The blockchain company behind some of the biggest NFT collections like Bored Ape Yacht Club and CryptoPunks, Yuga Labs, has acquired a provider of web3 tokenization, Tokenproof. Together, the integration hopes to integrate crypto and NFT accessibility with the help of both companies.
Founder and CEO of Tokenproof Fonz O announced the acquisition on X (former Twitter) on December 3. Part of the Tokenproof team will join Yuga Labs’ research and development division, The Workshop, he revealed.
Yuga Labs Builds on Long Partnership with Tokenproof Integration
With our long partnership history, this transition will be easy.” This is a great outcome for everyone and I can’t wait to watch our team have success at Yuga Labs,” Fonz O concluded. The history of collaboration between Tokenproof and Yuga Labs goes back to 2022.
“While I will not be transitioning to Yuga Labs, I am not leaving this space. I have an unwavering commitment to web3, and I’m looking forward to continuing to hang out and attending ApeFest as an ape again,” he wrote.
In this sense, Tokenproof was derived from the ApeFest by Yuga Labs, a platform intended to verify NFT owners’ real world identity, according to Fonz O.Yuga Labs did not purchase Fonz O, but he pledged to continue working in crypto and NFT arenas, as he quipped that acquisition price speculation ranged from “a subway footlong to Elon Musks net worth.”
Co founder and CEO Greg Solano said Yuga Labs were ‘excited’ about the acquisition and ‘look forward’ to a long standing partnership. “We took on a bunch of challenging problems together with Tokenproof so that your monkey jpeg would be safe and efficient enough to get you to a festival across the world,” Solano added.
The hope is that the integration will help open up space for innovative projects that could make NFTs and crypto more generally more accessible to wider audiences, he added.The steps come as Labs undergoes company restructuring, including layoffs announced in April 2024 to refocus the company on its core priorities.
The acquisition of Tokenproof is in line with Labs’ focus to innovate and stake a claim on what is shaping up as blockchain’s new landscapeWhen Tokenproof becomes integrated into The Workshop, we anticipate that those developments in NFT tokenization and use cases in the physical world will all come faster – and cement YugaF Labs’ position as one of the cornerstones in the web3 space.
