Bored Ape NFT company raises around $285 million of crypto after facing massive hack

Bored Ape non-fungible token (NFT) company on Sunday raised approximately $285 million of cryptocurrency in a virtual land sale after facing a massive hack.

NFTs are a type of digital asset which buyers purchase through cryptocurrencies but no physical pieces of art exchange hands in these transactions.

It only exists on a blockchain, which serves as a public ledger, and is recorded on a network of computers.

However, Blockchain allows anyone to verify the authenticity of NFTs as well as their owner.

The market of NFTs exploded in popularity last year with several digital tokens selling for millions.

The Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs was created by a startup in the United States called Yuga Labs which uses a computer network of 10,000 for the generation of cartoons.

Andreessen Horowitz, a private American venture capital firm, helped Yuga labs to raise $450 million in March as funding.

Earlier, the official Instagram account of the Bored Ape Yacht Club was hacked after which scammers stole NFTs worth $3 million with the help of a phishing link they posted on it.

Also read | Justin Bieber gets trolled for buying Bored Ape NFT for $1.29 million

Malaysian artist mumu_thestan told AFP in a telephone interview, "You can't treat the whole NFT community as one."

"The mainstream audience thinks NFTs are about selling a jpeg for millions or making a monkey picture. That's not all it is."

On April 30, Yuga Labs released a new series of NFTs called the "Otherdeeds" priced at 305 ApeCoin each which were sold out minutes after they launched. Through the sale, the company raked in 16,775,000 ApeCoin or $285 million. 

The company earned more than $1.3 million last week for an NFT it sold to pop star Justin Bieber from the collection known as "Bored Apes Yacht Club".

According to analytics firm Chainalysis, NFTS worth $40 billion were sold last year following a boom in the market.

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(With inputs from agencies)