ETH gas price surges as Yuga Labs cashes in $300M selling Otherside NFTs

cointelegraph.com:

While the community was witness to the largest NFT mint yet, Ethereum (ETH) gas prices rose to unprecedented levels, in addition to users experiencing failed transactions due to blockchain bottlenecks.

Bored Ape Yacht Club creator Yuga Labs launched a sale of Otherdeed non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that represents digital land deeds on their new venture, the Otherside metaverse. With each piece of land selling at 305 ApeCoin (APE) or nearly $5,800 at the time of the sale, Yuga Labs made $319 million after 55,000 NFTs sold out almost instantly.

The Otherdeed NFT mint is sold out - we are awestruck at the demand shown tonight. Apes and Mutants, the opening of the 21-day claim period is being delayed until the price of gas drops to reasonable levels. We’ll tweet when the claim opens. https://t.co/iRz64lklbv

While the Otherdeed NFTs could be minted only in APE, it also required ETH for gas fees. The minting mechanics set by Yuga Labs envisioned the sale of NFTs in phases while anticipating a momentary rise in gas prices, which would then decelerate the number of users minting the NFTs:

The above screenshot was shared by Redditor u/jeux99 sharing their experience on high gas fees at the time, asking:

As rightly pointed out by another Redditor, u/johnfintech, Etherscan data shows that numerous users paid anywhere between 2.6 ETH ($6500) to 5 ETH ($14000) as gas fees.

Citing some of the issues related to using Ether during its NFT launch, Yuga Labs stated:

For those that lost their ETH holdings in gas due to failed transactions, Yuga Labs has promised to refund the gas amount back to the users.

Related: Vitalik Buterin proposes calldata limit per block to lower ETH gas costs

Ethereum’s infamous gas fees have been a long-standing concern