Bored Ape Yacht Club Launches Asia Tour Covering 5 Cities
The blue-chip NFT project Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) announced it will hold a series of community events in the Asia-Pacific region from September 25 to October 6, covering five cities: Shenzhen, Seoul, Taipei, Manila, and Singapore, with registration through Luma.
The Shenzhen event will be a Mid-Autumn community dinner for about 20 people, featuring a small-scale gathering and reminiscing. The Seoul event will be the largest, hosting a 5-day brand pop-up shop in Sinsa-dong, launching limited edition products and collaborations with Korean artists, and will showcase ApePay for the first time during the 2026 Korea Blockchain Week (KBW). The Taipei event will be a happy hour after work in Xinyi District, where CEO Michael Figge of parent company Yuga Labs will meet with local community members.
The Manila event will consist of two parts: one is a cocktail networking event hosted by the local BAYC community BAYKADA at Bar Good Times; the other is Figge's "homecoming party," officially dubbed "Philippine BAYC CEO Meets Jollibee," themed around the local fast-food chain, wrapping up the weekend in Manila. The Singapore event will be co-hosted by Figge and Won Kim, inviting BAYC holders and collectors to join, with drinks, a DJ, and possibly gifts, but spots are limited and prior registration is required.
Figge took over as CEO of Yuga Labs on April 24, 2026, the 5th anniversary of BAYC, with co-founder Greg Solano transitioning to chairman of the board. Figge is a co-founder of the creative studio POSSIBLE and has produced over 200 large-scale shows for events like the Super Bowl, MTV Video Music Awards (VMA), and Coachella. In 2021, he co-founded the NFT company WENEW with digital artist Beeple; after Yuga acquired WENEW in November 2022, he served as Chief Content Officer, Chief Creative Officer, and Chief Product Officer. On the day of the announcement, ApeCoin (APE) surged 92% within hours to $0.223, with trading volume skyrocketing 2130% to about $300 million; a newly created wallet had previously invested over $1.03 million in a 5x leveraged long position, peaking at an unrealized profit of about $713,000.
This Asia tour is a continuation of Figge's "return to community" strategy. Within a month of his appointment, Yuga organized over 30 offline gatherings globally; on June 30, Yuga held a "Yuga Asia Tour" event at the headquarters of Korean crypto venture Hashed in Gangnam, Seoul. Figge acknowledged at the event that the BAYC floor price had dropped from a high of 153.7 ETH to 8.83 ETH, but the number of unique holders is increasing, with 72% of NFT buyers being new users. He stated, "Data shows that blue-chip digital collectibles were once oversold." Yuga also announced plans to open a BAYC club in Miami, launch an animated project based on the BAYC worldview, and launch the GrailsOTC over-the-counter trading platform for matching unlisted rare BAYC, Koda, and Otherside land.
In terms of market mechanisms, this is a brand-driven community event, not a capital trading event. Potential buyers are attracted by offline events and co-branded products, being new users entering the NFT market, with Figge stating that new buyers account for 72%. Sellers are long-term holders who entered at high prices between 2021 and 2022 and have been stuck, with the liquidity brought by community events providing them an exit opportunity. The flow of funds is shifting from pure speculative trading to brand consumption, offline experiences, and payment scenarios (ApePay). Beneficiaries include Yuga Labs and its brand ecosystem, the usage scenarios of the APE token, and local NFT communities in Korea, the Philippines, and others; those under pressure are other NFT projects that rely solely on secondary market speculation without offline operational capabilities.
Supplementary data: In May of this year, the BAYC floor price doubled from about 5 ETH to over 10 ETH within a month, with a series market value of about $251 million as of May 10, and a 30-day sales volume of $13.42 million; during the same period, APE rebounded from under $0.10 to about $0.16, but is still down over 99% from its historical high of about $27.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
BAYC was launched in April 2021, with 10,000 NFTs sold at 0.08 ETH each, subsequently becoming a top identity symbol in the NFT bull market, with numerous celebrities and athletes using BAYC avatars on social media. In March 2022, Yuga Labs completed a $450 million financing led by a16z at a valuation of about $4 billion, acquiring the IP of CryptoPunks and Meebits from Larva Labs in the same month, and launching ApeCoin. By the end of April 2022, the Otherside metaverse land sale raised about $320 million worth of ApeCoin, but the rush caused Ethereum gas fees to soar, resulting in users losing significant transaction fees. Since then, BAYC has faced several setbacks: in December 2022, Yuga was collectively sued by investors for allegedly inflating NFT prices through celebrity endorsements; in November 2023, multiple participants at Hong Kong's ApeFest suffered eye injuries due to UV lighting on stage; in 2024, Solano pushed for a "Yuga 2.0" restructuring and layoffs; in 2025, Yuga sold the IP of CryptoPunks to Infinite Node Foundation and proposed to dissolve the ApeCoin DAO, with Yuga taking over the APE ecosystem. This Asia tour led by Figge, focusing on "community dinners + pop-up shops," reflects Yuga's shift from "metaverse narrative" back to "brand and community operations."
In terms of capital pathways, Yuga is shifting resources from "building a metaverse and public chain" to "offline branding + payment + trading facilities." In October 2024, Yuga launched ApeChain based on Arbitrum Orbit, attempting to create on-chain usage scenarios for APE, but the ecological activity is limited. The current path is closer to consumer branding: the Seoul pop-up shop sells limited co-branded products, GrailsOTC addresses liquidity issues for high-priced NFTs, and ApePay attempts to extend APE and BAYC identities into offline payments. The choice of Asia is due to Korea, the Philippines, Singapore, and Taiwan being among the most active markets for NFT and crypto retail, with Korean capital like Hashed closely connected to the BAYC community; Figge's "homecoming" identity as a Filipino CEO is seen as a natural localized marketing asset.
A direct comparison is Pudgy Penguins. After Luca Netz took over, it turned the NFT IP into physical toys on Walmart shelves, issuing the PENGU token in December 2024 and launching the Abstract public chain, regarded as the most successful case of "NFT consumer branding"; BAYC's current offline pop-ups, artist collaborations, and brand lifestyle routes essentially chase this path. An earlier reference is the streetwear brand Supreme: relying on limited releases (drops) and community queuing culture, it turned T-shirts into resalable scarce assets, ultimately being acquired by VF Corporation for $2.1 billion in 2020. BAYC is in a transitional phase from "financial assets" back to "brand assets": the floor price has dropped over 90% from its peak, speculative attributes have significantly weakened, but the number of holders is increasing, indicating that the stakes are shifting from speculators to genuine community users.
Structural judgment: This represents a restructuring of the industry chain, as NFT projects' revenue models are shifting from "secondary market royalties" to "brand consumption and offline experiences." The mechanism is that the early business model of NFTs relied on secondary market transaction royalties, typically 5% to 10%; the more active the trading, the higher the project income. However, at the end of 2022, Blur introduced zero-royalty trading and quickly captured market share, leading OpenSea to make royalties optional in 2023, cutting off this main cash flow for NFT projects. In the absence of royalty income, project parties can only monetize like consumer brands through product sales, co-branding licenses, offline events, and payment scenarios, all of which depend on genuine community recognition rather than price increases. BAYC's Asia tour is a manifestation of this restructuring at the operational level.
ABAB News · Cognitive Laws
After the price tide recedes, what remains is the community.
Projects that rely on trading royalties for profit must eventually learn to sell T-shirts.
The value of identity assets lies not on-chain, but at that dining table offline.