Sotheby’s to Auction Collection of Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs

The venerable British auction house estimates the sale of 101 NFTs will bring in $12 million to $18 million.

AccessTimeIconAug 31, 2021 at 4:04 p.m. UTC
Updated May 11, 2023 at 5:48 p.m. UTC

Sotheby’s is bringing Bored Apes to the world of fine art.

The 277-year-old British auction house will be selling a collection of 101 Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) non-fungible tokens (NFTs) created by Yuga Labs in an auction running from Sept. 2-9. It will also offer a collection of 101 Bored Ape Kennel Club NFTs.

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  • Sotheby’s estimates the BAYC sale will total $12 million to $18 million, while that for the Bored Ape Kennel Club will fetch $1.5 million to $2 million, according to a press release. Sotheby’s will accept ether, bitcoin and USDC as payment options for the auction, which will be facilitated through Coinbase Commerce.

    The Bored Apes Yacht Club is the second-most popular NFT collection by total trade volume (136,107 ETH) behind CryptoPunks, according to rarity.tools. The floor price at the time of writing for the cheapest available Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT on the open market is 48.8 ETH, or $165,578.

    Owners of the high-priced NFT collection include NBA superstar Steph Curry, YouTube creator Logan Paul and musician Jermaine Dupri.

    The winner of the Sotheby’s BAYC auction will also be awarded six “mutant serums,” which allow their owner to generate a new Mutant Ape NFT from one of the existing Bored Apes in the collection.

    UPDATE (August 31, 21:09 UTC): Updated with information about payment options in third paragraph.

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    Eli Tan

    Eli was a news reporter for CoinDesk. He holds ETH, SOL and AVAX.