DeFi or Decentralized finance is more than just a new financial technology that is re-imagining financial services and infrastructure, it is a movement that has come a very long way since the early days of raising funds via an ICO (Initial coin offering). We are seeing the world of DeFi merging with NFTs via incredibly interesting NFT projects like Charged Particles that bring DeFi functionality to NFTs.

The very idea that financial services could operate and function at a global scale without the traditional financial institutions and middlemen in full control was only a dream not too long ago. Made possible by the rise of blockchain technology and smart contracts, first pioneered by Ethereum, Bitcoin’s super nerdy high tech cousin.

Uniswap has held the top spot for Ethereum based decentralized exchanges with over $8.4 billion in TVL (Total value locked) which is a metric for describing the total assets locked, deposited, stored, sent, lent and provided by a DeFi protocol or exchange.

For those who don’t already understand what a decentralized exchange (DEX) does, essentially, it is a cryptocurrency exchange that allows for direct peer to peer transactions that are both secure and do not require a trusted third party like a bank, stock broker or government institution, that needs to hold custody of your funds to facilitate transactions.

In other words you have to send your funds to a central party like eTrade or Robinhood in order to trade and exchange with other users on those centralized financial exchanges.

Decentralized exchanges reduce the risk of theft from hacking centralized honeypots because the DEX does not hold the funds, the users hold their own funds in wallets they control.

According to glassnode In just 8 months DeFi has attracted over $100 Billion into smart contracts like Uniswap, and of the 2.1 million users who have interacted with Ethereum based DeFi platforms 1.53 million have used Uniswap.

Img Src: https://insights.glassnode.com/defi-uncovered-the-state-of-defi/

Uniswap has been wildly successful since they pioneered automated market makers (AMM) back in November of 2018. They have paved the way to removing the massive dominance and influence of hedge funds as the market makers, exchanges and clearing houses.

The new version 3 upgrade that Uniswap has released is being received with mostly positive signals, depending on who you ask. According to Jordan M. Schuster of Expaaand.com he says “It’s an innovation on one hand, but a complexification on the other.”

As if DeFi was not already confusing and complex for people unfamiliar with this insanely technical space.  Schuster adds” Uniswap is the AMM market leader, but they’re getting a ton of friction from Pancake Swap and BSC which always seems very agile in making the UI more fun and easy to use. Every Ethereum project has a huge hurdle to cover regarding gas fees. Sure the next Layer 2 deployments may offer significantly lower gas fees for a broad range of transactions, but currently it’s a minefield.”

So what are some of the major new features Uniswap is bringing out with V3?

  • Concentrated Liquidity
  • Multiple fee tiers
  • Range Orders
  • Advanced Oracles
  • New Software Licence

You can read the full break down here on Uniswap’s blog

Joseph Crivelli of Cloud Fire Capital, a digital asset hedge fund exclaims “Uniswaps concentrated liquidity upgrade for V3 is one of the most important improvements in all of DeFi” and goes on to state that “ This will legitimize the infrastructure that powers the Defi ecosystem, which will lead to an uptick in institutionalized adoption in this space. We are beyond excited to watch the roll out of V3 and the evolution of the industry as a whole”

Attracting new users is quickly becoming the most important aspect for a DeFi protocol and according to DeFi Llama, Pancake Swap on the Binance Smart Chain is actually ranked number one with the highest Total Value Locked at $9.3 Billion.

This coincides with my interesting conversation with Jordan of Expaaand.com on this subject, who said that “Ultimately Uniswap V3’s success will be measured in relation to Binance Smart Chain, the fact that BSC products are more youthful and engaging to the new oncoming population of crypto enthusiasts (from NFTs to DeFi). There’s starting to be a clear culture divide between the richer westerner OGs who prefer Ethereum products, to younger culture driven apes, who love BSC products.”

There is a conversion of the old financial world and of the new more open decentralized paradigm and it is often reflected in different age groups and the length of exposure to cryptocurrencies. There are many maximalists who believe that only Ethereum based DeFi products really matter, but I can think of 9.3 Billion reasons to say this may be a misplaced notion. As younger generations of “retail” investors, some fueled by the Wallstreet Bets sentiment are moving where there is less friction and at this point in time, that is the Binance Smart Chain, at least until Etherum can get its gas fee problem in order.

The other aspect to this new V3 upgrade to Uniswap is that it does introduce additional options and complexities that will attract more sophisticated users and liquidity, while possibly also pushing the less sophisticated newbies away.  The new features will better incentivize staking activity, which does improve liquidity for Ethereum transactions and “This could be really really helpful for NFTs on a lot of levels” Schuster mentions.

