Bored Ape Yacht Club Volume Plunges As SEC Launches Probe into Yuga Labs
Blue-chip non-fungible token (NFT) collection Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) has seen its sales volume drop by around 25% over the past day as the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has launched a probe into Yuga Labs, the creators of the project.
According to data by CryptoSlam, BAYC’s trading volume has plunged to around $920,000, down by 23.8% compared to the earlier day. The number of buyers and sellers of the collection has also seen a major drop, falling 33% and 43%, respectively.
Meanwhile, BAYC’s floor price has not seen a significant drop. The collection’s floor price currently stands at 75 ETH, largely flat over the past 24 hours.
Created by Yuga Labs, BAYC is an Ethereum-based NFT collection of 10,000 unique Bored Apes. Each Bored Ape has a basket of programmatically generated traits from over 170 traits, including expression, clothing, headgear, and more.
SEC Launches Probe into Yuga Labs
Reports started surfacing yesterday that the SEC is investigating Yuga Labs, the creator of the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection, on whether sales of its digital assets violate federal law.
The issue is reportedly whether some of Yuga’s non-fungible tokens are closer to stock and therefore should follow the same disclosure rules. The key legal question at the center of the investigation is whether NFTs are securities, a question the SEC has reportedly been investigating since March.
The SEC is also reportedly investigating how ApeCoins, the Ethereum-based government and utility tokens used within the APE ecosystem, were distributed to holders of members of the Bored Ape Yacht Club, Mutant Ape Yacht Club, and Bored Ape Kennel Club.
The tokens were first announced in March with the establishment of the community-driven ApeCoin DAO and the Ape Foundation. Sixty-two percent of the fixed supply of 1 billion apeCoins was allocated to the ApeCoin community, including 15% airdropped to existing NFT holders.
Additional token percentages were allocated to Yuga Labs and the Jane Goodall Legacy Foundation, along with launch contributors and the four founders of the Bored Ape Yacht Club.
BAYC is one of the most popular NFT collections ever. As reported, the collection has surpassed $2.4 billion in sales since its launch in April 2021.
Moreover, BAYC amassed around $300 million in trading volume in August 2021, just four months after its launch.
January 2022 marks the best month ever for BAYC. During this month, the NFT collection had a trading volume of more than $346 million.
However, along with the broader crypto market downturn, BAYC’s trading volume has also taken a hit. The collection recorded less than $10 million in trading volume in August, its worst month ever.
