I just spent $1,000 on a pixelated cartoon Space Ape, and it’s awesome

Okay, now before you say, “oh no, Morgan has lost his mind, let me explain.” First, as I’ve said many times before, when it comes to taking risks in the world of digital asset, whether you’re talking about domain names, crypto, or NFTs, always play with profits.

In the case of this recent purchase, I got lucky and ended up playing with profits on profits. I sold a two-word .COM, put the money into Ethereum, and if you’ve been following Ethereum lately, its been kicking ass and taking names:

Ethereum Price April 2021
Ethereum Chart – 1M

So the money I put into this NFT that I’m about to explain came from profits on a domain sale, that was put into Ethereum, and then the profits from that bought the NFT. Just to be clear, I never give investment advice on this blog, and in this case I would give anti-investment advice to anyone who puts money they care about into NFTs right now.

That being said, I’m actually pretty darn excited about what I bought, as an investment, so let me explain. Some time ago in the earli(er) days of Ethereum a few projects captivated people – CryptoPunks and CryptoKitties, while both might not make sense to you, they did at the time to a lot of people. Today, they have a lot more meaning as the lowest price CryptoPunk you can buy today is priced at $54,692. Here’s some stats:

CryptoPunks Sales

And yes, that one with the sunglasses and the pipe sold for $7.57M. Once again, while you might not understand it, just like I don’t understand emoji domains, some trends develop and grow whether we get it or not.

At the same time, for me at least, over the years I’ve been getting it a little more. People love collectables, and just like people collect art that might look like nothing to someone else, if it’s meaningful to them and a group of collectors, there’s value, it’s an asset.

All that being said, I’m not reading to spend $54,692 on a pixelated cartoon punk, so I started looking around at other emerging NFTs in the space. This weekend I was listening to one of my new favorite podcasts, Zima Red, when I heard this episode with Gmoney. First, I’d recommend listening to this episode, it’s awesome, and second Gmoney shared that his favorite NFT is actually a Space Ape that he has.

So I did some research, learned more about Space Ape NFTs, joined the community on Discord, found everyone on there to be awesome, and snagged my first Ape, this guy:

Space Ape 57

You can take a look at him here, I think he’s awesome, and he came with a DoomCat which I am still learning about but it’s taken me down another fun path.

These are still the very early days of NFTs, but the fact that so few people understand them yet so many people are buying them and communities are forming around them makes it incredibly interesting and fun, at least for me.

So now for the most important question? What do you think of my first Space Ape?

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton