Looking for something to do with that cartoon ape JPEG you bought for six-figures earlier this year?
You’re not alone! Various Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT holders have recently launched project after project — ranging from pop-up restaurants to cartoon series — in an attempt to utilize their high-priced blockchain investment.
And that brings me to the latest one which recently hit the Mashable inbox: Ape Water.
Brought to you by a new company called Ape Beverages, Ape Water brings the Web3 community fresh spring water…in a can with a Bored Ape image slapped over it.
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While the current marketing for the yet-to-officially-launch product shows the same Bored Ape art on all the early cans, the idea is that Bored Ape NFT holders will be able to license their apes to be featured on the cans. This is possible due to the licensing agreement Yuga Labs, the company behind the Bored Ape Yacht Club, provides to anyone holding a Bored Ape NFT. The NFT basically provides a license to the holder to use their specific Bored Ape for pretty much anything.
Along with the Web3 marketing lingo, Ape Water is relying heavily on the environmental aspects of canned water over the more popular bottled version. However, these environmental claims have been disputed by the site TreeHugger in the past. (Simply put, even recyclable cans have an ecological footprint and only reusable bottles are truly sustainable.)
Canned water isn’t an entirely original idea either. The edgelord brand Liquid Death is probably the most well known of the niche canned water companies and it has been around since 2019. So, the “innovation” here from Ape Water isn’t the cans or the environmentally friendly claims; it’s the Web3 attempt to “democratize” intellectual property.
We’ve seen efforts from Bored Ape NFT holders to monetize their assets before. A Bored Ape-themed burger joint called Bored & Hungry opened earlier this year in California. The branding centers on the Bored Apes held by the restaurateurs behind the establishment. Bored & Hungry made some headlines in June after reports spread that the burger place based entirely around a crypto asset had stopped accepting cryptocurrency for a period of time.
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Actor Seth Green had famously developed a TV series around his Bored Ape NFT. That series was put into legal limbo earlier this year when Green was hacked and his Bored Ape NFT was stolen. Because he no longer had possession of the NFT, Green then no longer held the rights to his Bored Ape’s IP. Green ended up paying $300,000 to get his Bored Ape back.
Ape Water is just the latest in a series of Bored Ape NFT monetization attempts.
“Ape Water, which officially launches on September 22, 2022, will periodically feature different BAYC apes and other IP assets on the face of an infinitely recyclable can,” reads the press release.
Will Ape Water be successful? We will see, but it should be noted that the whole idea behind it – while interesting – isn’t exactly as democratizing as the press announcement would like to make it seem. Remember, these Bored Ape NFTs still sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars, even if the marketing is waning.
As of publishing time, the floor price for a Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT is hovering around 75 ether, or roughly $118,000. That’s down around 50 percent from its May 2022 highs.
