Bored Ape Artist's NFT Mint Sells Out So Fast, Many Fans Left Mad, Empty-Handed

Shilly, the Bored Ape Yacht Club recording artist’s non-fungible token (NFT) collection Shilly: The Access Passes sold out on marketplace OpenSea in minutes Friday morning.

However, it wasn’t supposed to go that way, leaving many fans empty-handed and angry at the collection and marketplace for its failure to smoothly execute the mint.

According to drop details from OpenSea, the collection of “general admission” and “backstage” access passes to co-create music with the artist was set to open its allowlist at 11 a.m. ET. In minutes it sold out, making its public mint at 12 p.m. ET unavailable.

“We’re over-allocated so be there early,” said Schwaz, Shilly’s “manager,” on Twitter early Friday morning.

The 3,500-unit collection’s mint price opened at 0.05 ETH, or $80. At time of writing, the collection’s floor price has doubled to 0.1 ETH, or about $160.

Discord and Twitter users shared their experiences of being unable to successfully mint, claiming it was too “over-allocated” for users to be whitelisted to participate. Others complained of glitches and high gas fees preventing them from successfully minting.

The mint was executed as a primary drop on OpenSea, a feature the marketplace rolled out in September.

At 1 p.m. ET, the “band pass” opened its allowlist at a mint price of 0.25 ETH, which is the next tier of access for fans looking to feature on tracks and collaborate with the virtual recording artist. The "band pass" mint did not seem to suffer any issues, and did not sell out until 2 p.m. ET when the Phase 2 allowlist opened.

OpenSea did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.