Yuga Botched Another NFT Mint—Will Bored Monkeys Cancel Ethereum?

Yuga Labs, a multi-billion dollar company that controls major crypto brands such as Boring Monkey Boat Club And CryptoPunksfound himself in hot water this week after implementing — and after — fan dissatisfaction with a new NFT mint tied to the monkey-themed metaverse; other side.

The saga began on Tuesday, when Yuga announced on another platform that players who successfully complete Mara's game missions can now claim chained collectibles, dubbed “Lots,” as rewards.

Players quickly jumped to trading NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain, but found that the gas fees incurred in those transactions were prohibitively expensive—especially when “loot” was supposed to be a free perk.

This wasn't Yuga's first rodeo with exorbitant gas bills. In the year In 2022, a busy activity for virtual plots of land in the other side has cost users eye-watering prices. 157 million dollars In marketing costs, by inducing Widespread disappointment With the yoga management of the situation.

Likely informed by events like these, the Yuga leadership tried to mend their bad feelings about this week's “robbing” peace offering. On Thursday, Yuga's Chief Gaming Officer Spencer Tucker tweeted that the community's outrage over Lottery's gas charges was justified. To offset the situation, any affected users will be eligible to claim free “catalysts”, other in-game and on-chain perks, he said.

Community response may not have been what Yuga had hoped for. Other players testified to the offer, saying it didn't address the structural issues that users expect to generate valuable NFTs on Ethereum.

Within hours, Yuga founder Greg Solano stepped in announced As the free Catalyst giveaway was abandoned after a community push. Instead, all gas fees collected by other players trying to hit the lot will be fully covered by Yuga.

Solano wrote: “Thank you for calling us and being patient with us.

But for many other players, this second solution, Yuga's reliance on on-chain transactions on the expensive Ethereum mainnet, failed to solve the overall problem.

“These two decisions go back and raise serious concerns about the rest of the situation, the Agora marketplace, and who will approve these decisions.” YouTuber JRNY Crypto He wrote Reply on Twitter. “These decisions are entry-level mistakes, not mistakes that we should be looking at from the biggest company in the space developing Metaverse.”

Another has yet to formally enter into a more cost-effective move to do business on the chain. Ethereum layer-2 network, or any other alternative blockchain. Yuga Labs declined to comment to Decrypt beyond referring to Solano's Twitter statement.

ApeCoin DAO, independent Decentralized autonomous organization who manages ApeCoinThe cryptocurrency for the Bored Monkey ecosystem has long advocated the creation of its own blockchain, dubbed ApeChain. The DAO is currently evaluating proposals from several Layer-2 networks. Optimism, DecisionAnd Polygon To help build ApeChain.

While Yuga Labs previously suggested that ApeCoin DAO should create its own blockchain to solve Ethereum traffic and cost issues, the company has never committed to using such a network – if ever built – to power another.

But time may be running out. Even Yuga's leader publicly admitted this week that continued reliance on Ethereum's mainnet may not be sustainable.

“The mineral lot at layer-1 makes for a bad particle-to-gas ratio,” said Yuga Gaming Chief Operating Officer Spencer Tucker. He wrote on Twitter Thursday.

Edited by Andrew Hayward.