At this point, it becomes pretty obvious that non-fungible tokens are causing a stir. With that, however, there is no shortage of fascinating stories of random people turning a few thousand dollars into millions.
Or, in this case – the story of someone who refused to be turned into an “instant millionaire” by turning down a $1.2 million offer on an NFT that he paid less than $17K for back in May 2021.
The story of the golden monkey #1726
For those of you who haven’t heard of the Bored Ape Yacht Club, we have an in-depth guide with all the details you need to know about it. In summary, though, it’s a collection of 10,000 non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that represent bored monkeys.
Each one carries different traits, and each trait is limited in its essence. So, for instance, some apes have hats, others have sunglasses, and so forth.
The rarity of each NFT is represented by the rarity of each trait – so the rarer a trait, the rarer the monkey. Between the golden boy – Ape #1726.
On February 2nd, 2022, the user going by the Twitter handle @ElectionDayMad1 revealed that he turned down a 420 ETH offer for the above ape. At the time of this writing, that’s worth a whopping $1.2 million. More impressively, the user only paid 4 ETH for it back on May 1st – the first full day after the collection was sold out. Back then, the 4 ETH cost him roughly around $12K.
So we at CryptoPotato decided to contact him and ask him… well, why?
Here’s Why
As we mentioned above, Bored Apes are composed of various traits, and each one of them is provably rare. It turns out that Bored Ape #1726 is quite rare. Speaking on the matter, he said:
i rejected it [read: the offer] because golden fur monkeys are BAYC’s rarest fur. Also, it’s my personal brand, and I think with this brand, and owning the monkey, I can continue to earn residual income.
There is only 1 out of 46 gold fur apes listed for sale below 1000 ETH and I would like to still be a part of that group.
Indeed, at the time of this writing, the only golden furry monkey listed for sale below 1K ETH is monkey #1837.
The user supposedly has another 36 apes in his collection, so it seems more understandable why he can be picky. And yet $1.2 million is a lot of money.
Moreover, the above also perfectly shows why BAYC NFTs have increased so much in value – exclusivity. Monkey owners are part of this digital club where entry would cost you just under 100 ETH at the time of this writing, or nearly $300,000. Plus, the team behind BAYC is doing everything they can to expand the growing list of benefits that come with club membership.
