Yuga Labs, the company behind the popular Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), has recently completed the burning of nearly $1 million worth of Ethereum gaming NFTs related to the crypto game HV-MTL. This decision was made after Yuga Labs sold its gaming IPs to blockchain gaming studio Faraway, with HV-MTL being one of them. Upon taking charge, Faraway requested that Yuga Labs burn the HV-MTL NFTs it held, effectively reducing the total supply.
Burning crypto assets involves sending them to an address where they cannot be retrieved, effectively rendering them useless. In this case, Yuga Labs burned a total of 4,295 HV-MTL NFTs, accounting for 14% of the total supply. The aim behind this burn was to boost the collection’s price by reducing the overall supply.
As news of the acquisition broke, the floor price of HV-MTL dropped by 16% with a significant increase in trade volume. However, as Yuga Labs burned their owned NFTs, the floor price experienced a 31% jump to 0.064 ETH. Despite this increase, it is still significantly lower than the collection’s all-time high price of 2.069 ETH in March 2023.
HV-MTL Forge is a crafting game where players create habitats and maintain the health of their HV mechs. In order to play the game, players must own an HV-MTL NFT. While non-holders may have the opportunity to try a limited version of the game, it is currently not publicly available.
With Faraway now in control of HV-MTL, the game is expected to undergo some changes. Their immediate goal is to provide as much utility as possible to the primary NFTs in the collection. They have already introduced a new points system that allows players to earn rewards through new activations with interoperability across the Faraway network.
Overall, the burning of these HV-MTL NFTs is seen as a strategic move to potentially increase the value of the remaining NFTs in the collection.