Yuga Labs, the web3 company behind the Bored Ape Yacht Club, disrupted the entire Ethereum blockchain as a flood of users rushed to purchase NFTs representing virtual plots of land in its upcoming metaverse project, Otherside. A total of 55,000 Otherdeeds sold at a flat price of 305 ApeCoin, or around $5,800 at the time of purchase (via CoinTelegraph), raising about $320 million in what was considered the “largest NFT mint in history.”

Otherdeeds are minted in BAYC’s native ApeCoin, but still require Ethereum for gas fees. The cost of a transaction on Ethereum’s blockchain is called a gas fee. As the network becomes more busy, fees will rise as it takes more time to process transactions.

The Otherdeed mint saw a huge volume of transactions, which caused gas fees to skyrocket. As noted by CoinTelegraph, Reddit user u/johnfintech pointed out that some buyers shelled out anywhere from 2.6 ETH ($6,500) to 5 ETH ($14,000) in gas fees alone — more than the cost of an Otherdeed NFT (and in some cases, more than twice the cost). By the time the virtual land deeds sold out, buyers paid a total of about $123 million just to execute their transactions on the Ethereum blockchain (via Bloomberg).

Yuga Labs issued an apology on Twitter shortly after the mint ended. Yuga Labs stated that they were sorry to have turned off the lights on Ethereum temporarily. ApeCoin will have to migrate to its own blockchain in order to scale properly. “It seems obvious. We encourage the DAO[decentralized autonomous organization] to think in this direction. The ApeCoin Digital Asset Office (DAO), is the entity that makes decisions within the ApeCoin community. It exists separate from Yuga Labs. The DAO’s decisions are carried out by the Ape Foundation’s Board, consisting of Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, Animoca co-founder Yat Siu, and others.

The disruption slowed transactions on Ethereum-linked services, like Uniswap, and caused the Ethereum transaction tracker, Etherscan, to crash. A number of users also reported losing thousands of dollars to gas fees in failed transactions. Yuga Labs promised to reimburse users for the gas fees associated with failed transactions, but it’s unclear what the refund process will look like. The Verge contacted Yuga Labs for comment, but they didn’t respond immediately.

As outlined in a post days before the mint, Yuga Lab’s original goal was to avoid an “apocalyptic” gas war, or a sudden spike in gas fees due to high demand. It stated that it would abandon the Dutch auction method of minting. This involves an NFT being sold at a fixed price, and then gradually lowered over time. Instead, it used

to sell NFTs at a flat rate and allow for more mints over time.

Rather than resorting to a faux Dutch Auction, the Otherdeed mint will employ the following mechanic: the sale price will remain flat for the duration, and at the start of the sale, there will be an intentionally low per-wallet limit on the number of NFTs that may be minted (note, this is not “minted at once,” but “minted in total”). After the first wave of low-gas transactions has been submitted and the network calms down, the wallet-level limit for minting will be raised to allow for a second wave. Those who are satisfied will not mint, but those with more ApeCoin will.

The mess of a mint prompted some users to propose ways to improve the process in the future. Will Papper, the co-founder of Syndicate DAO, a platform that lets users create web3 investment clubs, suggested that Yuga Labs optimize its contracts to lower gas fees and adjust its mint mechanism.

In March, Yuga Labs raised $450 million in funding to build the Otherside, a decentralized metaverse with elements of gamification. While it’s supposed to encompass Yuga Lab’s NFT brands, such as the newly-acquired CryptoPunks and Meebits, the company has goals to extend support to NFTs from other entities. A lot is still unknown about the prospective Otherside, but that clearly hasn’t stopped its enthusiastic community from investing in the project.