle class – luxury goods are no longer a symbol of the so-called wealth and blue-blood status, but more of a lifestyle and a choice to highlight personality, and more and more people have enough purchasing power. If luxury goods want to continue to occupy a leading position in the fashion market, they must adapt to the development and change of the times and open up a more popular and young market.
When some "new rich guy" asks me why I bought an NFT, I say it's Richard Mille of Web3 more often than I would say it's Richard Mille of Web3 than I would say that BAYC is Web3.
When some people say that luxury goods must be a timeless century-old classic brand, RICHARD MILLE is the best example of face-punching, it can be called the super wave of the rise of the modern watch world, only launched the first work in 2001, like to challenge the application of new technologies and materials on watches, and RICHARD MILLE was first known by the elite in various fields (especially in the sports world, including Federer, etc.) brand friends wear their styles. At present, the price of the basic model is more than one million yuan or even millions of yuan, but it still makes the rich flock to it, especially the celebrity and Internet celebrity groups.
Is this example highly similar to BAYC? It can be said that today's luxury goods, "community attributes" (who is carrying goods) have gradually replaced the "pedigree attributes", and when you wear Richard Miller, you have to "inadvertently" roll up your sleeves to show people, we are not like Federer can always wave their arms in the spotlight of the stadium, changing a BAYC avatar is obvious and much easier, and the mobility is better.
So, let's talk about why brands are sending NFTs and everyone is buying NFTs: giants are afraid of being left behind, afraid of being defeated by new things; new rich people who profit from Web3 need to show their social identity; Web1 and Web2 Old rich people need a new generation of dialogue.
Two days ago, when a Web3 investor talked to me about a Crypto-related project that the Web2 team was doing again, he saw that their deck team introduced monkeys and said:
I can't help but exclaim that this is the legendary Web3 identity.
Some media have released NFT is the young people's "gambling stone" such a title to attract attention to the content, it is true, we are always using old references to compare the new world, but the development of the Internet and the business world is the most can not "carve the boat for the sword", you want to understand it, then you should first understand it.
Of course, the floor price of more than 100 ETH in BAYC today is unattainable for most people, and BAYC only has 10,000 after all. But there are still more new and interesting series that are constantly being produced, and the holders themselves have determined the ceiling of this IP, and the new story has just begun, requiring more narrators to participate in it. After participating, you will have unexpected gains.