Yuga Labs has abandoned the Dutch auction for the Otherside NFT metaverse in favour of selling tokens at a fixed price. The developers have also moved the project’s launch to May 1 at 04:00 (MSK/Kiev).
Also, we’ve heard from the community that we should allot more time for users to set pre-approval for ApeCoin. So starting at 9am ET on 4/30, users will be able to do this. The actual sale will not begin until 9pm ET, a full 12 hours later.
— OthersideMeta (@OthersideMeta) April 29, 2022
“In fact, Dutch auctions are a load of nonsense, so Otherdeeds will be sold at a fixed price of 305 ApeCoin,” the developers wrote.
Following the announcement, ApeCoin (APE) hit an all-time high at $26.70, according to CoinGecko. At the time of writing the asset was trading near $22 — at that price the virtual land in Otherside is valued at more than $6,700 per parcel.
Originally, it was planned that the metaverse NFT would be distributed through a Dutch auction.
Mint will be Dutch auction style, so the ApeCoin price will decline over time. The starting price of the Dutch auction will be announced later this week.
— OthersideMeta (@OthersideMeta) April 25, 2022
However, in a later post, the developers noted that this procedure is not sufficiently effective.
“They [Dutch NFT auctions] are not successful intermediaries, not curbing gas wars during highly anticipated mintings,” clarified Yuga Labs.
The company stressed that this creates problems, as the Otherside launch could become “one of the largest and most sought-after” launches in NFT history.
A total of 55,000 Otherdeeds will be sold. To acquire the tokens, users must undergo KYC. The project team also imposed a cap on the number of tokens available for purchase — 2 NFTs per address.
The delay in the sale time was explained by the developers as an attempt to give users the opportunity to set up pre-approval for APE transactions in wallets.
In April 2022, an unknown hacked the Instagram account of the Bored Ape Yacht Club project to steal followers’ assets. According to PeckShield, the hacker’s haul consisted of approximately 765.3 ETH and 91 NFTs.