A Deep Dive into BAYC's Path to Success
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A Deep Dive into BAYC's Path to Success
How did APE get its start?
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsPreface
The surge in popularity of $APE has driven me to deeply understand how this project succeeded. I hope that by exploring its journey, I can gain insights applicable to my own projects—and share these findings with all of you. To understand APE, we must first examine BoredApeYC; and to understand BoredApeYC, we need to trace back to its parent company. By digging deep, we uncover the truth hidden beneath layers of information.
How was the most prominent project in the NFT market born? In fact, the founding team themselves have already answered this question—and the answer lies right on their official homepage. Yes, you read that correctly. Visit https://www.yugalabs.io and you'll find a potential clue. Click the red area to access the founder’s memoir, “Let's make an NFT.”
Why #BAYC Succeeded Early On
1. Founding Team
2. Story Background
3. Website Operations
4. Pricing Strategy
5. User-Driven Promotion
6. Community Creativity
Founding Team
For any successful blockchain project, the DNA of the founding team is crucial. Teams without blockchain experience who enter the space relying solely on internet-era knowledge often fail at inception. Gargamel and Gordon from the BAYC team entered the crypto market in 2017—by 2021, they had already accumulated four years of experience.
Four years in blockchain sets a baseline for success, but we also need to consider the timing of the project launch. The idea for BAYC first emerged within the team on February 1, 2021.
At that time, apart from Cryptopunks and CryptoKitties, there were few standout NFT projects—the entire NFT market was still in its early stages. Launching development and conceptualization at this moment allowed the project to ride the rising tide of overall market growth and benefit from favorable momentum.
Beyond core team members and entry timing, truly groundbreaking projects always possess additional unique strengths worth uncovering. From the article on the official website, I identified one key factor: execution speed. Just days after the initial idea on February 1, 2021, the team noticed the uniqueness of Hashmasks and reached out to two other early developers—within less than a week.
Besides founders and developers, creating visual assets is central to any NFT project. Let’s take a look at who exactly this early team enlisted to create the artwork.
@Allseeingseneca created the base characters in just four days after understanding the vision
@_migwashere, @thomasdagley, plus two anonymous artists, spent a month designing expressions, clothing, accessories, and the club itself
@thomasdagley and @lovans illustrated the Mutant Apes
@1800seandotcom created the Serum artwork
Perhaps the greatest achievement of these artists so far is their involvement in BAYC—but we must not overlook that they are themselves active participants in the blockchain ecosystem. Being part of the crypto community means they understand what kind of products the market demands and can communicate effectively with the project founders.
Story Background
Often, our focus centers on making money—on integrating economic models more tightly with NFTs—while overlooking the importance of imagination and narrative for a forward-looking project.
Take Web2-era products as examples. Any globally popular game has a strong underlying story framework—Overwatch, Warcraft, League of Legends.
Now let’s revisit BAYC’s backstory. It compares traders in the crypto world to "apes," borrowing from the famous APEs in Cryptopunks. When cryptocurrency reshapes the future, those involved will eventually become wealthy. After achieving financial freedom, a group of similarly affluent individuals gather together, drawing graffiti on bathroom walls. Here’s the key point: it’s a gathering of BAYC holders creating graffiti—together.
Let me explain why this concept is brilliant:
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It affirms that cryptocurrency has a bright future
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There will always be people who become rich through crypto
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The wealthiest individuals hold BAYC
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BAYC holders come together to do something meaningful
The first two points are certain to exist; the latter two are aspirational yet plausible—a perfect blend of reality and imagination. What kind of NFT brings the richest people together to collaborate? This isn’t just digital art—it’s a ticket to financial freedom, priced initially at only 0.08 ETH. Such a compelling narrative, grounded in both present reality and future possibility, makes its commercial success easy to understand. Understand this: it wasn't because KOLs discovered the project that it became popular. Influencers merely accelerated adoption—they didn’t determine the project’s ultimate fate.
Website Operations
Below is the development update timeline for https://boredapeyachtclub.com.
Remember when I mentioned earlier that the BAYC artists took over a month to draw the base characters, expressions, clothing, accessories, and the club?
