Two NFT Copycats Are Fighting Over Which is the Real Fake Bored Ape Yacht Club

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The not-the-onion dept posted this on Thursday December 30, 2021.

The boundary between plagiarism and parody is being tested by a pair of non-fungible token projects. The PHAYC and Phunky Ape Yacht Club collections have been banned by Open Sea because they are based on the same idea: selling NFTs with mirrored but otherwise identical versions of high-priced Bored Ape Yacht Club. The dueling projects are selling their apes while avoiding bans from other marketplaces, which is an example of how the NFT world handles copied art. The most expensive NFT is the one from Bored Ape Yacht Club, with the cheapest one selling for $217,000. The associated ape picture can be copied or modified by anyone. PayC and PHAYC can associate their BAYC avatars with cryptocurrencies and resell them.

The mission statement for PAYC was vague and denigrating, and it was announced in December. Earlier this year, it called back to a project called CryptoPhunks, which flipped and resold expensive images. Early arrivals could get left-facing apes for free starting December 28th, while others paid a fee. The project was described on the website as a limited NFT collection where the token itself offers no membership and no allegiance. One PHAYC community member said that the project was a satire on the current state of NFTs and members of the NFT community who might be taking the NFT market a little too seriously.