Outside of the new features being released in Uniswap V3, one major talking point is the new Business Source License (BSL) 1.1 for its code, which is attempting to prevent what happened with previous versions of its open source code, where savvy competitors like Sushiswap were able to copy and siphon off a large amount of liquidity from Uniswaps user base.  While competition is healthy in this space, if you go to Uniswap.com you will actually be going to a competing exchange called Sushi swap. You may call this clever genius, funny or even underhanded, you decide.

Uniswap is trying to give their community a head start with its new code base by restricting use for the first two years before the license expires and becomes a GPL 2.0 open-source license.

Speaking with another incredibly intelligent voice in the DeFi space, Allen Henna a DeFi and digital assets consultant shared “It will be interesting to see how Uniswap V3 does with moving into the territory of Curve Finance. That battle will be interesting. I also look forward to seeing how far Uniswap can get out into the market with their new license being forked and new competitors taking them on like what happened with SushiSwap.”

Ultimately, it is yet to be seen how the new license will work in reality. One interesting fact is that the Uniswap community itself can revoke this license or make it expire sooner. There is sentiment in the community that trying to enforce a copyright against anonymous developers will be useless. However, remaining anonymous is incredibly difficult, even if you read Edward Snowden’s books 16 times and take notes.

Uniswap has been a clear leader in this space and this next evolution with V3 will add new functionally, possibilities as well as some complexities, that will all force the rest of the DeFi ecosystem to react. Competition here is great for all of us, as the true winners will be those who learn the ropes of DeFi and ride the wave of a new decentralized financial future.

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Many people in the crypto and NFT space are looking for ways to innovate their philanthropic efforts – from individual artists, to groups to organizations. For instance, in April many artists got together in Club House to sell their NFTs to support a young child battling cancer and were able to raise $60k in one night to go towards medical bills. Rare Pizzas, a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO), are using the funds from their collectible NFT sales to support local pizzerias all over the world by paying them to offset the cost of pizza for the masses. Project Ark has gathered artists to raise money for the World Wildlife Foundation for a project that is rewilding buffalo in the Carpathian Forest in Romania. Leyline, a new nonprofit, is taking the idea of leveraging the blockchain, NFTs, collectibles and gaming for philanthropic efforts to a whole new level.

“We want to do everything we can to eradicate poverty and solve the climate crisis.” says Leyline founder Jeremy Dela Rosa, “…by focusing on the blockchain and NFTs, and bringing gaming and technology into the philanthropic space to innovate.”

Leyline is a membership platform that provides a loyalty program for doing good deeds. The ladder of engagement begins by first taking care of oneself and then scales to larger commitments. To start, Leyline Points (LLPs) can be earned from things like sleeping enough hours or doing some form of exercise. People can claim points for doing small local acts like donating blood, cleaning up a beach or volunteering at a soup kitchen. They can also have a global impact by donating computing power to cancer or climate change research through a partnership Leyline has with the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC). Interestingly, the community is about to break 200k hours in donated computing power. The promotional video below focuses on the BOINC partnership and how members can get involved.

The organization is preparing to integrate an NFT marketplace where creators donate works into a prize pool and members on the platform can use their Leyline Points to collect and trade digital assets. In the coming weeks they will be partnering with influencers and celebrities to raise the visibility of the platform and increase participation. Right now users are able to trade in their points for gift certificates from places like Burger King and Sephora, as well as redeem items from a variety of games like Fortnite and Lost Castle. Leyline is building on Klaytn, which does proof of stake, a more energy efficient blockchain and will make NFTs available on OpenSea. Ultimately, the goal will be to allow members to move their NFTS into different metaverses and operate on different blockchains.

Many of the people on the Leyline team come from some of the biggest video game companies in the world, which is no surprise since founder Jeremy Dela Rosa hails from Blizzard Entertainment, a well-known player in gaming. As a result, expect to see high quality NFT artworks for fans.

Leyline has been gradually building its community, so far it is made up of approximately 1700 people with over 70 volunteers from the crypto, gaming and philanthropic worlds. The core users are in North America and Western Europe with expansion happening in Latin America and Asia. The aspiration is to grow the platform and community with the anticipation that as the crypto/NFT space matures the platform will be positioned to further strengthen an ecosystem that is built on doing good and making a significant social impact around the world.