From the initial idea in early February 2021, to completing all illustrations, then developing and launching the website—the entire process ran exceptionally smoothly, demonstrating extraordinary team execution.
Just one week passed between site launch and presale, followed by another week until the official sale. On launch day, the smart contract immediately ranked first on Ethereum. Their official Discord server transformed overnight from empty to overflowing with activity.
Looking at the evolution of the official website, major updates were released almost every month. Developers continuously iterated new features. Tell me—how many of today’s top 99.9% of projects can match BAYC’s pace of functional iteration?
Pricing Strategy
Each NFT was priced at 0.08 ETH, with a bold statement displayed directly on the sales page: (BONDING CURVES ARE A PONZI).
Many projects adopt bonding curves since they help early investors spread the word faster.
However, this also accelerates profit-taking by early buyers and creates unfairness for later participants.
Fairness, fairness, and goddamn fairness—that’s what matters.
This approach fosters a completely different sense of community belonging. No privileged pricing tiers—everyone pays the same price.
This is what a real Web3 project looks like—one where every blockchain participant can buy in affordably.
User-Driven Promotion
Using Twitter’s advanced search function, let’s set the timeframe from April 22, 2021 to May 2, 2021—covering the period from public presale to official launch. What actions did the official Twitter account take during this phase?
Presales began on April 26, 2021. Judging from comments and engagement, the project seemed unremarkable at first glance.
So how did the team break through the noise? With the tweet shown below. At first glance, the tactic seems simple:
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Retweet
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Like
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Tag someone
But the real magic lies in how this basic mechanic was leveraged for viral growth.
From the content of official tweets, it's clear the team actively engaged high-quality Twitter users—including KOLs, institutional leaders, research analysts, early Bitcoin adopters, and seasoned NFT enthusiasts. Through targeted interactions, they rapidly expanded visibility across the broader blockchain community.
Early list of interacted Twitter accounts:
@screentimes , @0xtuba, @hasufl, @cyrptonaut, @girldadNFT, @CL207, @AnonymouslyObv3, @ABigThingBadly, @dis0ri3nted, @marenaltman, @waifusion, @CryptoPapi10, @steven_schill, @loomdart, @youngalgy, @evankeast, @gmoneyNFT,
@shroom_daddy, @DeezeFi, @HsakaTrades, @beaniemaxi, @evantan, @c0inalchemist, @0xMaki, @ledgerstatus, @ratwell0x, @inversebrah
Within this group, if your influence is significant enough, BoredApeYC might design a custom skin for you. During presale, if you wanted a personalized ape reflecting your original avatar, BoredApeYC was happy to draw one. This gave buyers strong motivation to switch their profile pictures.
Among the interacting Twitter users, I noticed a special ID: @evantan
Not only was he the final presale participant, but he also triggered massive NFT purchase signals during the official sale.
@j1mmy.eth , @pranksy also made large purchases.
It was precisely these top-tier NFT collectors buying in bulk that accelerated BoredApeYC’s sales—pushing its contract to the #1 spot on Ethereum that very day.
Community Creativity
User-generated content (UGC) is a powerful indicator of a project’s热度. This principle has long been validated in traditional media. From the beginning, BoredApeYC transferred full copyright of the artwork to community members—an unprecedented move among successful projects at the time. Being the first to do so was revolutionary; building innovation upon it deserves praise. The problem arises when other teams copy only the surface without grasping the underlying philosophy—that’s one reason clone projects fail in the NFT space.
Once users changed their avatars to Apes, they started from a similar informational baseline. Using these avatars to unite people fosters shared values. Finding potential collaborators or like-minded players becomes remarkably low-cost.
Conclusion
The valuation of BAYC largely reflects the collective influence—both in the real world and in the crypto ecosystem—of those who purchased it.
It also exemplifies how NFTs, using images as carriers, express value in novel ways.
Due to constraints of time and length, this article focuses only on BAYC’s formation and early development. I haven’t interpreted data from later phases or conducted on-chain analysis.
Recently, the Yuga Labs Pitch Deck was released—I haven’t had time to analyze it yet. Feel free to check it out yourself.
If this article receives positive feedback, I’ll follow up with an analysis of BAYC’s mid-stage development and my thoughts on the $APE token.
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