On Friday, Yuga Labs, the firm behind the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) non-fungible token (NFT) collection, announced the company acquired the intellectual property behind the Cryptopunks and Meebits brands. Furthermore, after obtaining the IP from Larva Labs, Yuga has decided to give “full commercial rights to the NFT holders.”
Bored Ape Creators Yuga Labs Acquires Cryptopunks and Meebits Collections From Larva Labs
Last year and during the course of 2022, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have seemingly become a mainstay within the crypto industry. One of the teams behind the fifth-largest NFT collection, in terms of all-time sales volume, Bored Ape Yacht Club, announced the acquisition of the IP tied to two other popular NFT collections. The two collections happen to be the Larva Labs’ issued Cryptopunks and Meebits collections.
From the official Yuga Labs Twitter account the team tweeted:
Some big news to share today: Yuga has acquired the CryptoPunks and Meebits collections from Larva Labs, and the first thing we’re doing is giving full commercial rights to the NFT holders. Just like we did for BAYC and MAYC owners.
‘What’s Good for Punks Is Good for Apes’
While BAYC is the fifth-largest NFT project by all-time sales volume (ATSV), dappradar.com NFT collection stats indicate Meebits holds the top ATSV record today with $7.54 billion in ATSV. Meebits’ sister project Cryptopunks is below the collection with $2.65 billion in ATSV, in comparison to BAYC’s ATSV which is $1.41 billion. Yuga’s Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) is the ninth-largest in terms of ATSV with $895.53 million at the time of writing.
There are 10,000 different Cryptopunk non-fungible tokens issued on the Ethereum blockchain. The collection was launched in June 2017 by Larva Labs, the NFT studio crafted by the Meebits and Cryptopunks co-creators John Watkinson and Matt Hall.
Yuga’s Twitter thread on Friday notes that the team has “always admired” Cryptopunks and the Larva Labs founders. “They’ve pushed NFTs and the broader crypto world forward, and we’re honored to carry the brands they’ve built into the future we’re building at Yuga,” the team added. Yuga’s tweetstorm further insists that the BAYC ecosystem “will remain the center” of the firm’s universe.
“We believe that what’s good for Punks is good for Apes and the rest of the space. Likewise, what’s good for Apes is good for Punks. We want to grow the pie, not fight over slices,” Yuga’s announcement concludes.
