Biggest NFT News Ever? Bored Ape Yacht Club Parent Yuga Labs Acquires CryptoPunks And Larva Labs Rights

Two of the best known and most valuable non-fungible token collections of all-time are together under the same ownership umbrella through an acquisition announced Friday night.

What Happened: Yuga Labs, owner of the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection and several other NFT series, announced it acquired the intellectual property of CryptoPunks and Meebits.

Yuga Labs acquired the IP from Larva Labs, parent company of the two NFT collections. Yuga Labs also acquired 423 CryptoPunks and 1711 Meebits as part of the deal.

“This means that we now own the brands, copyright in the art and other IP rights for both collections,” Yuga Labs said.

The acquisition has been in the works for some time, with conversations said to have taken place between the Larva Lab founders and Guy Oseary, who signed a representation deal with Yuga Labs.

“Yuga Labs are the innovators of the modern profile picture project, and the best in the world at operating these projects. They are the ideal stewards of the CryptoPunks and Meebits,” Larva Labs co-founders Matt Hall and John Watkinson said. “In their hands, we are confident that they will continue to be vital, thriving projects in the emerging decentralized web.”

Related Link: Bored Ape Yacht Club Parent Yuga Labs Could Be Worth $5B: Report 

Why It’s Important: The acquisition of the commercial rights and a large number of CryptoPunks and Meebits by Yuga Labs could be one of the biggest NFT stories of all-time.

“We’re honored to shepherd the CryptoPunks and Meebits brands into the future as part of the broader ecosystem we’re building,” Yuga Labs said.

Yuga Labs added that it would give full commercial rights to CryptoPunks and Meebits owners as part of the deal.

“By handing over these (commercial) rights, we’re further aligning CryptoPunks and Meebits with the web3 ethos, and we expect a wide-range of third party developers and community creators to incorporate CryptoPunks and Meebits into their web3 projects. We’ll be building the overall brand right alongside them.”

Yuga Labs said it would work to bring additional utility to the CryptoPunks and Meebits collections, but it is not in a rush to do so and will listen to community input.

Prior to the official announcement, rumors had spread that CryptoPunks and Meebits were in talks to be acquired. The rumors led to increased sales volume in both collections.

Over the last 24 hours, Meebits topped the sales volume chart on CryptoSlam with $12.9 million in sales volume, up 1,017% from the previous day.

CryptoPunks ranked second with $9.4 million in sales volume, up 1,245% from the previous day.

Bored Ape Yacht Club ranked fifth over the last 24 hours with a 310% increase in sales volume.

Over the last week, Meebits sales volume is up 1,677% to $17.2 million, ranking third for all NFT collections. CryptoPunks sales volume ranks fourth in the last seven days at $16.2 million.

Launched in 2017, CryptoPunks were one of the first Ethereum ETH/USD NFT collections released and are considered an “OG” in the space. Meebits launched in 2021 as a 20,000 NFT collection, with CryptoPunks holders getting a free Meebit.

Bored Ape Yacht Club minted in April 2021 and has been one of the most popular and valuable collections over the last year as it gained in value and attracted celebrities and investors and provided additional value to holders through free airdrops.

Bored Ape Yacht Club passed CrytoPunks in floor price value in December.

Both Yuga Labs and Larva Labs have signed talent representation deals, with Oseary representing Yuga Labs and UTA representing Larva Labs.

“The agency will work with the collectibles to represent their interests across film and tv, licensing, publishing and video games,” the Larva Labs press release said at the time.

Price Action: At the time of writing, these were the following floor prices:

Bored Ape Yacht Club: 74 ETH

Meebits: 6.9 ETH

CryptoPunks: 76.2 ETH

Photo: Courtesy of Scott Beale on Flickr