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Anyone who knows anything about GaryVee probably knows that the Chairman of VaynerX and CEO of VaynerMedia is a savvy and relentless entrepreneur. Despite the technical difficulties that delayed the launch of his first NFT on May 5th, a galvanized community of friends, fans, and followers are eagerly awaiting his “VeeFriends” drop. For 15 years, GaryVee has interacted with, inspired, influenced, and informed hundreds of thousands of people about trends and patterns in consumer behavior. His genesis NFT collection was borne out of the idea that business with friends around common interests can be fun. VeeFriends is an interactive roadmap to create value and access for on-chain communities, with NFT blockchain technology paving the way.

“When you think about what he’s doing, this is going to be the first of its kind–not the first event ticket, but it definitely is the first conference ticket, and what GaryVee is providing outside of that, a community around the access tokens, is something that a lot of people haven’t been thinking of yet,” said Dave Curry, known to the NFT community as Black Dave, an artist and thought leader on the blockchain, decentralized systems, and DeFi. A total of 10,255 tokens will be released, consisting of 9400 admission tokens, 555 gift goats, and 300 access tokens; including many one-of-ones. Each artwork characterizes traits that GaryVee believes in and champions, and rather than simply auctioning off an NFT, every VeeFriends token also includes a smart contract that gives it “utility” through metadata.

“My first thought is that this is genius,” said Ben Lakoff, Co-Founder of Charged Particles, a protocol that allows users to deposit any ERC tokens into any NFT. “GaryVee has a very vibrant community and followers. There’s this new world I see coming, and it’s some confluence of NFTs, social tokens, and people interacting with their fans and communities in new and engaging ways, and I think GaryVee is rolling it all up into something new. It’s fantastic, and I think it’s good for his community as well as the NFT community,” Lakoff remarked. VeeFriends tokens include a three-year access pass to attend VeeCon, a new multi-day GaryVee event in 2022, 2023, and 2024 focused on business, marketing, ideas, creativity, entrepreneurship, innovation, competition, and of course fun. Friends of GaryVee will enjoy group hangouts, leisure activities, games, sports, brunches, dinners, and surprise gifts hand-delivered to their home.

Since the new year began, the NFT market has been flooded with new and established artists, opportunistic celebrities, reactive brands, quick-pivoting athletes, and influencers of all kinds attempting to cash in, and cash out. Conceptually, a shortage of ingenious applications for purposing NFT smart contracts by design is as apparent as the blockchain is transparent, with very few high-profile drops that look, feel, or function entirely unlike anything we’ve already seen before. Among the likes of GaryVee, however, a mindful group of pioneering trendsetters are carefully considering their genesis pieces.

“GaryVee has been talking about blockchain for years, so you know what you’re talking about when you’re a blockchain OG,” said Black Dave, who has become a trusted figure and resource for the burgeoning NFT community in NFTs.tips rooms on the Clubhouse app. A self-proclaimed GaryVee fan for at least a decade, Black Dave used to follow GaryVee on Youtube. “I think he was waiting for the right amount of attention to be in the space because his whole ethos is about focusing on where attention is and not trying to bring attention to things. You kind of get a pass to get into NFT’s anytime you want because we know that you’ve been taking blockchain seriously.” Black Dave said. GaryVee purchased $25,000 worth of Bitcoin in 2014, and by 2017, he was already telling a news channel that the blockchain could overthrow America, China, and Russia. GaryVee has been championing Ethereum and NFTs ever since—including CoinGeek Live where he discussed the emergence of on-chain social media platforms last year. This year, GaryVee was featured with multiple guests in a panel discussion on the future of NFT collectibles at NFTHack, a weekend summit powered by ETHGlobal.

“I know there’s a lot of cash grabs and people jumping onto this bandwagon because it’s hot, and it’s the cool thing to do, but I know Nameless.io by NFT42.com, and the project GaryVee chose to collaborate with is well respected in the NFT space. I think it makes a lot of sense if GaryVee holds his end of the bargain, and continues to recognize these token holders and the value they provide within his own world that he has created,” Lakoff said.

