Let us get to know BAYC whale Franklin, a prolific NFT collector and self-proclaimed social media influencer who currently owns 59 Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs.
Who is Twitterverse’s @franklinisbored, who has been creating a lot of noise in the Metaverse and NFT spaces? He is a prolific NFT collector, self-proclaimed social media influencer, and current owner of 59 Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFTs. Thus, he has earned the right to be called a BAYC whale.
His Twitter profile doesn’t give much away about Franklin except that he holds a reputation for being the sixth-largest holder of BAYC NFTs. In fact, his cover photo shows some of the Bored Apes he owns.
Aside from being the proud owner of 59 BAYC NFTs, the BAYC whale has gained notoriety for his four-day slideshows and for being a professional Bored Ape flipper. However, beyond those, not much is known about Franklin, the person.
Who Is BAYC Whale Franklin?
Franklin, according to his LinkedIn profile, is Franklin Caldwell II in real life. He graduated with a master’s degree in Astronautical Engineering from the University of Southern California (USC). He currently works as Structural Engineer for Peraton’s Space Technical Services business unit.
In the “About” section of his LinkedIn profile, Franklin says, “Also burying this really really deep in my about me, but for the search engines, my profile picture is part of the Bored Ape Yacht Club (#BAYC)—So I am fully prepared for Web3 and the Metaverse!”
In an interview with the “Non-Fungible TC Show” on YouTube, the BAYC whale said since he was working as an engineer, it was only when the Covid-19 pandemic hit in 2020 that he became interested in cryptocurrency and investing in stocks. Then, before that year ended, he got himself involved in the Web3 space, and “the rest is history.”
According to Franklin, he first came across Bitcoins through the mobile financial platform Cash App in 2018. The BAYC whale said he bought his first Bitcoin on the app “just to see if it worked, but [he] never really sold it.” He said he held on to his Bitcoin for almost two years before he started buying more just before the pandemic hit.
Franklin did a lot of buying and selling, eventually finding several use cases for his cryptocurrencies. Not even the economy’s crash during the pandemic was enough to deter him from buying and selling cryptocurrencies. Still, it wasn’t until the start of 2021 that he started taking virtual currencies seriously.
He conceded that his engineering background may have influenced his fascination with cryptocurrencies. Franklin also said that he started venturing into other cryptocurrencies, including Ethereum, and when the NBA Top Shot NFTs became famous, he spent his cryptocurrencies on his first NFT.
Eventually, he got all his crypto investments tied up into NFTs. And that was the start of his journey toward being a BAYC whale.
Over the past 24 hours, Franklin has listed and sold some of his beloved Bored Ape NFTs. Here’s a short list of his NFT activities over the last 24 hours:
- BAYC # 8438—SOLD for 98.453 ETH or $150,605.06
- BAYC # 7892—SOLD for 84.48 ETH or $129,230.75
- BAYC # 2368—LISTED for 76.50 ETH or $117,023.58
- BAYC # 8232—LISTED for 76.69 ETH or $117,314.23
- BAYC # 9109—LISTED for 75.758 ETH or $115,887.76
The prices of these five BAYC NFTs are enough to give you an idea of how much Franklin has invested in his collection.
The BAYC Whale and Flipper
Why is Franklin considered a BAYC whale? Well, in the NFT space, NFT whales are people who have large amounts of capital to splurge on any NFTs they set their eyes on. It’s safe to say Franklin is among the few certified NFT whales since most NFT enthusiasts are still at a stage where notable projects like BAYC or CryptoPunks are still beyond their reach.
Franklin is a BAYC whale because of his extensive collection of Bored Apes, an NFT project that ranks high in the list of blue-chip NFT collections.
The snapshot above paints a picture of how much BAYC whale Franklin has put into NFTs financially. The holding value of his NFTs stands at 3,240 ETH, or about $4,976,500.
Franklin has also earned a reputation for being a professional NFT flipper. Flipping means buying an NFT for a low price and selling it for a high price. However, flipping equates to a short-term trade. Holding an asset for some time before deciding to sell it doesn’t count as flipping.
The snapshot above shows that our BAYC whale has been busy flipping NFTs. He has spent 1,930 ETH, or roughly $2,964,400, on NFTs, but check out how many flips he’s won. He has flipped NFTs 374 times and has profited 5,320 ETH, or about $8,171,360, from those flips! If the snapshot above is to be understood, Franklin has profited more from his flips than he has spent on NFTs.
If you notice the losing flips, there are 92 in all. Apparently, these shouldn’t be taken at face value. The losing flips are basically Franklin moving his NFTs to other wallets, but Flips.Watch records these as losses. Hence, we can’t be sure if the BAYC whale is losing flips or if the exact figure is lower than what is shown.
Can You Sell the Ape Back?
Despite being a BAYC whale, Franklin has not been spared from controversies or embarrassment in the NFT space. For instance, he got one-upped over a silly new ENS domain of his own doing.
Franklin has a habit of creating silly ENS domain names and joke bidding on them. One such domain name attracted a genuine bid of 1.9 ETH (or nearly $2,900), and Franklin quickly accepted the bid. He forgot that he put a “joke” bid of 100 ETH (~$150,000) on that same ENS domain. So, the domain’s new owner accepted Franklin’s 100 ETH bid, which he, unfortunately, forgot to cancel while he was celebrating what he thought was a windfall.
And earlier today, the BAYC whale fat-fingered himself after he sold a Bored Ape for 9 ETH and repurchased it for 69.9 ETH, resulting in a 60.9 ETH loss. However, he was at least brave enough to tweet about it.
He even saw its humor when he made NFTs of his message to the Bored Ape’s buyer. And guess what? One of the NFTs even received an offer for 0.01 ETH!
We haven’t seen the last of the BAYC whale. Indeed, he’ll be back at it in the next few days with his insane transactions and whatnot. And we will be keeping watch until then.
Check out other Research!
Get to know more about NFT and tutorials at OmniMint. For more information on OmniMint, and details on how to join our community, please follow our Twitter, or subscribe to our Telegram channel for more updates and please feel free to submit your article.