- Post agreement, CryptoPunks and Meebit owners can use their art for additional profits.
- CryptoPunks’ floor price rose by 14%, Meebits rose by 65% shortly after the acquisition.
Rarely do the market leaders of a certain product shake hands. Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and CryptoPunks are inarguably the top two most popular NFT collections in the market. On March 11, BAYC’s maker Yuga Labs acquired the intellectual property rights of CryptoPunks. In addition to this, Yuga Labs also acquired Meebits’ IP rights.
According to all-time NFT sales data from CryptoSlam, CryptoPunks has the largest sales volume at $2.1 billion, followed by BAYC with the second-largest sales at $1.4 billion. The acquisition deal means that Yuga Labs is the biggest NFT maker in the market with IP rights of around $4 billion worth of NFTs, at the current market prices.
What Does It Mean For NFT Owners
Prior to the agreement, Larva Labs held full commercial rights to the CryptoPunks and Meebits NFTs. This meant that the NFT owners did not have the right to make derivatives of the art. This was a topic of controversy for a long time for CryptoPunk owners who were not able to monetize their assets. On the other hand, BAYC owners hold unlimited, worldwide licenses to use, copy, and display the purchased art. For instance, they can print their NFTs on t-shirts and resell them for profits. Holders of CryptoPunks and Meebits will now have the same IP rights as BAYC holders, thanks to the agreement.
As the constrictive IP rights were a major reason for not buying CryptoPunks or Meebits, one would expect their asset prices to rise after the agreement. Shortly after the agreement, the floor prices for CryptoPunk increased to 75.99 ETH on March 12 from 66.5 ETH on March 11, a rise of 14%. What is worth noting is the heavy sales volumes after the news. Post-acquisition, the number of sales increased to 85 on March 12 from only eight on March 11. However, the uptick in floor prices was short-lived but it’s still more than the floor prior to the agreement.
Similarly, floor prices of Meebits increased to 6.13 ETH on March 12 from 3.71 ETH on March 11, an increase of 65%. The number of sales increased to 1026 sales on March 12 from 415 sales on the day before.
Data from CoinGecko showed that the acquisition had a positive impact on BAYC’s sales as well. At the time of writing, the floor price was 92.49 ETH, up by nearly 26% from 74 ETH on March 9, 2022.
The acquisition agreement is a testament to the fact that the NFT universe is moving towards full decentralization. The owners don’t just want to own the NFTs but also use the NFT for additional opportunities. This is a positive sign for the NFT market as it is moving towards being transparent and regulated.
