Otherside is YugaLab’s latest metaverse project and is considered the biggest NFT mint ever on the Ethereum blockchain.
The emergence of web 3.0 has fast-tracked the metaverse’s progress as an immersive and customizable world. And this universe continuously takes a more prominent shape thanks to the high interest coming from web2 companies, rising demand for virtual reality hardware, and the continuous investment in their virtual worlds among web3 firms. Now, a globally recognized company with a deep footprint in the non-fungible token (NFT) space has recently launched its metaverse to bring a glimpse of the future to its vibrant community.
Table of Contents
Background
YugaLabs is the creator of the sought-after Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) collection, which, long after its minting in April 2021, remains one of the most valuable NFTs to date. This year, the company has attempted to launch another blockbuster offering, which now involves a brand new metaverse that would open holders to fresh opportunities. Through this project, the team aims to redefine the metaverse’s concept by making it lively, full of narrative, and holding citizens accountable for their actions.
What is The Otherside?
Otherside is YugaLab’s latest metaverse project and is considered the biggest NFT mint ever on the Ethereum blockchain. During the minting event, 55,000 ‘Otherdeeds’ NFT were rolled out, costing $7,000 each, and served as authentication for each parcel of the virtual lands. Three hours after the launch, all NFTs were immediately sold out and generated more than $300 million in sales.
Each piece of land allows holders to create their games, set up a digital art gallery, participate in demos, in-person events, contests, etc. Furthermore, Otherside also serves as an extension to the BAYC collection, potentially increasing the metaverse land’s utility and holders’ profitability.
ApeCoin
ApeCoin ($APE) is an ERC-20 governance and utility token initially created for the BAYC collection. It has utilities such as decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) participation and access to exclusive features such as merchandise, games, services, and events. $APE has been so successful that third-party developers started using it on their services, games, and other web3 projects.
Animoca Brands’ ‘Benjie Bananas’, for example, now offers ApeCoin as incentives when players swap their special tokens for this coin. The ‘Banana’ and ‘Ape’ collaboration also has an interesting crossover since they share the same monkey themes. But $APE’s biggest leap is its integration with YugaLab’s Otherside metaverse, which could further increase its utility, making it more valuable.
ApeCoin has a max supply of one billion, which won’t go up or down since it has a contract interface that blocks additional minting and has no burning mechanism that prevents the decrease in its quantity. But despite the coin’s increasing utility and value, it is still bound by volatility, a reminder that investors should remain cautious despite the stellar feats that $APE has achieved.
Controversies
Massive Failures in Launching
The Otherside launch was one of the crypto world’s most awaited minting events of the year, but massive difficulties have also hounded its recording-breaking feat. Due to the massive demand generated on Ethereum’s network, gas fees have shot up so high, with investors estimated to have spent over $176 million in fees. Furthermore, several users claimed that aside from failing to complete their transactions, they also lost their Ethereum (ETH) during the process.
The unfortunate incident has also highlighted Ethereum’s significant limitations in handling large volumes of traffic, affecting everyone in its network. Also, doubts have surfaced again regarding its viability for existing and future decentralized applications (dApps) within its ecosystem.
Deliberate Failure?
Some community members claim that Yuga Labs deliberately allowed the chaotic incident to blame Ethereum’s congestion issues and have a pretext to create its blockchain. This theory surfaced after the Otherside creator posted an apology after the incident and suggested that migrating to its own chain might be a feasible idea.
Since it has a DAO component, Yuga Labs cannot create its blockchain without the community’s consent. But the firm may override this hurdle given the massive voting power it can wield on DAO proposals.
Yuga Labs Returns Users’ Gas Fees
As a commitment to its community, Yuga Labs have reimbursed the lost gas fees of every participant who failed to mint its Otherdeed NFT. The company has shelled out 90.57 ETH ($163,844) for refunds and additional 0.26 ETH to cover the gas fees. The company has made around 640 refunds, and the biggest individual transfer it has made cost 2.6 ETH.
Yuga Labs had also anticipated the inflow of phishing scams before its reimbursements, which led it to partner with a dApp called MulitSender, which handled the funding transactions. MultiSender is a service that eliminates the need for wallets to confirm or interact with a contract before receiving payments.
Ethereum’s Skyrocketing Fees: Explained
Ethereum’s “gas fees” is one of the network’s most undesirable aspects as they can notoriously increase significantly, making transactions within the network expensive. But what exactly is the reason behind the rising fees?
The answer lies in Ethereum’s fee system, which increases miners’ rewards (gas fees) if activity on the network is up. But it’s not the blockchain that directly jacks up the price, but the ‘game’ that platform users have to follow.
Let’s take ‘Otherside’ as an example. With a high volume of participants wanting their mint to get approved, miners stand by on the other side to fulfill this duty. The problem is that each ‘block’ can only accommodate a limited number of validated transactions; in other words, miners cannot prioritize everyone at once.
But on a long queue, participants are allowed to “cut through the line” and pay higher fees, which would bring them closer to validation. This scenario, called “gas war,” commonly happens when a popular project launches on Ethereum, with everyone wanting to participate in the minting event to gain its exclusive privileges.
Otherside and BAYC Discord Groups, Hacked
Barely a month after its minting misfortune, Yuga Labs was caught again in another headache with the recent breach in its Otherside and BAYC Discord channels. OKHotshot, a premier NFT analyst and security platform, sounded the alarm on Twitter and immediately warned investors about the compromised Discord channels of the two premium collections.
The security firm concluded that the Discord account of Boris Vagner, the company’s community and social manager, became the hackers’ entry point into these channels. Through this account, the hackers were able to send some phishing links to the said Discord channels with a “limited giveaway” claim, which unsuspecting holders clicked.
Conclusion
Yuga Labs had two massive blows this year with the controversial Otherside minting and the hacking of its two Discord channels which only happened one month apart. And while the company has made a laudable response with its previous reimbursements, its investors will likely have more demands moving forward. It’s interesting to see how the company would contuinue after its setbacks and retain its place as the apex NFT community in all of crypto.
