Yuga Labs apologies after Bored Ape land grab overwhelms Ethereum

The crypto startup behind Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs has apologised after its sale of “metaverse land” overwhelmed the Ethereum network.

Yuga Labs this weekend released 55,000 virtual plots of land which will be used in an upcoming multiplayer game called Otherside.

Demand for the land, which was sold at a flat price of 305 Apecoin (£3,600), was so high that the Ethereum network became congested pushing up transaction fees and slowing down purchases. Transaction fees paid on top of the purchase price for land NFTs rose to more than £2,500 amid the frenzy – one user, who snapped up two Otherdeeds paid a transaction fee worth over 5 ETH (£11,000).

“We’re sorry for turning off the lights on Ethereum for a while,” Yuga Labs wrote in an apology on Twitter.

“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,” the company continued.

The Ethereum network has been plagued by scaling difficulties. As increasing numbers of decentralized applications are built on the Ethereum blockchain gas fees have been pushed upwards while transaction speeds have slowed.

In total more than $100m was spent on transaction fees to buy Otherside NFTs, while Yuga Labs took another $300m in payments The Guardian first reported.

Yuga Labs claimed the sale was “the largest NFT mint in history by several multiples,” and “exceeded anyone’s wildest expectations.”

Over 96,000 Otherside NFTs have been minted as of today with the project’s floor price jumping to 3.7 ETH (£8,350) according to the marketplace Opensea.

Read more: Bored Ape Yacht Club warns against minting NFTs after phishing attempt