Bored Ape creator's purchase of CryptoPunks means it now owns two of the top-selling NFT projects

• Yuga Labs, the team behind Bored Ape Yacht Club, has acquired CryptoPunks and Meebits from Larva Labs.
• Bored Ape Yacht Club and CryptoPunk NFTs have together done more than $3 billion in trading volume.

Bored Ape Yacht club creator Yugo Labs has bought CryptoPunks and Meebits from Larva Labs, giving the company control over three of the most popular non-fungible token collections on the market.

The Bored Apes and CryptoPunks collections are iconic among NFT enthusiasts, boasting over $1 billion and $2.2 billion in trading volume, respectively.

"[Yuga Labs is] the ideal stewards of the CryptoPunks and Meebits. In their hands, we are confident that they will continue to be vital, thriving projects in the emerging decentralized web," said Matt Hall and John Watkinson, co-founders of Larva Labs, CryptoPunks, and Meebits in a statement.

Larva Labs said it will retain the rights to a group of its "favorite Punks and Meebs."

CryptoPunks were one of the earliest NFT projects, and 10,000 unique iterations of them exist on the ethereum blockchain. The current floor price for a single CryptoPunk is 69.95 ETH, or about $181,000.

Meebits, for its part, has seen about $227 million in trading volume, per OpenSea. The floor price for one MeeBits NFT is 4.7 ETH, or about $12,000.

After a sizzling 2021 when total volume hit $23 billion, the NFT market has cooled to start the new year. Sales dipped 29% week-over-week as of Friday, and the ongoing sell-off in cryptocurrencies is beginning to creep into the NFT space.

Bored Ape Yacht Club and CryptoPunks were the first and second top-sellers last week.