Yuga labs, the company that now owns the three biggest NFT collections – The Bored Ape Yacht Club, CryptoPunks, and Meebits, has raised $450 million as part of their campaign to create an NFT metaverse.
The announcement about their impressive funding efforts was given today by Yuga labs themselves, while other crypto experts report that the company now has a $4 billion valuation.
The company has focused on consolidating the biggest NFT franchises around the same banner, and the following boost in investor confidence has successfully allowed them to raise funds for their project.
The way Yuga Labs united many mainstream NFT collections also has other perks. They now have the intellectual property rights over those collections, entirely partly or entirely, which means they can be used as part of the universe they are crafting.
Furthermore, by becoming the central company with the highest legitimacy in the NFT world, they made their campaign and ambitious plans appear more legitimate and increased people’s hopes that they will indeed happen.
Otherside – The New NFT Metaverse
According to Wylie Aronow, co-founder of the Bored Ape Yacht Club, the project will involve “an interoperable world” that is gamified and true to the principles of blockchain technology by being completely decentralized.
The project will involve creating a whole NFT metaverse called Otherside which will be in an MMORPG fashion.
“We think the real Ready Player One experience will be player-run,” says Wylie Aronow.
This unique Ready Player One experience that Wylie hints towards is just one of many exciting plans that Yuga Labs has in store. Less than a week ago, the company launched ApeCoin, their independent currency that will govern all transactions happening in the world that Yuga Labs create.
When it comes to the MMORPG that Yuga Labs have in mind, Wylie claims they are “opening the door to effectively a walled garden and saying ‘Everybody’s welcome.”
According to the currently reviewed plans, the metaverse will be accessible to people who are part of the Bored Ape Yacht Club and others who have NFTs approved by Yuga Labs and included in the project.
Excitement is high, but there is also a lot of uncertainty and anxiety around such large-scale projects. Many crypto enthusiasts remember the recent Pixelmon outrage where everybody hyped an upcoming metaverse and game based on non-fungible token technology, the advertisements hinted towards a fantastic product, but in the end, everybody was disappointed.
Many in the NFT community reassure those sceptical by pointing out how Yuga Labs are one of the pioneers when it comes to NFT technologies. They have the expertise and experience, and resources to hire the people necessary to make this project as good as possible.
The CEO of Yuga Labs, Nicole Muniz, has already hinted that they are working with “a few different game studios” to provide
What Sets Yuga Lab’s Project Apart
NFTs are not only the craze that people are talking about right now. The “metaverse,” a world where you can live completely virtually and create a digital replica of the real world, is something that many are talking about.
The beginning was launched by Meta, previously Facebook, when they launched news about their intentions to create a Web3 space for people.
Unfortunately, currently, Meta is not doing well. Investor confidence seems to be lower than ever, even if the company still has around half a trillion market value, that hasn’t stopped some wild fluctuations. Recently, there was an investor pullback where they lost around $300 billion worth of market value.
One has to examine the reason why Meta is failing, according to many, they only care about the money, and the world they are creating feels “artificial” or even outright “dystopian.” When there is such a gap for an upcoming market, companies like Yuga Labs have a lucrative opportunity to fill in the hole.
According to Yuga Labs co-founder Greg Solano, Meta had it wrong because they couldn’t truly understand people’s incentives. Whether in real life or online, people are social creatures, and they thrive in environments where they collaborate and interact with others.
This is why Yuga Labs wants to create a world where people collaborate and explore the world together.
“You only play with people and make friends because you’re getting your ass kicked,” says Solano. “Basically, we don’t think deep social experience comes from essentially a Zoom chat and walking around saying ‘hi.'”
How The Funding Happened
The experienced Andreessen Horowitz company led the funding for Yuga Lab’s massive project. The firm was also the mastermind behind OpenSea, Coinbase, and Dapper Lab’s successful funding campaigns.
The funding also included the game studio Animoca Brands and the mainstream crypto companies MoonPay and Coinbase.
Chris Dixon, the leader of Andreessen’s Horowitz’s crypto department, shares his opinion on the current metaverse projects “To me, Yuga Labs, combined with these other emerging Web3 companies, are an important counterweight to companies like Meta,”
There’s a dystopian future where Meta is this dominant digital experience provider, and all of the money and control goes to that company.”
Chris Dixon shares the opinion of many financial and crypto experts who encourage the creation of multiple metaverse projects, which will increase competition and, in turn, the pressure to provide a quality service to customers.
Dixon comments on Yuga Labs by saying that “They built this very energized community and this cultural phenomenon,”
The Bored Ape Yacht Club has been a massive success, and many NFT enthusiasts are excited to see more than the current NFT collections and limited period game releases that Yuga Labs has offered.
A future where people can conveniently interact online and immerse themselves in a digital world is near. Many have faith that Yuga Labs is one of many companies that will contribute to this vision.
