Yuga Labs’ Otherside Metaverse launched on Saturday, highlighted by the “Otherdeed” NFT minting. However, the NFT community has mixed reactions to the much-anticipated event.
Last Saturday, the Bored Ape Yacht Club’s (BAYC) parent company, Yuga Labs, launched its highly-anticipated Metaverse, the Otherside. It was highlighted by the minting of “Otherdeed,” NFT digital land deeds critical to claiming land on Otherside.
However, the NFT community went bananas over the minting, causing Etherscan to crash and Ethereum gas fees to soar to unprecedented heights.
Otherdeed NFTs Soldout in Less Than a Day
About 55,000 Otherdeed NFTs were minted on Saturday at $APE 305 each. It means each NFT is worth about $5,800, considering ApeCoin’s price at minting was approximately $19. The speculation is rife that Yuga Labs generated over $318.7 million from Saturday’s mint alone.
CryptoSlam showed that total secondary traded volume for Otherdeed reached more than $242 million, $190 million of which was earned from OpenSea.
Total sales from Otherdeed NFTs climbed up to $561 million in less than 24 hours.
The Downside of the Minting
The Otherdeed minting started around 9 EST on Saturday evening. While it was highly anticipated, the high number of NFTs and the higher demand for such was unprecedented, immediately causing an Ethereum gas war. Many users of block explorer Etherscan also reported that the site wasn’t working for them due to traffic.
To those unfamiliar with the term, gas wars happen on proof-of-work chains like Ethereum when an abrupt rise in demand for quick transactions blocks a network. Such results in increased fees as users try to bypass the line.
Some had their transactions processed within a few hours, incurring several hundred dollars in gas fees. However, a majority reported paying $4,000 and above for a single transaction.
Owning Responsibility
Some people quickly pointed out that the fees didn’t have to be so bad if only Yuga Labs implemented some backend optimizations. Lin Dai, CEO of NFT platform OneOf, had some stern words for Yuga Labs and BAYC’s co-founder, Garga.
“Decentralization should never be used as an excuse for decisions of centralized venture-backed companies,” Dai said. “Time to take responsibility, be accountable to the community.”
In a tweet, Yuga Labs acknowledged that they were overwhelmed by the turnout of events, saying, “the Otherdeed mint was unprecedented in its size as a high-demand NFT collection, and that would bring with it unique challenges.”
Yuga Labs admitted that the mint’s scale was immense, leading to Etherscan crashing. They owned responsibility for momentarily “turning off the lights on Ethereum” and hinted at the possibility of having its own Apechain.
“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 tweet said.
The company also promised refunds to those with failed transactions.
“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.”
Moreover, BAYC and Mutant Ape Yacht Club NFT holders will have three weeks to claim Otherdeed NFTs, which would prevent them from incurring high gas fees. Still, this would have to be delayed until further notice from Otherside.
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