The NFT winner of 2021 is unquestionably the Bored Ape Yacht Club. BAYC is the gold standard in NFTs, and it seems everyone has a “how I missed BAYC” story. Naturally I have one of my own. However rather than lament about missing the BAYC mint or not buying an Ape sooner, I’d like to focus on something I did do, which was selling my Bored Ape too early.
Top Shot — the quick boom 📈
Like most people this year, my onramp to NFTs was via NBA Top Shot. I joined Top Shot in late January, was immediately hooked, and quickly developed a solid collection.
In late February, Top Shot caught on with the larger public which led to a large boom. My portfolio skyrocketed!
I was so excited! I had never “made” so much money on an investment. I remember driving with my father and sharing the good news with him. My father recommended I cash out and take some profits, but I declined because up only right?
… and hard crash 📉
Unfortunately, Top Shot crashed almost as quickly as it had risen. Not only did I lose all my gains, but I also found myself significantly in the red.
As my portfolio sunk lower every day I became severely depressed at how much money I lost. Losing such a large amount of money soured me to NFTs and made me more conservative.
Hearing about BAYC for the first time
I first heard about Bored Ape Yacht Club from a (now famous) Pranksy tweet.
While I thought it was interesting, I didn’t really pay much attention to it.
A couple of days later I heard about BAYC again from one of my email groups:
Again, I didn’t give it much thought. Based off my Top Shot losses I didn’t think buying a JPEG for $1k would have been a great idea.
But something unique brewing…
While I did read @topshotfund’s blogpost about BAYC and also increasingly noticed people switching their profile pictures to Apes, having been so significantly burned by Top Shot I was wary of paying $1k for a JPEG.
Fast forward to June 1
When June arrived, I witnessed the “Meebits flippening.” Still, I was nervous to ape in.
I thought this type of momentum was unsustainable. But again, as you can see from the tweet above what was the main thing that was holding me back?
FINALLY(!) deciding to buy an Ape
In July I finally decided to buy an Ape. It was evident that BAYC was a rocketship and I knew that I wouldn’t have many more chances to purchase one before being priced out. As buying an Ape was a major purchase, I headed to the BAYC Discord to get advice.
Picking the Ape
The next step was going to OpenSea and perusing different apes.
After looking through I number of them, I found one that I liked: Ape #5769.
I thought it looked great and decided to purchase it.
“what the heck did I just do”
My first thought after purchasing my Ape was: “what the heck did I just do.” I actually went to a dark room and had to take deep breaths for awhile. This was one of the largest sums I had ever spent on a single purchase.. and it was of a picture of a monkey?
The following week I thought about it constantly and was very nervous. This was a large sum of money and — coupled with what I had lost on Top Shot — I would have felt terrible if I lost it.
Selling it
After a week, I couldn’t take it and decided to sell it. I was relieved and felt validated as the price went down the next week.
The New Yorker article & 🚀🚀🚀
On Friday night July 30th, The New Yorker decided to write an article about BAYC.
After Shabbos, I checked OpenSea and was floored! The price had risen exponentially! I was sad but there was nothing I could do. From there, we all know the story — BAYC exploded and left the stratosphere.
Conclusion
I’m not sure if I’ll ever own a Bored Ape again, but here’s the story of how I owned one for a week and then paperhanded it.
I just laugh about this — I’m not even depressed that it happened. In fact whenever I speak to a new person about NFTs I pull up a picture of Ape #5769 from my phone, tell them how much I bought it for, how much I sold it for, and how much it’s worth today.
While I’d love to own another Ape in the future, I’m not sure if I ever will. How could I shell out between $200–$300k for an NFT, instead of using it to (one day) pay for my children’s Jewish Day School tuition or to buy an apartment in Jerusalem?
My main takeaway
I learn some major lessons which I’ve taken to the rest of my NFT journey. My main takeaway was that my lack of patience is what cost me. I’ve since learned to be more patient and as a result have thankfully done better in NFTs. A few months later I bought an MAYC — thankfully this time I didn’t make the same mistake and held onto it.
