Quick Take
- Bored Ape Yacht Club creator Yuga Labs announced it has acquired Proof, which created the Moonbirds non-fungible token collection.
- Yuga Labs said it will fold Moonbirds into its gamefied, metaverse play dubbed Otherside.
Yuga Labs, arguably the biggest NFT studio in the industry is getting even bigger. The company announced it has acquired rival non-fungible token creator Proof, which is best known for its Moonbirds collection. "As a company committed to championing art, culture, and community on the blockchain, we’re excited to have PROOF join the Yuga ecosystem," said Yuga Labs CEO Daniel Alegre in a statement. Yuga Labs declined to reveal any details regarding the acquisition when asked how much the company may have paid to acquire Proof, which was founded by Kevin Rose. Proof's Moonbirds collection was at one time one of the more celebrated NFT brands on the market, but it never managed to consistently match the sales volumes Yuga Labs' Bored Ape Yacht Club achieved. In its statement, Yuga Labs said it planned to fold Moonbirds into its gamefied, metaverse play Otherside. "Moonbirds is a collection with great potential and many unifying brand elements with Otherside," Alegre said. "We look forward to PROOF Collective becoming an important part of our ongoing art and community engagement efforts." Across the board, NFT trading volumes, while rebounding somewhat since the end of last year, have continued to register far below what they did during the bull run, which straddled much of 2021 and 2022. Bored Ape Yacht Club's NFTs surpassed more than $200 million in monthly sales volume on multiple occasions during the bull run, according to CryptoSlam data. While the Moonbirds collection nearly hit $500 million in trading volume in April 2022, also according to CryptoSlam data, since then the brand's NFTs have consistently generated less than $5 million in monthly sales. "Kevin Rose, CEO & Founder of Proof, will undergo a brief handover period before becoming an advisor to the company," Yuga Labs said in its statement. Other Proof brands that Yuga Labs will assume control of include Moonbirds' spinoff collections Oddities, Mythics, and Grails. Rose said in the statement that Proof is both "excited to bring Moonbirds into Otherside" and that the two companies' "combined resources will allow us to innovate faster and reach more people." In 2022, Andreessen Horowitz, or a16z, led a $50 million Series A fundraise for Proof. A16z also invested in Yuga Labs in 2022. Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet that delivers news, research, and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is a majority investor of The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the crypto space. Crypto exchange Bitget is an anchor LP for Foresight Ventures. The Block continues to operate independently to deliver objective, impactful, and timely information about the crypto industry. Here are our current financial disclosures. © 2023 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.Brief 'handover' for Kevin Rose
About Author
RT Watson is a senior reporter at The Block who covers a wide array of topics including U.S.-based companies, blockchain gaming and NFTs. Formerly covered entertainment at The Wall Street Journal, where he wrote about Disney, Netflix, Warner Bros. and the creator economy while focusing primarily on technological disruption across media. Previous to that he covered corporate, economic and political news in Brazil while at Bloomberg. RT has interviewed a diverse cast of characters including CEOs, media moguls, top influencers, politicians, blue-collar workers, drug traffickers and convicted criminals. Holds a master's degree in Digital Sociology.
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