Apes can't stop getting richer🤑

ApeCoin Deepdive, Instagram 🤝 NFTs, and big banks in the metaverse.

Market summary: 📊

Ethereum is back to being above 3k USD. Last week, around this time, it was hovering around 2.5k USD. We’re getting closer to the merge, i.e, switching from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake. This is being done to improve scalability and reduce energy consumption. On Friday, one of the “test” versions of the merge was successfully completed. This news definitely had a positive impact on the price.

ETH Price: $3,030 (+16.83% WTD)

Top NFT Sale: BAYC #3250 for 250 ETH

BAYC Floor: 100 ETH
CryptoPunks Floor: 72.5 ETH

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🤑 The apes can’t stop getting richer

Bit of a background on the BAYC

Love them or hate them, you can’t ignore them. The apes can’t quit being in the headlines. Within a year of their launch, they flipped the OG 10k pfp collection CryptoPunks to become the most valued collection of all-time, sitting at a floor of 100 ETH (at the time of writing). The cartoon monkeys are everywhere, from the wallets of people gambling from their mom’s basements to the wallets of mainstream celebrities*. This comes from a collection that had a 0.08 ETH price and took a week to sell out back in April 2021.

*Known celebrities holding BAYC: Eminem, Gwyneth Paltrow, Snoop Dogg, Mark Cuban, Post Malone, Stephen Curry, Paris Hilton, Jimmy Fallon, and Serena Williams, Shaquille O'Neal

Quick recap of the ‘Year of the Apes’

April 2021: The Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection is launched by Yuga Labs, an entity founded by four friends. The collection takes a week to sell out.

June 2021: BAYC holders get to mint a dog companion for their ape for free. BAKC (Bored Ape Kennel Club) is a 10k collection which sits at a floor of 7.8 ETH.

August 2021: BAYC holders get a serum for free. On exposing their ape to the serum, they get a mutated version of it. Further, 10,000 Mutant Apes are sold to the public for 3 ETH each. MAYC is a 20k collection which sits at a floor of 21.5 ETH.

December 2021: BAYC flips CryptoPunks to become the most valued 10k NFT collection.

March 2022: Yuga Labs acquire CryptoPunks and Meebits collections from Larva Labs. The amount remains undisclosed but rumours say it’s north of $200 million. Following the acquisition, Yuga gives commercial rights of the Punks & Meebits to their respective holders.

This brings us to the launch of ApeCoin that happened last week.

Understanding ApeCoin

1/ What’s the supply & distribution?

Total supply of $APE is permanently fixed at 1 billion.

• 62% is allocated to the DAO treasury & resources, out of which 15% went to holders of BAYC & MAYC

• 16% to Yuga Labs (1% of was donated to the Jane Goodall Institute)

• An extra 8% to the four founders of Yuga Labs

• 14% to companies and people that helped with $APE

You can see the full breakdown and unlock schedule here.

How many tokens did the holders get?

• ​​Bored Ape: 10,094 tokens

• Mutant Ape: 2,042 tokens

• Bored Ape + Kennel Club: 10,950 tokens

• Mutant Ape + Kennel Club: 2,898 tokens

2/ Who’s governing $APE?

Technically, Yuga Labs can’t launch ApeCoin due to Uncle Sam’s rules & regulations. So, the token is owned & operated by ApeCoin DAO, of which Ape Foundation is the legal steward. Yuga put their heart & soul into marketing this fact and distancing themselves from $APE.

Five members sit on the board of Ape Foundation right now: Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian, VC Maaria Bajwa, FTX investor Amy Wu, Animoca Brands co-founder Yat Siu, and Horizen Labs Prez Dean Steinbeck. After six months, the community gets to appoint the board members annually.

3/ Where can I buy $APE?

The token was available on all major exchanges within a few hours of launching. Think Coinbase, FTX, Gemini, Binance, and more. Here’s the contract address.

4/ What can I do with $APE?

As of this moment, mostly speculate and become a part of the ApeCoin DAO. However, from here on, ApeCoin will serve as the native currency of the Bored Ape ecosystem. Animoca Brands announced that their blockchain game Benji Bananas has implemented $APE as the in-game currency.

5/ Please don’t buy the wrong ApeCoin

Don’t give into FOMO and ape into the wrong coins. Following the news of the $APE launch, the wrong ‘ApeCoin’ was up 150% for the day and then came right back down. Here’s the chart👇

Disclaimer: I am not a part of the Bored Ape Ecosystem.

🦍 Other Bored Ape News

👋 See you on the Otherside. Yuga Labs dropped a teaser trailer for a new project called Otherside. It looks like a land-based metaverse project. A leaked presentation earlier did inform us that Yuga is planning a $200 million land sale in the metaverse. You’ll most likely need $APE to get that land. The teaser also featured other notable collections like World of Women, CrypToadz, Nouns, Meebits, CryptoPunks, and Cool Cats.

