Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs topped CryptoPunks for the first time on a key price metric

• The lowest price for a Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT surpassed that of a CryptoPunk Wednesday, the Block found.
• The price flip was a momentous occasion for Bored Apes, which launched just this year.
• CryptoPunks, meanwhile, launched in 2017 as one of the original NFT collections.

The base price for a Bored Ape Yacht Club non-fungible token topped the one for CryptoPunks for the first time, according to research from the Block.

On Wednesday, the lowest price for a Bored Ape was 53.9 ether, or $215,350, compared to 52.69 ether, or $210,515, for a CryptoPunk, the Block said, noting that's the first time the newer NFT collection surpassed the foundational CryptoPunks.

By Thursday, however, it appeared CryptoPunks once again scored the higher going price.

Still, the brief flip was momentous for the Bored Ape Yacht Club, a collection of 10,000 NFTs that was launched just this year. CryptoPunks on the other hand is considered one of the original NFT collections and came out in 2017. Also numbering 10,000, the collection "launched an NFT revolution," according to one Wired article, which reported the Punks sold out within 24 hours after initially going unnoticed.

According to data from the Block Crypto, the floor price for a Bored Ape has been slowly rising over the course of this year and catching up to that of CryptoPunks, which has steadily declined.

The price flip, CoinTelegraph said, is likely due to factors like Bored Ape owners having the full commercial license to their NFTs, while owners of CryptoPunks do not.

On top of that, Bored Apes have gotten buy-in from celebrities and athletes, like NBA superstar Stephen Curry, who bought one for $180,000 and made it his Twitter profile picture. Snoop Dogg did the same. The club has also teamed up with the likes of a major label, Universal Music, and sports brand Adidas.

NFT sales have soared in 2021 and are expected to reach $17.7 billion by year end, according to research from CoinTelegraph.