Mudwater on Whatnot: Europe Left Out of Opening Night

At midnight my time I tuned in, full of anticipation. The Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) launched its first live show for Mudwater, the club’s own trading card game, on the US platform Whatnot, hosted by Yuga Labs CEO Michael Figge. The title of the show: “$100k Bounty – Mudwater Opening Night”. I hold a Bored Ape myself and have collected Pokémon cards for years. After two hours, there was exactly one thing I could do: chat.

Key takeaways

• The first Mudwater show ran on Friday, November 6, 2026, from 3 to 5 PM Pacific time, which is midnight to 2 AM in Germany. Further shows follow every Monday, Wednesday and Friday in the same slot.
• Viewers in Germany saw “Not deliverable to you”, “Item not available” and “Giveaway U.S. only” in the app. Whatnot cites new customs rules for parcels arriving in Germany.
• Packs sold in the show for roughly $150 to over $200, with a top bid of $234. A booster of the new Cyberpunk TCG costs about $5 according to the publisher.
• The “$100k Bounty” in the title is a private bounty by collector Adam Weitsman on the first 1/1 card pulled. According to the Bored Ape Gazette, such a card was already pulled on October 29.
• Holders in Europe need their own shows at European hours with shipping from within the EU. Platforms like SLABHIT show how that works.

What I saw in the show

The show ran on the club’s verified brand account. The viewer count moved between roughly 125 and 194, according to the counter in the app. In the chat, almost everyone knew each other: mods, long-time holders, inside jokes. It was a great party for those who were already there.

Watching from Germany, I hit the same wall at every turn:

• Bidding: Every auction showed “Not deliverable” and “Item not available”. When I tapped “Why can’t I bid?”, the app answered that due to new customs rules for parcels arriving in Germany, shipping from the US is currently restricted.
• Shop: The “Mudwater Pack” was listed with 40 units from $20, shipped from the United States, next to a red label: “Not deliverable to you.”
• Giveaways: The shop announced two giveaways, one of them for buyers only. The third giveaway of the night carried the button “Giveaway U.S. only”.
• Customs: When I joined the show, the app warned in capital letters that additional customs duties apply. I still could not buy anything.

What remained was the chat. When people asked, the friendly answer was: sorry.

The Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) had announced the shows on X the day before, with fixed slots three times a week:

$100,000 in the title: who gets it?

“$100k Bounty” reads like a promise to everyone watching: join in, and you have a shot at a piece of it. In fact, something else is behind it. On October 24, collector Adam Weitsman, a member of the club’s board since July, announced on X a $100,000 bounty for the first 1/1 card pulled, one of the eight unique cards in the set. That is how the Bored Ape Gazette, the club’s community magazine, reported it.

Five days later, the same Gazette reported that holder Jay Bleezie had pulled the first 1/1 card from a physical pack: number 49, “Good Boy Gary”. Whether he sold it to Weitsman and whether the bounty was paid out is not public. The show title does not say. Nor does it say that viewers outside the US cannot win a pack or a giveaway.

Legally, this is probably hard to challenge: a private bounty is not a sweepstakes, and no holder is entitled to bid in every show. I still do not think it is fair. Anyone who puts a six-figure sum in a show title raises expectations, and part of the audience cannot meet them from the start.

Weitsman had confirmed the bounty himself on X almost two weeks before the show:

Over $200 for a pack

A Mudwater pack contains ten cards. In total there are 10,000 boxes with 24 packs each, so 240,000 packs. In the show, single packs went for these prices:

Later in the night packs also went for around $150, and bids got smaller towards the end.

For comparison: at the end of October, packs traded on OpenSea for about 0.94 SOL, roughly $95, according to the Bored Ape Gazette. On eBay, sealed packs listed between $77.67 and $129 on November 5. Which NFT marketplaces exist and what they charge is covered in our NFT marketplace comparison. A booster of the new Cyberpunk TCG costs about $5 according to the publisher (a 24-pack display for $119.90), and a Pokémon booster usually sells for 6 to 8 euros in German stores.

To me, $200 and more for ten cards is a price driven mostly by the show and the bounty, not by the game. Newcomers pay a multiple of what the rest of the card market charges.

What it would cost buyers in Germany

Even if shipping were enabled, a lot would come on top of the bid. Since July 1, 2026, the EU has charged a flat customs duty of 3 euros per item on parcels under 150 euros, replacing the former 150-euro duty exemption. On top come 19 percent German import VAT on goods and shipping, the carrier’s handling fee and international shipping from the US.

An example with the sold pack #12: on 182.58 euros, import VAT alone comes to about 35 euros, before shipping and fees. With a cheap pack it is the other way round: shipping, tax and fees quickly cost more than the cards themselves. My feeling from that night: before you have paid for your first pack, you are looking at something like 100 euros in extra costs.

A big brand in front of 167 followers

The Bored Ape Yacht Club is one of the best-known brands in crypto. According to CoinGecko, there are 9,998 Bored Apes, 19,571 Mutant Apes and 47,221 Otherdeeds, and the Bored Apes alone sit in 5,668 wallets. The club’s Whatnot account had 167 followers on show night, and Michael Figge’s account had 4 followers and an empty shop.

At the same time, the trading card market is huge. Pokémon alone printed about 10 billion cards in the fiscal year to March 2026, more than 85 billion in total. One Piece, Magic and new games like Cyberpunk TCG are growing alongside. Mudwater has what it takes to reach collectors beyond the crypto bubble. A show at midnight German time that shuts out Europe mainly reaches those who are already in.

Second-class owners

I am not writing this as an outsider. When we took over the club’s BMW Apecar, I was asked what I planned to do with it. My answer: show the car at Gamescom, promote the club there with booths and games, and move into trading card games together, because they are huge in Germany. I have seen at Gamescom how big the trading card area has become. We also said that we were working on a live commerce platform for trading cards, because Pokémon is our home turf.

Today the club launches its card game without us, and live on a US platform that does not deliver to holders in Germany. The Apecar, which the club itself celebrated as part of its history, does not appear on any Mudwater card as far as I know.

I draw two conclusions. First: I now share ideas and plans with big brands more carefully. Second, and more important: as a European holder, you keep feeling like a second-class owner at Yuga Labs. There is the community where all Apes are equal, and there are the nights when part of it can only watch. A separate first-hand account of the Apecar will follow in the coming days.

I have contacted the people in charge directly. If they respond, we will add their answer here.

What holders in Europe need

The solution is obvious, and it is not complicated:

• Shows at European hours, in the evening instead of at midnight.
• Appearances where collectors are, such as Gamescom, with booths, game sessions and the Apecar.
• Shipping from within the EU, duties paid, without surprises at the door.
• Giveaways for all holders where the law allows it, or clearly labeled where it does not.
• Co-branding with European platforms that already master live shopping for trading cards.

One such platform is SLABHIT, a live auction platform for trading cards from Germany. You can bid in the browser on any device and in the iPhone app, with the Android app coming soon. Pokémon, One Piece and other games are traded there, with shows at German hours and shipping within the EU. A Mudwater show for European Apes could be set up there in an evening.

Disclosure: SLABHIT belongs to the group of companies of Cryptoticker founder Dennis Weidner. The author holds a Bored Ape, and Cryptoticker took over the BMW Apecar in 2025.

How Mudwater works, what is in the set and how holders claim their free packs is covered in our Mudwater guide and our Mudwater claim guide. Digital packs sit in a Solana wallet, and larger holdings belong on your own hardware wallet.