Consumers can purchase VeeFriends tokens using ETH (Ethereum) through a non-custodial digital wallet of their choice via Dutch auction. The sale of VeeFriends tokens has been set up to accept payments from MetaMask, Portis, and WalletConnect compatible digital wallets. A Dutch auction will start the sale of each token at its highest set price; instead of bidding up, the selling price goes down. Consumers can buy a token at any moment, or wait for its price to be incrementally reduced until the token ultimately reaches its price floor if it is yet unsold. VeeFriends tokens will start at 3ETH and go down to .5ETH per NFT. Relatively speaking, GaryVee’s 2018 immersive consulting sessions known as 4Ds (Daily Digital Deep Dive) were selling for $12,000 per seat in March 2019. That’s about the same price as 3ETH right now. For context, over 350 alumni have been through GaryVee’s 4Ds program in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Chattanooga, and London.

“I think it’s interesting that GaryVee is letting everyone set their own price for entry into the conference because, with the Dutch auction, the price will drop lower and lower until all the tokens are sold out, just like the Meebits did last week. What’s interesting is that VeeFriends tokens are for three years. If I attend VeeCon 2022 and it’s absolutely insane, that increases the hype for VeeCon 2023, bringing added value for 2023 and 2024 token access. But if the conference is less than stellar, there’s a possibility that if someone doesn’t want to attend, they may potentially be selling on the secondary market at a loss,” Black Dave pondered. This sets a level of expectation for GaryVee and his team to exceed in curating nostalgic experiences for VeeFriends token HODLers. “I have always been about building businesses and creating value for my community, and this NFT project allows me to do both,” GaryVee noted. In addition to 108 one on one access tokens for sale when VeeFriends drops, five free scholarship tokens will also be distributed for access and mentorship from GaryVee and his professional network.

“One reason why GaryVee was gonna release his first NFT on May 5th, five-five, is because that’s his favorite number,” notes Craig Wilson, a writer, filmmaker, and sports cards collector. “If you’ve ever seen a selfie of GaryVee with somebody, and he’s putting up five fingers, now you know. I forget the reason why his favorite number is five, yet that’s interesting synchronicity right there,” Wilson noted.

Some days Wilson listens to GaryVee in his ear for hours on end, or on his television while doing other things. “GaryVee speaks to me in a way that a good band does with great lyrics or poetry. I relate on so many different levels. I’m looking at sports cards, working on my own collectible NFT, multi-tasking, washing dishes, just like people do in NFT rooms on the Clubhouse app,” Wilson laughs. He has been looking forward to GaryVee’s first NFT release and recalls his mentor’s advice about standing out in a crowded NFT market. Wilson wants his own NFT collectibles to tell a story, with a puzzle embedded in their design.

“At this point in my life I just want to work with my friends or people I love, so I feel the same way GaryVee does about my own journey as an artist and content creator. GaryVee has spoken about this a lot, because he believes that in the future, NFTs will be kind of like social media, and you’ll look at someone’s wallet, and notice, ‘Oh, you were at VeeCon22? I was there too!’ and you’ll know you’re bonding with a like-mind,” Wilson muses. This is how VeeFriends are made.

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Matt & John of Larva labs made history today, once again, with their ‘Crypto-punks’ follow-up project: Meebits.  Only a few hours ago, Opensea’s official Twitter account released the following statement: “Meebit #8598 has just sold for a casual 420 ETH (~$1.4m), making it the highest single item sale on the platform to date” – @opensea

 

 

But what is a Meebit and why are people paying so much for them?  According to Larvalabs’ official Meebits webpage: “The Meebits are 20,000 unique 3D voxel characters, created by a custom generative algorithm, then registered on the Ethereum blockchain.”  Are they the same as Cryptopunks?  Not exactly.  Apart from being 3D, generating twice as many of them, and several built-in features, the intention behind this collection is quite different.  To quote Larvalab’s official announcement blog post: “If the Cryptopunks are ideal 2D avatars for Discord, Twitter, and other social media, then we hope that the Meebits will be the 3D avatar for virtual worlds, games, and VR.”  This announcement sparked a lot of excitement from the VR/AR/XR communities that currently populate the existing metaverse options.  However, some practitioners are already pushing for even further interactivity. According to one of the cofounders of the Sandbox Game, one of the most popular metaverses:

“Meebits should be interoperable across all Metaverses. The era of the Avatar has just begun! Can’t wait to see them across @cryptovoxels @decentraland @SomniumSpace and of course @TheSandboxGame where you could equip and play with them!” – @borgetsebastien

