Bored Ape Yacht Club creator’s metaverse mint rocks the Ethereum blockchain

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

A flood of users rushed to purchase virtual plots of land in Yuga Labs' upcoming metaverse project, Otherside, as the company disrupted the entire ethereum block. A total of 55,000 Otherdeeds were sold at a flat price of around $5,800 at the time of purchase, raising $320 million in what was considered the largest NFT mint in history.

There are otherdeeds that require ether for gas fees. A gas fee is a cost associated with a transaction. As the network gets more congested, the fees will increase.

Gas fees went up because of a large volume of transactions during the Otherdeed mint. The price of gas alone was more than the cost of an Otherdeed NFT, as pointed out by a user on the site. The buyers paid a total of $123 million just to execute their transactions on the ethereum block, when the virtual land deeds sold out.

After the mint ended, Yuga Labs apologized on social media. We would like to encourage the decentralized organization to start thinking in this direction. The decisions of the DAO are carried out by the Board of the Ape Foundation.

We're sorry for turning off the lights on Ethereum for a while. It seems abundantly clear that ApeCoin will need to migrate to its own chain in order to properly scale. We'd like to encourage the DAO to start thinking in this direction.

— Yuga Labs (@yugalabs) May 1, 2022

The disruption slowed transactions and caused the transaction tracker to crash. A number of users lost thousands of dollars in failed transactions. Yuga Labs promised to reimburse users for the gas fees associated with failed transactions, but it is not clear what the process will look like. The Verge reached out to Yuga Labs but didn't hear back.

Yuga Lab's original goal was to avoid a gas war or a spike in gas fees due to high demand, as outlined in a post days before the mint. The Dutch style of minting, in which an NFT goes up for sale at a certain ceiling price and is then gradually lowered over time, will not be used. It sold NFTs at a flat price and gradually allowed more mints to occur over time.

Rather than resorting to a faux Dutch Auction, the Otherdeed mint will employ the following mechanic: the sale price will remain flat for the duration, and at the start of the sale, there will be an intentionally low per-wallet limit on the number of NFTs that may be minted (note, this is not “minted at once,” but “minted in total”). Once the initial wave of relatively low-gas transactions have been submitted, and the network starts to calm, the wallet-level minting limit will be increased to allow a second wave of minting - those who are satiated will sit this wave out, while those with more ApeCoin to spend will mint.

Users proposed ways to improve the process after seeing the mess of a mint. Will Papper, co- founder of Syndicate DAO, a platform that lets users create web3 investment clubs, suggested that Yuga Labs adjust its mint mechanism to lower gas fees.

Of course, gas optimizations are only one part of the equation.



You need a better mint mechanism design (allowlist, Dutch auction) + gas optimizations.



Money spent on gas is money that could go to builders. This takes place both via the design of the mint + the smart contract.

— Will Papper ✺ (@WillPapper) May 1, 2022

In March, Yuga Labs raised $450 million to build the Otherside, a metaverse with elements of Gamification. The company has goals to extend support to NFTs from other entities, even though it is supposed to encompass Yuga Lab's NFT brands. A lot is still unknown about the Otherside, but that hasn't stopped its enthusiastic community from investing in the project.