Otherside Digital Land Sale — $175M In Transaction Fees Wasted

On April 30, 2022, Yuga Labs — creators of the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT project — launched its Otherside digital land sale. Here’s the story of how Yuga Labs “broke” the Ethereum blockchain, and users wasted $175 million in transaction fees in the span of fewer than 24 hours.

Background

BAYC is the most popular NFT project, with celebrities like Madonna, Kevin Hart, Justin Bieber, and others owning NFTs. Some of these NFTs have sold for well over $2 million each.

Yuga Labs followed the success of its NFTs with the launch of ApeCoin ($APE) in March 2022.

The brief trading history of $APE has been insane for lack of a better word. On Day 1 of trading (March 17, 2022), the price ranged anywhere from $1.00 to $39.40 per $APE.

With the anticipation of the April 30th digital land sale, $APE price skyrocketed once again from around $17.00 on April 24th to $27.00 on April 28th. On May 1st, the price plummeted below $17 once again.

A lot of this price action can be attributed to the reality that $APE is a new cryptocurrency in an already volatile market. However, a lot of the blame can be attributed to the failure of Yuga Labs’ newest venture — the Otherside digital land sale.