Aaron Brown, Columnist

Some Bad Bored Apes Won't Undermine the NFT Market

The core idea of people paying for membership in a community with cool badges is economically sound.

July 7, 2023 at 10:59 AM UTC

Aaron Brown is a former head of financial market research at AQR Capital Management. He is also an active crypto investor, and has venture capital investments and advisory ties with crypto firms. He is the author of the soon-to-be-released "Wrong Number."

Down but not out.
Photographer: Bing Guan/Bloomberg via Getty Images

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One of the discouraging things about working in cryptocurrencies is that almost all the outside focus is on price changes and the resulting fortunes won and lost. Since the most insubstantial assets have the greatest price volatility, this can lead casual observers to think crypto is all froth and nonsense.

The latest example is the excitement over the price decline of Bored Ape Yacht Club and similar “blue chip” collectable non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Blame for the decline was directed toward the poor market reception of Azuki Elementals NFTs, brought out by Chiru Labs, creators of some of the most popular and valued collectable NFTs. What hasn’t gotten a lot of attention is that there is a reasonably stable market for the better-quality NFTs that seems to have staying power.