Lightning doesn’t strike twice, but Yuga Labs did.

The release of Mutant Apes in August 2021 helped Yuga Labs capitalize on the initial success of its Ape Yacht Club NFT collection while rewarding Bored Ape NFT holders for their early support.

NFTs are only worth the value they give to their owners. Creators who understand that create massive audiences for their work. And those that don’t could see early success rapidly forgotten in a world where digital tastemakers come and go in a flash.

Yuga Labs, creators of Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), the most popular NFT collection of all time, mastered this strategy in its journey to a $4 billion valuation in 2022. And its Mutant Apes release was a perfect case study of how builders can create extra value for their audiences — with a handsome reward for doing so.

The Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) is a collection of up to 20,000 Mutant Apes released just four months after the massive BAYC launch in April 2021.

The goal was to reward Bored Ape owners for their loyalty, and to give newcomers a chance to join what was quickly becoming the most iconic brand in the digital art world. But how? Simple: Serum.

In August 2021, Yuga Labs airdropped a vial of “mutant serum” into the digital wallets of each of the 10,000 Bored Ape owners. When exposed to an existing Bored Ape NFT, the serum allowed the owners to mint a mutant version of their beloved Apes at no extra cost.

In addition, Yuga Labs also released 10,000 original Mutant Ape NFTs open to the general public. With an initial bid price of 3 ETH — roughly $USD 10,000 at the time — the Mutant Ape creators were able to use the Dutch Auction to raise $96 million in less than an hour.

MAYC was launched by Yuga Labs, but its developers have chosen to stay anonymous, going instead by the pseudonyms "Lootfrogs," "2ManyCats," and "Punk4156.” The team's identities are unknown, a not unusual practice in the world of NFTs, where the desire for privacy is often valued as highly as the desire for creativity and community. However, in 2022 the identities of two of the people behind Yuga Labs were revealed in a Buzzfeed investigation. One of them is Greg Solano (who also goes by “Gargamel”), who's worked as an editor and book critic. He also co-authored a book with one of the designers of World of Warcraft, about the online game.

Another person associated with Yuga Labs is Wylie Aronow — a Miami resident at the time of Buzzfeed's report.

{A snapshot of MAYC on NFT.com in March 2023}

The initial minting of Mutant Ape NFTs, which allowed users to purchase them directly from the Mutant Ape Yacht Club website, ended in 2021. However, Mutant Ape NFTs can still be acquired on NFT.com and other marketplaces.

Buying NFTs can feel a bit overwhelming to newcomers, but once you've snagged a few, it's easy as cake. First, download an NFT-compatible crypto wallet: The ideal wallets can be easily linked with the marketplace you’re using and have a long history without any major hacks compromising user data. Then it's time to set up your account by creating an account on the marketplace. You will need to connect your Ethereum wallet to the marketplace to make purchases. After you've done that, this is where the fun to begins.

Next up is finding a Mutant Ape for sale by searching the term on the marketplace you've chosen. Filters and sorting options are a big help in finding Mutant Apes that fit your criteria. Once you know the one you want, it's time to place a bid or buy outright. The price of Mutant Ape NFTs can vary widely, depending on rarity, desirability, and market conditions. Once you've purchased the Mutant Ape, it's time to confirm that your bid or primary purchase is confirmed, which can be done on your connected Ethereum wallet. Once the transaction is confirmed, the Mutant Ape NFT will be transferred to your wallet.

After receiving one of three serums — M1, M2, or M3 — Bored Ape holders were able to select to “burn” the serum NFT. Doing so applied that vial to their Bored Ape, creating a brand new Mutant Ape NFT.

Once consumed, that Bored Ape can never ingest a vial again, meaning each Bored Ape had three different potential mutations. Most importantly, consuming the vial didn’t affect the initial Bored Ape NFT: BAYC owners were able to keep their original NFT and add the new MAYC NFT to their collections.

But, obviously, Mutant Apes do not evolve in the traditional sense. Each Mutant Ape is a unique, non-fungible token (NFT) with its own set of attributes that are determined when it's minted. These attributes include features such as the Mutant Ape's appearance, accessories, and background.

However, their value changes over time: the Yuga Labs team introduced various events and collaborations that can change the status of Mutant Apes — making them even more valuable in the eyes of collectors and investors as the BAYC and MAYC brand continues to grow.

The value of Mutant Apes can also fluctuate based on supply and demand, with rarer and more desirable Mutant Apes commanding higher prices. You can always check out sites like Rarity Sniper to see how unique a Mutant Ape is.

Unique features like an Ape with an accessory (for example, a hat) can make it more valuable. Of course, the value of Mutant Apes can also be influenced by market sentiment, news, and other factors, including the going price of Ethereum.

It’s a strange thought, that Yuga Labs was able to build even more value for its brand by releasing a version of its Apes that is so aesthetically jarring. And yet, it speaks to the company’s understanding of its avid community, which values novelty and irreverence toward traditional norms.

One could view the Mutant Apes aesthetic in parallel with the underground punk scene — a connection that became even more obvious when Yuga Labs acquired CryptoPunks, one of the earliest and most beloved collections of all time, in March 2022, for an undisclosed sum.

Yuga Labs’ success is intimately tied to the firm's commitment to creating more value for its owners, beyond just monetary gain. For instance, BAYC and MAYC’s exclusivity allowed it to attract celebrities, athletes, and influencers, with like-minded people getting access to opportunities for fellowship and networking.

Even more importantly, Yuga Labs gives each of its NFT holders rights to their Ape’s intellectual property. That means owners can use their IP rights in special media/merchandising deals while piggybacking on the overall brand value that Yuga Labs has created, benefiting exponentially from the ecosystem Yuga Labs has built.

Yuga Labs continues to create value for its Bored Ape and Mutant Ape owners, with the digital assets seen as core to building an NFT brand that aims to compete with Disney and other corporate superpowers.

Since launching both collections, Yuga Labs created even more value with the announcement of its Otherside metaverse — in which owners of BAYC and MAYC could mint virtual land “Otherdeeds” for free within 21 days of the sale’s launch — and a number of exclusive events, rewards, and celebrity-studded gatherings for NFT holders. Most recently, a Mutant Apes collector known as Jimmy "Jimmy" McNelis announced that he will soon bring his MAYC NFTs to the Dungeons & Dragons-inspired Web3 game, The Glimmering.

And these ongoing developments serve as successive reminders for those following in their footsteps: Create added value for your community, and they will return it in kind.