One of the highest anticipated non-fungible token mints of all-time kicked off Saturday night and ended with a gas war, failed transactions and many upset at Yuga Labs. Here are the details.
What Happened: On Saturday, Yuga Labs launched a public mint for 55,000 Otherdeed NFTs. The NFTs are related to the Otherside, a new metaverse of land from Yuga Labs, the company behind Bored Ape Yacht Club and Mutant Ape Yacht Club.
The NFTs were available for 305 ApeCoin APE/USD each, plus a gas fee that was paid in Ethereum ETH/USD. The moment the mint went live, gas quickly shot up and people were paying as much in gas, a minting transaction fee, as they were for the NFT itself.
Many suffered failed transaction fees amounting to thousands of dollars each, with no NFT received as a result.
The NFT mint burned over $150 million in gas throughout the minting process, making it one of the largest NFT mints on record in gas usage.
“The Otherdeed NFT mint is sold out – we are awestruck at the demand shown tonight,” OthersideMeta tweeted.
Yuga Labs shared a Twitter thread on the mint.
“We wanted to say a few words about the mint tonight. We know that the Otherdeed mint was unprecedented in its size as a high-demand NFT collection, and that would bring with it unique challenges,” Yuga Labs tweeted.
Yuga Labs said this was the biggest NFT mint in history, and the gas used during the mint showed demand still exceeded “anyone’s wildest expectations.”
Many in the NFT community, including several prominent Bored Ape NFT holders, criticized the tweet from Yuga Labs for being tone-deaf and lacking a sincere apology.
Later Saturday night, Yuga Labs co-founder Gargamel offered an apology.
“Needless to say tonight didn’t go how anyone wanted it to. I want to say sorry to the apes, and to everyone else who eagerly looked to join into the project,” Gargamel tweeted.
Related Link: ApeCoin Hits New Highs Ahead Of Otherside Land Mint: Here’s The Details And How To Get Bored Ape Land
What’s Next: Owners of Bored Ape Yacht Club and Mutant Ape Yacht Club NFTs can now claim an Otherdeed NFT for the next 21 days.
Yuga Labs said in the Twitter thread it would be refunding gas for anyone who had failed transactions.
The floor price of Otherdeed NFTs is 7.85 ETH at the time of writing. The NFT collection has a volume of 35,095 ETH at the time of writing in less than 24 hours, beating the latest 7-day total of any NFT collection.
Photo: Courtesy of opensea.io