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With layoffs and restructuring, can Otherside carry Yuga Labs’ hopes for recovery?

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After many attempts, Otherside, which once had brilliant achievements, has become the focus of Yuga Labs in developing its NFT ecosystem.

On October 18, Yuga Labs CEO Daniel Alegre published a long tweet, indicating that the company's restructuring has been completed.

In this long tweet, Alegre reviewed his six-month journey as CEO of Yuga Labs and pointed out the three core priorities that should be emphasized at the moment, namely supporting the existing community, focusing on Otherside, and maintaining good partnerships. "Although it was difficult, the reorganization has been completed and we are now starting to adjust our focus through the new team configuration."

Previous layoffs attracted attention, and the team called it a better "focus" on the core

On October 6, Yuga Labs issued an announcementsaying that it would conduct a team reorganization to better focus its team on core priorities. Yuga Labs said that the transition plan for departing employees includes generous severance pay, COBRA health insurance coverage, and assistance in finding new job opportunities. Meetings for affected US employees have been scheduled today, and meetings are currently being held with affected employees, their department heads, and the HR team.

In fact, in this layoff, the brands most affected may be 10 KTF under Yuga Labs and Meebits acquired. In the reorganization, the teams of these two NFT projects will become part of Otherside. So it may be considered that this layoff is for the development of Otherside.

Focusing on "Otherside", Yuga Labs' ups and downs in the metaverse

Otherside is a metaverse project under Yuga Labs, carrying Yuga Lasb's grand vision in the field of NFT. In March 2022, Yuga Labs announced a promotional video for its new project "Otherside" on social media. The NFT series featured in the video include famous brands such as Bored Ape Yacht Club and CryptoPunks.

Otherside was officially launched at 0:00 on May 1, Beijing time. The Otherside coin minting activity once caused Etherscan to be inaccessible. According to etherscan data, starting from 9 am on May 1, Beijing time, the gas fee generated by OTHR Token on The Otherside in the past three hours was nearly 40,000 ETH, exceeding 100 million US dollars, accounting for 61% of the gas fee of the entire Ethereum network.

In addition, the transaction volume of Otherdeed NFT, a virtual plot of Otherside, exceeded US$500 million on the second day, and as of May 18, it had exceeded US$900 million.

BlockBeats news, June 20, 2023, according to the on-chain analyst Yu Jin monitoring, Yuga Labs Metaverse project Otherside sold 16.78 million APE on May 1 last year. The land was transferred 2 hours ago.

These 16.78 million APE were worth $335 million when the land was sold on May 1 last year. Today, they are worth $34 million, only 1/10 of that at the time.

Although Otherside's popularity lasted only a few months, it failed to avoid the sluggish trading volume in the Web3 winter like all NFT products. But even when trading volume fell back to just $5 million, Yuga Labs still valued Otherside as a metaverse platform.

On August 29, Eminem and Snoop Dogg performed their famous single "From the D to the LBC" on the metaverse platform Otherside for the MTV Video Music Awards, switching between BAYC and their avatars from time to time.

Not only that, in October last year, Improbable, the development company behind Otherside, carried out a new round of financing of US$111 million (£100 million), with the latest round valuation of US$3.36 billion (£3 billion).

Yuga Labs CEO Daniel Alegre once said in an interview, "It is difficult to build an immersive metaverse platform - both technically and creatively", "From cooperation with Hadean and Big Rhino to the acquisition of Roar Studios. All of this is to accelerate the development of Otherside, so it can become a digital connection and experience platform for our Yuga community and other communities."

On March 26 this year, Yuga Labs announced the launch of the "Otherside: 2nd Trip" event. Voyagers and invited guests need to go to the Infinity Room and prepare to enter the 2nd Trip. In the previous introduction to the event, Yuga Lasb said that this update will introduce new game links and new mechanisms, and provide more gamification options and high-energy entertainment. BAYC, MAYC and Meebits holders can directly use NFT avatars in the game.

On March 27, Gucci announced a partnership with Yuga Labs, which aims to "explore the interaction between fashion and entertainment in the metaverse and expand the interaction between the communities of the two companies." Robert Triefus, senior executive vice president of Gucci and CEO of Gucci Vault and Metaverse Ventures, said that Gucci will play a role in the ongoing narrative of Otherside and 10KTF, and Gucci is expected to participate in Yuga Labs' metaverse game Otherside this week.

On July 31, Yuga Labs announced the acquisition of immersive media experience developer Roar Studios. Roar Studios' team of audio, game, and artificial intelligence engineers are the developers of the immersive media experience ROAR, combining innovative proprietary technology with established MMO games and platform systems.

In addition, Eric Reid, founder and CEO of Roar Studios, will also join Yuga Labs as general manager of its metaverse game Otherside.

On September 20, Yuga Labs announced several strategic partnerships aimed at promoting the development of Otherside, including Hadean, AccelByte, Bad Rhino Studios, and Faraway. Among them, Hadean, a metaverse infrastructure developer, can provide Yuga's platform with optimized technology for high-fidelity virtual experiences. On October 9, Yuga Labs participated in Hadean's new round of financing.

Explore the development of NFT in multiple directions: joint ventures, decryption, games, and documentaries

Before layoffs and reorganization, in addition to Otherside, Yuga Labs has tried as many methods as possible to develop the NFT ecosystem.

On April 26, Yuga Labs launched the "Grailed PUMA Slipstream" NFT series corresponding to physical sports shoes. To qualify for the Grailed PUMA Slipstream Mint Pass, users must hold PUMA Nitro, Gucci Grail, or completed Level 1 or Level 2 10KTF.

On September 5, Yuga Labs announced the launch of the Moon Puzzle, a decryption series based on its Bitcoin NFT series TwelveFold. Starting today, a Moon Puzzle will be released every week for twelve weeks. The first person to solve the problem will receive a reward of 0.12 BTC. The last puzzle, "Sun Puzzle", will be released in the thirteenth week, and its reward will be a Yuga Twelvefold Ordinals work. Participating users need to engrave the answer on satoshis and submit it. There is no threshold for participation.

On September 15, Yuga Labs announced that it would collaborate with design company Zak Group to launch the "Punks As Told By CryptoPunks" documentary series, with the first episode set to air on October 10, 2023.

On September 20, Yuga Labs' LotM game launched the first season of open testing; on the 26th, Yuga Labs' brand "Bored Ape" BAYC announced a partnership with fashion brand BAPE to launch physical products, in order to warm up for this year's biggest community event - the ApeFest 2023 Monkey Festival in Hong Kong.

On April 28 this year, Yuga Labs CEO Daniel Alegre said in an interview with Bloomberg that "NFT still has a bright future because it is the key to the world of games, activities and e-commerce." Yuga Labs' ecological landscape has always been considered large and messy. Perhaps in Daniel's NFT blueprint, Otherside is the ideal platform for NFT to come to life.

In September, Daniel Alegre said in an exclusive interview with BlockBeats, "As a company, you should focus entirely on storytelling and building connections. If you do it well, you can build long-term connections. But we don't look at this from the perspective of NFTs now or NFTs 12 months ago. We see it as a long-term commitment, and we hope to continue to maintain and build this enthusiasm and connection in the years to come."