However, this world is, quite incredibly, not too far off.  To once again, quote Larvalabs announcement blog post: “Owners of a Meebit are given access to an additional asset pack that includes the full 3D model.” Meebits can be animated or used “as your avatar in the metaverse.”  According to Matt and John of Larvalabs, they “are bullish about the metaverse future,” and “look forward to seeing how the Meebits are used in such environments.” However at the moment is seems as if the focus is similar to that of the Bored Ape Yacht Club team, integrating one’s NFTs into personal or public pieces of digital art.   All Meebit’s unlockable content includes T-pose OBJ files that can allegedly be “imported into any most standard 3D modelling and animation software.”  There have been some 3D artists who have spoken out about the file formats Larvalabs made available to its buyers.  To quote crypto-artist Angie Taylor:

“It’s a bit nuts that #meebits only supply OBJ – quite an outdated 3D format? They should have chosen to go with either GLB – the current standard for Web 3D, 3D NFTs & AR. Or, if they advertise the T-pose as a feature, surely they should use FBX which will include mocap data?” – @theAngieTaylor

Despite this and similar complaints, buyers don’t at all seem to be dissuaded.  With Meebits selling out all 9,000 public pieces in Larvalab’s initial stock on their first day.  This was, of course, apart from the reserve pieces they kept for all buyers of previous works. So if you’re reading this and you happen to own a Cryptopunk or a Glyph then we have good news for you directly from Larvalabs themselves: “We’re giving away free [Meebits] to all punk and glyph owners.”  One of these owners, and a staunch Larvalabs investor is crypto-artist @Hanrgb on Twitter who tweeted that he invested his “artwork revenue in CryptoPunks” 5-6 months ago.  And then “Yesterday sold 3 of them to invest in Meebits.” Ending his tweet by solidifying his stance that “Metaverse native projects are the future.”  When we chatted with Hanrgb briefly about the reason behind his purchases, he smoothly mentioned that: “Metaverse characters can reflect 65 different identities.”  Alluding to the fact that he bought 65 Meebites himself.

One still might ask what makes these rather simple generated renderings so popular? The primary aesthetic differentiating factor this time around for Larvalabs was the signature Meebit 3D voxel-style rendering technique.  Matt and John of Larvalabs are publicly big fans of “low-poly and voxel 3D graphics.”  which they also addressed in in their initial release statement:

“The style has been made popular in the last decade or so by games such as Minecraft and Roblox. We think that, just like 8-bit pixel art, the minimalism and accessibility of voxel art will prove timeless and endearing for generations to come.”

 

On top of all the aesthetic and integrated features, similar to the Cryptopunks, buying and trading Meebits can be done on “a custom marketplace that supports like-kind trading of up to 100 Meebits per transaction” along with all other standard transactions.  Once again, Larvalabs has levelled up their offerings in a number of ways, and we can’t wait to see what they have in store for us next! One thing is for sure, in a similar fashion to Cryptopunks, the real money will be made in the secondary market.  To quote crypto aficionado Piers Kicks, Meebits looks like it’s going to be “the most crowded NFT trade in months.”  Furthermore, according to his Twitter, “If all 9000 were to go at 2.5 ETH in the Dutch auction that’s $70M to @larvalabs…” This would make their sales on par with the likes of Beeple.

We’re sure that there will be many exciting developments regarding Meebits in the coming days and can’t wait to share them all as they progress!

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Just when people were saying that the NFT collectibles market was grinding to a hault, along came the Bored Apes. Over the course of several days, Bored Apes Yacht Club has sold 10,000 NFTs and has grossed over 3,000 ETH and marks the second most liquid generative art collectible on Open Sea to date.  On April 18th, 2021, the Twitter account @Boredapeyachtclub began promoting a new collection of Cartoon Ape NFTs.  Similar to Cryptopunks, the company promoted the fact that each Ape was “unique and programmatically generated from 172 possible traits, stored as ERC721 tokens on the Ethereum blockchain” opening up for presales a few days later on April 23rd.

Though it took several days for the pieces to catch on, aside from the unique aesthetic collectors began to be drawn into the drop because of its unique membership ‘club benefits’:

“Your Bored Ape doubles as your Yacht Club membership card and grants access to members-only benefits, the first of which is access to THE BATHROOM, a collaborative graffiti board.” The Bathroom “contains a canvas accessible only to wallets containing at least one ape. Like any good dive bar bathroom, this is the place to draw, scrawl, or write expletives. Each ape-holder will be able to paint a pixel on the bathroom wall every fifteen minutes. Think of it as a collaborative art experiment for the crypto sphere. A members-only canvas for the discerning minds of crypto Twitter.” 

