What is Yuga Labs?

Yuga Labs is one of the biggest players in the NFT space. It was founded in 2021 in the state of Deleware in the United States. Yuga Labs quickly gained attention and success by creating some of the largest and most profitable NFT projects to date, such as the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), and acquiring others like CryptoPunks. These collections have become worth billions of dollars, and Yuga Labs has established itself as a powerful and influential organization with connections to many of the biggest companies in the crypto and NFT world.

Yuga Labs' initial goal was to build a media empire centred around NFTs, with the BAYC NFTs being the first step towards achieving this. However, their ambitions for the future are even higher, as they plan to dominate the metaverse.

Since its launch, Yuga Labs has created several world-known collections, such as the Bored Ape Kennel Club (BAKC) and Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC), which have also been extremely successful.

As a result of their success, Yuga Labs has come under increased scrutiny, with many wanting to know more about the company itself. Nonetheless, they remain a significant player in the NFT ecosystem, with their sights set on even bigger things.

Who are the Yuga Labs Founders?

Initially, the identities of the founders of the BAYC project were kept anonymous under pseudonyms, as so many crypto projects follow Satoshi's teachings. Yuga Labs was initially founded by two individuals who went by the pseudonyms of Gordon Goner and Gargamel. Later on, they added two software engineers known as Emperor Tomato Ketchup and Sass to their team.

However, their anonymity was revealed when Buzzfeed published an article in February that effectively "doxxed" the founders, revealing them to be Greg Solano and Wylie Aronow, respectively. This caused a heated debate about anonymity in the Web3 world, with Buzzfeed arguing that it increased transparency and accountability, and Yuga Labs' CEO Nicole Muniz arguing that anonymity does not necessarily equate to a lack of accountability.

The NFT community was divided by this famous issue, as Yuga Labs is an officially registered business in Delaware and publicly available records were used to identify the founders. This raises questions about the ethical implications of anonymity in the world of Web3, and the balance between trust in powerful companies and demands information to be easily accessible. The discussion on this issue is ongoing and far from being resolved.

The Yuga Labs collections

Yuga Labs are the creators and owners of several popular NFT collections, including the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), Mutant Apes Yacht Club (MAYC), Meebits, Otherdeed for Otherside, Bored Ape Chemistry Club, Bored Ape Kennel Club, and BAYC Honorary Members.

The Bored Ape Yacht Club is one of the most popular NFT collections in the world. It features a series of unique ape images, each with its own distinct personality and style. The BAYC has become a cultural phenomenon, with many celebrities and influencers buying and displaying their own Yuga Lab Bored Ape.

The Mutant Apes Yacht Club is a spinoff of the Bored Ape Yacht Club. The Mutant Apes are similar in style to the Bored Apes, but they have different physical characteristics, such as extra limbs or unusual colouring. The Bored Ape Chemistry Club is a collection of NFTs that represent different chemical compounds. These NFTs can be used to unlock special features in the Bored Ape Yacht Club community or, in other words, transform an Ape into a Mutant Ape.

Yuga Labs Otherside is an NFT collection that represents virtual plots of land in a metaverse called Otherside, which is being built by Yuga Labs. The virtual land can be used for a variety of purposes, such as building virtual homes or businesses. The Bored Ape Kennel Club is another Bored Ape spinoff that features unique cartoon dogs instead of apes.

Then, exists another collection related to the Bored Apes, called the BAYC Honorary Members collection includes NFTs that represent famous individuals who have been granted honorary membership in the Bored Ape Yacht Club.

Also, Yuga Labs created another NFT collection, which was extremely popular, called the Meebits. These 3D characters are voxel-based and can be used in a virtual reality environment.

In addition to these collections, Yuga Labs has acquired the rights to CryptoPunks, an iconic collection of 10,000 unique pixelated characters created by Larva Labs. The acquisition of CryptoPunks has further cemented Yuga Labs' position as a leading player in the NFT space.

