MIAMI--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Yuga Labs, creators of the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), confirmed it has acquired the intellectual property (IP) of the CryptoPunks and Meebits collections from Larva Labs.
CryptoPunks and Meebits are popular non-fungible token (NFT) collections on the Ethereum blockchain. With this acquisition Yuga Labs will own the CryptoPunks and Meebit brands and logos, and as they’ve done with their own BAYC collection, Yuga Labs will transfer IP, commercial, and exclusive licensing rights to individual NFT holders.
“Yuga Labs are the best in the world at what they do, and are the ideal stewards of the CryptoPunks and Meebits,” said the co-founders of Larva Labs, Matt Hall and John Watkinson. “In their hands, we are confident that they will continue to be vital, thriving projects in the emerging decentralized web.”
Yuga Labs aims to seed a vibrant new community with the transfer of IP and commercialization rights, teeming with creators and third-party developers to incorporate CryptoPunks and Meebits into digital and physical projects across the world.
"When we set out to create within the NFT space, we did so with a deep admiration for CryptoPunks and the visionary work of Matt and John," said Nicole Muniz, CEO of Yuga Labs. "We’re honored to take on the stewardship of these brands and the communities behind them, and are very excited to build alongside CryptoPunks and Meebits holders as we step into this new world. That said, we want to make it abundantly clear to Yuga’s existing community that the BAYC ecosystem will always stay at the center of our universe.”
As part of the acquisition, Yuga Labs owns the copyright for both the CryptoPunks and Meebits collections, as well as 423 CryptoPunks and 1711 Meebits. When asked what they would do with them, Gordon and Gargamel, pseudonymous co-founders of Yuga Labs, said, “We're not in a rush to do anything but give people their IP, see what they build, and listen."
Holders of CryptoPunks and Meebits should expect to receive new terms and conditions for their NFTs soon, granting them IP and commercialization rights.
No further details about the deal were disclosed.
About CryptoPunks
CryptoPunks is a non-fungible token (NFT) collection on the Ethereum blockchain. The experimental project was inspired by the London punk scenes, the cyberpunk movement, and electronic music artists Daft Punk. The crypto art blockchain project was an inspiration for the ERC-721 standard for NFTs and the modern crypto art movement, which has since become a part of the cryptocurrency and decentralized finance ecosystems on multiple blockchains.
About Meebits
The Meebits are 20,000 unique 3D voxel characters, created by a custom generative algorithm, then registered on the Ethereum blockchain.
About Yuga Labs
Yuga Labs is a web3 platform most known for the creation of the Bored Ape Yacht Club. For more information on Yuga Labs visit https://www.yugalabs.io or email press@yugalabs.io.