SEC’s Investing Yuga Labs, The Startup Behind Bored Apes NFT’s

Are NFT’s securities? That’s the big question that the SEC is trying to answer in their rumored investigation of Yuga Labs, the company behind Bored Apes. It’s something that a lot of crypto insiders have been wondering aloud amongst themselves for the past few months—between ApeCoin and their metaverse land sale that netted them $320 million, there’s a lot that Yuga Labs does that doesn’t seem like it passes the Howey test. 

Yuga Labs is probably one of the biggest NFT companies in the crypto space. The company raised $450 million led by Andreessen Horowitz at a $4 billion valuation in March of this year. 

Apple Card To Add High Yield Savings

I’ve always been a fan of high yield savings products (to an extent, I also think every consumer fintech app adding high yield savings products is overkill too.) But adding it into Apple’s burgeoning financial services ecosystem makes a ton of sense. 

Firstly, there are a ton of Apple Card users, and a ton of money being sent back to customers in the form of Apple Cash Rewards. Secondly, having literal cash sit in a rewards account not accruing anything seems kinda dumb. Lastly, it’s also the right time to roll this out—the Fed has been increasing rates on a steady pace and that doesn’t seem to be changing anytime soon. 

The savings product is powered by Goldman Sachs, which is testament to how Apple continues to partner with banks like Goldman to handle actual financial operations and products, keeping them out of the purview of regulators. Apple’s rumored to be building financial infrastructure in-house to power the Apple Card and their other digital finance products, but keeping GS as a partner for something like high yield savings makes a ton of sense.