Yuga Labs Launches Mudwater Trading Cards on Solana as BAYC and MAYC Claims Open

Yuga Labs launched Mudwater, a physical and digital trading card collection built on Bored Ape Yacht Club art, on Solana on October 17, 2026 at 23:35 UTC. BAYC holders can claim 10 packs each and Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) holders two, with claims open through January 19, 2027, according to the launch announcement.

The drop is Yuga Labs’ first collection on Solana and lands while the broader NFT market is still absorbing a sharp pullback in trading volumes. It also marks the first time the company has put a BAYC-linked product’s tradable assets on a chain other than Ethereum. The first set, Swamp Origins, spans 120 artworks and a fixed supply of 240,000 packs, most of them free to claim for existing ape holders.

What the Swamp Origins Set Includes

Mudwater’s first set contains 120 Bored Ape art pieces, with foil, serialized and “cracked-ice” variants layered on top of the standard cards. Each pack holds 10 cards, 24 packs form a box, and 10 boxes make a case, for a fixed supply of 10,000 boxes. Yuga Labs splits those boxes four ways: 7,134 boxes (71.34%) for a community airdrop to ape holders, 2,000 (20%) as a commercial reserve, 566 (5.66%) for community onboarding, and 300 (3%) for partner communities.

Each card exists twice, as a Solana NFT and as a printed card, in what the company describes as a way of collecting BAYC art physically while keeping it rooted on a blockchain. The physical run is printed by Orange Cap Games. BAYC itself is an Ethereum brand: the apes, the ApeCoin token and the Totem used to claim packs all sit on Ethereum, while the cards and the market for trading them run on Solana.

How BAYC and MAYC Holders Claim Packs

Claims run through a Totem, an ERC-6551 token-bound account that Yuga Labs said it airdropped to BAYC and MAYC holders. Each Bored Ape unlocks 10 packs and each Mutant Ape two, and serialized packs are awarded at random 30 days after the initial claim.

Holders connect an Ethereum wallet to the official Mudwater claim page to check their Totems and redeem packs, with the window closing at 00:00 UTC on January 19, 2027. Totems, packs and cards all trade on OpenSea.

The 2.5% ApeCoin Reflection and What Remains Unsettled

Mudwater ties the Solana collection back to Ethereum through a fee mechanic. Every trade of a Mudwater NFT carries a 2.5% “reflection” on top of a 2.5% royalty. That reflection is used to buy ApeCoin (APE), which is then distributed to collectors in proportion to how much of the Mudwater collection they hold, so activity on Solana feeds demand back into the Ethereum-based token.

Several details remain unconfirmed. The official site lists conversion between the physical and digital cards as “coming soon,” and Yuga Labs has not yet named who stores the printed cards or how a holder would take delivery. No source has measured trading volume on the new collections, so the size of the APE reflection is still unknown. The launch also arrives against a difficult backdrop for NFTs, as marketplace volumes have collapsed and one major venue is winding down its website.