The relation between Yuga Labs and Ethereum

Yuga Labs, like many other creators of non-fungible tokens, has chosen to use the Ethereum blockchain to mint, store, trade, and sell their collections. This blockchain has gained popularity among NFT creators due to its support for smart contracts, a niche in which it was the first blockchain.

On the other hand, Bitcoin's blockchain infrastructure previously lacked the necessary tools to support smart contracts, which made it an unviable option for NFT creators. However, with the recent advancements in blockchain technology, this has changed and Yuga Labs will launch an NFT collection on Bitcoin, thanks to the development of Ordinals.

Yuga Labs projects for the future

Yuga Labs has recently launched a new game that has taken the NFT world by storm. This game has proven to be a huge success, with players having spent over two million dollars on the company's new title, making it one of the most successful game launches in the NFT world to date. This success has the potential to positively impact the NFTs from the Yuga Labs cohort, particularly the Mutant Ape Yacht Club and Bored Ape Yacht Club and the Yuga Labs metaverse.

The launch of the new game has attracted more NFT holders, as it offered free passes for the game's in-built NFTs. This has added more value to these NFTs, making them even more attractive to collectors and gamers. The increasing hype around the game has also impacted NFT collections in multiple ways.

The growing interest in the MAYC and BAYC NFTs has also impacted the state of ApeCoin Yuga Labs holders. The number of APE holders has increased steadily, and whales have shown interest in APE, which could have a positive impact on APE's price.

Additionally, increased funding for grants has the potential to bring more activity to the APE ecosystem, as it will provide more resources for developers to bring their ideas to life. This could bring more interest to APE, potentially leading to an increase in its velocity and overall value. One way this could happen was by generating interest in ApeCoins projects. Notably, ApeCoin governance would fund new projects to improve its ecosystem.

The relevant fact is that, if Yuga Labs continue to launch successful projects, the APE ecosystem will continue to grow and its dream of being the master of the metaverse, will be a reality rather sooner than later.

What is the Yuga Labs Valuation?

In March 2022, the company raised $450 million in the Yuga Labs funding round led by venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz. Other investors in the round included Coinbase, Animoca Brands, Samsung, and Google Ventures.

With this latest funding, Yuga Labs now has a valuation of $5 billion. The company was expected to generate $455 million by the end of 2022 through the Yuga Labs land sale of the Otherside, its metaverse.

Yuga Labs is headed by CEO Nicole Muniz, and its board of directors includes Chris Lyons, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz who joined the board during the March funding round. The company has close ties with ApeCoin DAO, which is legally separate and independent of Yuga Labs.

Despite Yuga Labs' claims of independence from ApeCoin DAO, the company has close business ties with at least one member of ApeCoin DAO's board, Yat Siu, who is also the co-founder and executive chairman of Animoca Brands. Animoca Brands, along with British metaverse tech company Improbable, helped to build Otherside.

When ApeCoin launched, Yuga Labs made it clear that the company would be happy to incorporate the token into the BAYC universe, and even gifted a 1/1 Yuga Labs NFT to the ApeCoin DAO treasury. ApeCoin has become highly valuable, and its distribution was critical, with 62% going to the ApeCoin DAO community, 16% going to Yuga Labs, 14% allocated to "launch contributors," and 8% going directly to the founders of Yuga Labs.

Yuga Labs KYC, is it a thing?

As we stated before, Yuga Labs is a $5 billion enterprise whose founders were revealed by a reporter who found their names in public documents. The revelation sparked controversy, with crypto enthusiasts and privacy advocates viewing it as a breach of anonymity, while traditional media outlets saw it as standard business journalism.

Despite the backlash, Yuga Labs may have no choice but to require KYC, know your customer, information and a headshot from their customers, as financial regulations often mandate companies to collect this information. While the culture of crypto typically values anonymity, Yuga Labs believes that the desire to get in early on their offerings will outweigh the inconvenience of KYC requirements.

The firm has acknowledged that they don't like KYCs either, but they believe that its customers will want to be a part of what they have to offer.