A new nonfungible token (NFT) collection from Yuga Labs, the blockchain technology company behind the popular Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), has already witnessed hundreds of millions of dollars in sales, according to NFT data aggregating site CryptoSlam.
Yuga Labs is developing a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) called Otherside.
The game aims to combine MMORPGs and Web3-enabled virtual worlds. Yuga’s new NFT mint, called Otherdeed, “is the key to claiming land in Otherside,” according to the project’s page on NFT marketplace OpenSea.
“Each [land has] a unique blend of environment and sediment – some with resources, some home to powerful artifacts.”
Sales of the Otherdeed NFTs surged to more than $358 million worth of ETH on May 1st alone, CryptoSlam reports.
The massive influx of demand for the NFT collection caused a surge in Ethereum (ETH) fees, which Yuga Labs apologized for.
“This has been the largest NFT mint in history by several multiples, and yet the gas used during the mint shows that demand far exceeded anyone’s wildest expectations. The scale of this mint was so large that Etherscan crashed.
We’re sorry for turning off the lights on Ethereum for a while. It seems abundantly clear that ApeCoin will need to migrate to its own chain in order to properly scale. We’d like to encourage the DAO to start thinking in this direction.
We are aware that some users had failed transactions due to the incredible demand being forced through Ethereum’s bottleneck. For those of you affected, we appreciate your willingness to build alongside us – know that we’ve got your back and will be refunding your gas.”
Transactions involving the Otherdeed mint burned a staggering 55,863.40 ETH ($159 million), according to Ultrasound.money. The Ethereum supply-tracking site also notes that the Otherdeed mint is the sixth-largest ETH burning event of all time and the largest in the past 30 days.
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