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In buying Bored Apes, there are 2 categories:

1st - an ape that represents you, this is avatar-worthy BAYC.

2nd - Just another ape in your collection (your 2nd, 3rd, or a floor ape for your speculation/art collection purpose.

Your approach to buy BAYC in these 2 categories should be very different.

Let take this Bored Ape #2153 for example.

This ape is offered Jul-12, 2026 for 14 ETH by machi and has since never moved the Ask.

There are Bidders laddered up from 9.44 ETH ($17.2K as of today) to start with by Wuestenigel up to 13.4 ETH ($24.5K) by stoptrying.

I think the final buyer, 234e8, made the right call to buy the BAYC outright, instead of making another bid at 13 ETH or something to try to buy the ape cheap.

Bored Ape Yacht Club is a significant investment. Optimally we want to buy apes at lowest price possible. However, lets look at the seller in this case:

- Buy the ape at 180 ETH (Apr-2022) vs 100 ETH floor for a whooping 80% premium vs floor.
- List the ape at 36 ETH (May-2026), 80% discount vs acquisition price.
- From USD perspective: The person bought at $526K and offer at $75.9K, a 85% discount on USD-term.
- The seller was incredibly active last 2 months, adjust the price bit by bit, never take the ape off shelf, regardless of a lot of movements in the market since new ceo announcement till now.

Vs this type of seller, if you really like the APE, and if the price is close enough, you should buy the ape outright.

How fair is the Ask in current price regime? Arguably, this ape is probably the best looking ape on its Ask price down to floor price-band. Nothing from 14 ETH and less is as good looking as this ape. Similar good looking apes are traded around 11-13 ETH. So arguably, fair value based on comparable point to top-end of that band, 13 ETH, as the benchmark for fair value, and the Ask at the premium on top.

14 ETH vs 13 ETH is about 7.6% premium vs fair value.

Now the question is: if you like the ape and with an ape at this caliber: avatar-worthy, representative for you is in the market, with spacesuit, double bored, would you trade off this 7% premium for a fair-value buy at 13 ETH or you buy it at +7% premium for 14 ETH?

In my view, it is always a buying outright call at this situation.

People truly underestimate how hard it is to find a BAYC that you really like and can represent you.

Yes BAYC has 10,000 NFTs, and it is historic. But a meaningful chunk of it is ugly looking apes like crazy eyes that serve culture/art collection/speculation/inflation-hedge floor-value that you won't find the ape can represent you.

Another reasonable percent of apes are in institutional hands, celebrities and inactive, unknown wallets, and not likely to offload to the market entities that you won't be able to buy at any time soon (by soon I mean 2-3 years to start with).

The amount of apes that in the market and in the move is I think about 30%, or 3K apes, in which 1K ape is actively list and can be a show-list, which price is unrealistic for you to buy unless the floor get materially higher.

So yes, the diagrams that conclude to an avatar-worthy user-represent ape that (1) On the market, (2) At reasonable price vs value, (3) You really like personally - is tighter and much more difficult to come by than people think.

It takes me 6 months to buy my first mutant ape even though I have capital ready for a much longer time. Even so I can only buy a 6/10-score MAYC and I didn't hold it for long. There is other apes that I hunt for in years. And it still goes to other people's hand because I'm not in the communication line to buy or my private bid is not strong enough or beaten by bots.

When a ape like that is gone, it can be years before the ape appears in the market again. You are either looking for: (1) the buyer upgrade her ape, or (2) the buyer is now desperate for money and need liquidity (in many case they can collateralize the ape and take loans).

Meaning, with all of the complexity, an ape like this #2153 when gone, it can be 3-5 years for it to return to the market is not something unusual at all.

Given that, I feel sorry for stoptrying to not buy this ape outright at 14 ETH, instead of the bid at 13 ETH. On USD value, 13 ETH bid on May-24 is $30K. Even larger than transacted price of 14 ETH ($25K today).

0xhotw the first bidder also bid 13 ETH at $24K. The USD value was 1k lower than the $25K transacted value today.

Both of these bidders have no apes in their wallet. The recent buyer has 14 apes. And they are good looking apes. Not as stunning as #2153, but the bid represent a clean ape, not just simply another buy on the collection.

If you buy another ape to increase allocation to BAYC on your portfolio, return is the most important factor. Thus you can be razor thin in transacting apes. A 5% upside opportunity come frequently, 10% upside opportunity comes less frequent but not a 3-5 years wait.

When an ape like you and speaks to you come around, if you miss him/her, it can be a few years wait for a similar opportunity.

How much should we price this emotional and personal aspect? For me personally, I can price 15%+ premium vs fair value.

Yes I know I'm buying it expensive. But so does mostly everyone else out there with apes they truly like.

Taking into account returns is a complicated matter. You buy it expensive, can you wait for ETH floor to rise or USD floor to rise to compensate for the premium? It might decline, too. Thus that's why you can't pay premium and flip it short. You must hold it for a long time so that the digital art / historical NFT collection / inflation hedge - play into your buy.

Fortunately, current price regime is the most favorable for long-term accumulation:
- Apes price after 2024 rarely goes below $25K in USD price.
- In ETH-term, it is 8-9 ETH mark the floor. We are right there.
- In BTC-term, it is about 0.2-0.4x BTC mark the floor. We are also right there.

If you buy something expensive today for the thing that you like, yes you pay 10% premium vs fair value because you like the ape, but the future probably reward you with premium expansion and floor-price appreciation than premium contraction and floor-price depreciation.

Macro is in the buyer's hand right now. You just don't see it yet.

But does it matter if the price is reasonable and within range of a transaction?

Pay the premium, go for the ape you like, if too high, go for an M2 mutant, because you never know when your ape comes circle around or if it is not coming back at all.