This is just one of the many examples of the unlockable content that come along with these particular NFTs.  Others include the ability to join a private “club,” access to exclusive drops, and (most significantly) the rights to use the images of the apes one buys commercially in perpetuity.  This is quite a rare offer in the NFT space and has been something that many artists have been drawn to, with NFT staples such as JR Artspace, Taylor Wtf, and many others pumping out several popular artistic remixes of their own apes over the past few days.

However the momentum really picked up between the 24th of April and culminating in May first when @Pranksy and @J1mmy.eth collectively bought over 250 apes.  From that moment alone, the Bored Ape Yacht Club went from 500 pieces minted to entirely sold out in less than 10 hours…

According to investor Mike Damazo: “It definitely went crazy when @Pranksy picked up 250 before secondary.  Then Farokh came in at the secondary market. “  From there, “someone tweeted at Gary V which led him to the discord. Then “3LAU held two giveaways in his discord group.” 3LAU doing this giveaway referenced one of his own earliest NFT related stunts.  Several years ago he famously gave away free NFTs at various music festivals by way of a QR code he would have physically with him on his personal cellphone.

But, celebrity associations aside, why did initial investors bite?  According to a conversation we had with @J1mmy.eth: “the pricing was fair and approachable and the narrative of the site and being a part of the club drew me in. The community has been great as the project has started to pick up steam!”  This low and consistent pricing was very important to the Bored Ape Yacht Club team, often cited as calling popular NFT pricing systems such as ‘bonding curves’ quite pointed names such as “Ponzi schemes.” But the incentive to buy went far beyond this. According to @J1mmy.eth: “bored apes make great personal profile pictures.” Jimmy also wished that the collection was “on-chain” but still insists that the apes that he bought “still captured my attention despite that deficiency.”

It seems as if the issue of the apes being minted on open sea, and not an “on-chain” platform, such as Rarible with integrated IPFS, or an equivalent.  Though the Bored Ape Yacht Club did include an IPFS certificate with each ape included in their unlockable content, this still wasn’t enough for many staunch collectors.  To quote an analysis on HackMD: “the company/entity minting is paying Google [for hosting] those server-less functions to service the actual JSON metadata.” Calling this a “huge single point of failure.”

Despite this, all Apes sold out in the primary market We asked @Pranksy about his monumental purchase of Apes and he also mentioned that “They were fairly priced, unlike recent projects using FOMO price curves, and the art for me passed the ‘profile picture’ test.” It is interesting how much collectors both resonated with the stable, and relatively low, initial price; as well as the ‘profile-picture-ability’ of the collection. Similar to Cruptopunks, Cryptokitties, Poklamons, or other popular collectables – most buyers, in the initial market at least, simply seemed drawn to to the Apes they liked the best aesthetically.  Wanting to use them as profile pictures, add them to virtual art galleries, and more. Because they were relatively cheap people could mint many multiples until they got the one they aesthetically liked the most or match their profile. On top of that buying into a club and the promise of all of the unlockable content, this seems to be a major driving factor in the minds of buyers.  However, it would be a shame not to analyse some of those cool features that was released throughout the sale.

Since all of the pieces are now in the secondary market, it’s also worth going through the Bored Ape team’s landmark incentives.  At 20% sold, they released “the Caged Apes tokens held back from the initial sale which [were] airdropped to random Apeholders.”  At 40% sold, BAYC launched “its own YouTube channel, BAYC LoFi Radio.”  At 60% sold, a “Member-Exclusive BAYC Merch Store got unlocked, featuring Limited Edition tees, hoodies, and other goodies.”  At 80% sold, “The clubhouse image [became] interactive and the ‘Mysterious Note’ [became] legible, beginning their treasure hunt.”  According to the Bored Ape Yacht Club team: “The first to solve the mystery will be rewarded 5 ETH and a Bored Ape.” At 90% sold, The Bored Ape team initiated their own liquidity pool.  And finally, when the collection sold out 100%, “The Mutant Ape (NFT Breeding) Arcade Machine gets fixed” thus allowing owners to “cook up new ways to ape with our friends.” At this point all of these incentives have been released, making the secondary market for these pieces quite volatile.

So what is the future of these apes? Well as of today (May 3rd, 2021), one of these Apes has been sold for an incredible 21 ETH ($69,080.76 USD).  According to Kevin Wu, This makes this ape sale on par with some low-priced Cryptopunks, a staple in the NFT collectable community.  Despite this momentous secondary sale, it seems as if things aren’t slowing down, with owners reporting bots constantly attempting to buy their apes!  It will be interesting to see how these collectables continue to grow in the coming days and weeks.

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