Yuga Labs @yugalabs

See you on the Otherside in April. Powered by @apecoin

🍌Hollywood’s going bananas! One of the big four agencies in Hollywood WME has signed BAYC DJ duo ESCAPΞPLAN for all future bookings. The pseudonymous duo’s identities are represented by their Bored Apes. They have plans to release multiple songs with musician Dillon Francis this year, who recently accepted a Bored Ape as partial payment in a deal with Big Night Entertainment. Also, record label Universal Music Group has purchased an Ape to create a character for its virtual band initiative, Kingship. IP rights usage goes brrrrrr…..

🌮 Eating NFT Nuggets

👀 Instagram is inching closer to NFTs. At SXSW, Mr. Metaverse Mark Zuckerberg announced that Instagram would give people the ability to mint & trade NFTs on the platform. Right now, the primary use case for most NFTs is digital identity & flex. And, Instagram is where the kids flock to flex. The details are awaited. Social media giants YouTube & Twitter have already integrated NFTs in limited capacity.

🏦 Banks wanna be in the metaverse. Global card giant American Express made its move in the metaverse by filing for seven trademark applications linked to virtual services and its Centurion logo. Filings will tell you that Amex wants to do everything in the metaverse. It wants to provide credit cards, travel, concierge services, and a virtual environment for recreation and entertainment. It’s also interested in an NFT marketplace, wallet services, and a trading exchange. Last summer, Amex had offered card members a limited series of 14 NFTs featuring singer SZA.

🤝 HSBC & Paris Hilton partner with The Sandbox. Europe’s second largest bank HSBC became the first global bank to enter The Sandbox metaverse — after purchasing a virtual plot of LAND. It intends to build various esports & gaming activities. Crypto enthusiast & celeb Paris Hilton inaugurated her partnership with a special DJ set at this year's SXSW festival. She’s no stranger to the virtual world, having already built Paris World, an island in Roblox that includes replicas of her Beverly Hills home.

👔 Former Disney CEO is on the board of Genies. Bob Iger was the CEO of Disney for 15 years and led acquisitions of Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, and 21st Century Fox. Now he’s on the Board of Directors at Genies - a digital avatar platform built on the Flow blockchain. They recently launched their own NFT marketplace.

🎮 Millenial nostalgia on the blockchain. GameStop, which runs a chain of physical retail stores selling video games & consumer electronics, has made a strong pivot to crypto. It’s planning to launch an NFT marketplace by the end of Q2 2022. Recently, another web2 brand, Limewire, announced its return as an NFT marketplace. Limewire is a defunct file-sharing service which people used for their illegal song downloads in the early 2000s.

🔥 Rarible supports Polygon. NFT marketplace Rarible now supports NFT assets minted on Polygon. Support on the platform already existed for Ethereum, Tezos, and Flow NFTs.

🎶 Music NFTs on Spotify?! Probably too early for that. But, the reason it might as well happen some time in the future is because the Swedish streaming giant is looking to add web3 experts into its workforce, as per recent job openings. 

🏀 Ballers dribbling in web3. Lebron James filed for virtual collectible trademarks this week: “LEBRON JAMES,” “LEBRON,” “CHOSEN1,” and “KING JAMES.” He’s not alone, many other celebrities & brands have done so this year, including another NBA legend Shaq. Also, recently, Steph Curry celebrated his birthday with a special airdrop to his NFT holders. Everyone got a free birthday NFT and 28 NFT holders won surprise trips to go meet him.  

🪂Another airdrop?! Ethereum wallet MetaMask is forming a DAO and intends to launch a token. It has over 30 million monthly active users, a 42% increase in the last four months. Rumors suggest that USD → ETH swaps make you eligible for the airdrop. Metamask has been developed by ConsenSys, which is a web3 consulting firm and builder of various Ethereum products such as Infura. It recently raised a monstrous $450 million Series D round from ParaFi Capital, Microsoft and others — doubling valuation to $7 billion. It plans on using the funds to launch a few more products supporting the boom in NFTs, and grow existing products. 

📚 Balaji’s Book NFT. Don’t call yourself a cryptotwitter scroller unless you know Balaji. Jokes aside, Balaji is an investor & entrepreneur who formerly served as the CTO of Coinbase. He announced his new book The Network State on Twitter and has hinted on a commemorative NFT. Head over to this tweet if you’re interested.

🔥Upcoming mint I’m excited about

Sprite Club: I’ve been a part of the Sprite Club community for a while now and was whitelisted thanks to my sister who created fan art for the project (typo in the tweet, she’s 14). It’s an artist-led project with a collection size of 7.7k NFTs. Sprites are a tight-knit community who have come together over a long time. The growth’s been completely organic. Even during the bull market when collections were getting sold out at exorbitant mint prices, Sprite Club chose a mint price of 0.07 ETH which goes on to show that they are here for the long-term. The minting process is going to be unique. There are 5 distinct classes of Sprites and what you get will be on the basis of a personality quiz, which is likely to make you more attached to your NFT. The Sprites are available for mint on 26th March.

Disclaimer: Not financial advice. Do your own research and other boring legal stuff that I’ll add once this newsletter receives traction.

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