Yuga Labs launched Mudwater on October 17, introducing a physical trading-card collection paired with digital assets on the Solana blockchain and opening claims to holders of Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) non-fungible tokens.

The collection combines physical collectibles with blockchain-based ownership. Eligible NFT holders can claim digital trading-card packs through a system that connects Ethereum-based assets with Solana, adding another layer of utility for existing Bored Ape communities while establishing a marketplace for trading the collection's digital components. For Yuga Labs — the studio behind the ape collections and one of the most prominent companies in the NFT sector — the release extends brands built on Ethereum into a Solana-based product.

Different Pack Allocations for Ape Holders

According to the official claim website, each BAYC NFT qualifies for 10 packs, while each MAYC NFT qualifies for two. Every pack contains 10 cards, and the overall supply is fixed at 240,000 packs distributed across 10,000 boxes — a capped issuance that works out to 24 packs per box.

The Bored Ape Yacht Club account said it had distributed a 6551 Totem associated with each eligible BAYC and MAYC NFT to facilitate the claims. Separate collections for totems, packs and individual cards were listed on OpenSea, a major NFT marketplace, allowing users to trade the digital assets independently.

Marketplace data reported at approximately 4 p.m. Eastern Time on October 21 showed 78.3 ether (ETH) in cumulative trading volume for packs and27.4 ETH for cards. At that time, OpenSea had indexed 14,729 pack NFTs and 53,960 card NFTs. The reported trading volumes were denominated in ETH, while the marketplace's floor prices — the lowest listed asking prices — were quoted in SOL, Solana's native cryptocurrency.

Ethereum Wallets Connect to Sol Claims

The claim process requires users to connect an Ethereum wallet to verify eligibility. The entitlement mechanism, however, differs from a conventional airdrop that transfers assets directly into a holder's regular wallet.

Yuga Labs' vice president of blockchain, known as Quit, explained that each totem resides in an ERC-6551 token-bound account — a standard that gives individual NFTs their own on-chain accounts — associated with the exclusive delegate of an ape NFT. This arrangement ties the unclaimed packs to the underlying NFT and its delegation settings. As a result, selling an ape NFT or changing its delegate transfers the associated unclaimed pack entitlement along with the asset or its delegation, making ownership and delegation status central to the claim process.

Holders who prefer not to initiate claims from a cold wallet can use Delegate.xyz's Shadow delegation feature to assign claim rights to another wallet, according to Quit.

When a claim is processed, the system burns the totem and sends a message through Chainlink's Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) to Solana. Quit estimated that delivery would take about 20 minutes before the packs became available in the user's Solana wallet.

The Bored Ape Yacht Club account announced the drop on X:

Mudwater is an old game played deep in the Everglades. Instead of dice in alleys, we play Mudwater on the docks. The game is simple, but the skill ceiling is high. And we play for keeps. We’ve just airdropped this 6551 Totem, paired to all BAYC & MAYC, enabling pack claims.

— Bored Ape Yacht Club (@BoredApeYC) October 17, 2026

https://x.com/BoredApeYC/status/2111600804616397254?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Physical Card Redemption Still Pending

Digital packs can already be opened on-chain, according to Quit, but the process for converting digital assets into physical cards has not yet launched. The Mudwater website describes tokens backed by physical cards held in a vault, although conversion between physical and digital cards remains listed as forthcoming. The ability to combine 24-pack tokens into a sealed box, or 10-box tokens into a case, is also marked as a future feature.

The website also outlines the fees attached to NFT transactions. Trades incur a 2.5% charge used to purchase APE tokens — the token associated with the Bored Ape ecosystem — for holders in proportion to their holdings, alongside a separate 2.5% royalty.

Claim Deadline Set for January 2027

Eligible holders have until 7 p.m. Eastern Time on January 18, 2027, to claim their packs, according to the official claim page — a window of roughly three months from launch.

The project's early trading activity offers an initial indication of marketplace participation, although the available figures do not establish how many eligible holders have claimed their allocations or how much of the fixed supply has entered circulation. Mudwater's broader performance will depend on demand for its digital cards, the development of its physical redemption system and the level of sustained trading activity among collectors. The collection's cross-chain design also makes the reliability of its Ethereum-to-Solana claim process an important part of the user experience.

Source: CoinTrust