Coinbase to Produce Bored Ape Yacht Club Animated Short Films

By Andrew Hayward

The Bored Ape Yacht Club will officially expand into the entertainment world with a series of animated short films produced by Coinbase, entitled “The Degen Trilogy.”

Created with the approval of Yuga Labs, “The Degen Trilogy” will feature characters based on the Bored Ape Yacht Club, a collection of 10,000 disinterested-looking ape NFTs, and ApeCoin, the recently-launched governance token for Yuga’s expanding Web3 ecosystem. The first film in the series will debut at NFT.NYC in June, with two other entries to follow over the next year.

Coinbase developed the concept for the series as a tie-in to its upcoming NFT marketplace. However, in an effort to embrace the decentralized community of Bored Ape owners, the crypto exchange will work with NFT holders and potentially feature their characters in the films.

An NFT is a unique type of token that is used to prove ownership over a digital asset, such as artwork, music, or in this case, a Bored Ape profile picture. Interested Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT holders can now submit their characters for consideration via the website’s official portal, along with their own personal descriptions of their Apes. A casting director will consider the submissions and choose some character to appear within the animated films.

“We’ve been inspired by the Bored Ape Yacht Club community and excited to invite them to co-create this film with us,” said Coinbase’s Entertainment & Culture Marketing Director, William Swann, in a release.

A Coinbase representative told Decrypt that the short films will premiere at live events, with additional viewing info to be revealed soon. However, while a Coinbase Wallet is currently required to access the film’s site, the rep said that it will not be required to view the films.

The Bored Ape Yacht Club is one of the most popular NFT projects on the market, and its Ethereum-based collections have generated more than $3.2 billion in total combined secondary market trading volume. The cheapest-available Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT currently listed on a marketplace is priced at 109 ETH, or about $329,000.

Last October, Bored Ape creator Yuga Labs announced that it signed veteran music industry executive Guy Oseary to represent the project as it explored Hollywood ambitions. Recently, Yuga Labs acquired the CryptoPunks and Meebits NFT project properties from Larva Labs, and will soon launch an online metaverse gaming world called Otherside.

Editor's note: This story was updated after publication to include comments from a Coinbase representative.

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