Proposal Name: Ape Accelerator By ApeCoin
Category: Core - Ecosystem Fund Allocation
Author: Forj - Animoca
After submitting the AIP idea two weeks ago, we received inspiring feedback from communities, artists, founders, and projects. Based on the feedback, we improved the proposal with a UI draft design and a suggested range of commercial terms for the community to select.
ABSTRACT
This proposal outlines the “Ape accelerator”(Ape Launchpad) that is complementary to APE staking in AIP21/22 developed by Horizen Labs. It aims to drive additional value to the APE token and BAYC ecosystem.
Deck: DocSend | Twitter Thread
MOTIVATION
Ape communities gathered early NFT adopters with experience and knowledge on the NFT market. To leverage everyone’s experience toward the growth of the Ape ecosystem, a Launchpad that allows ApeCoin holders to participate in the decision-making of early projects’ launch can bring forth the positive growth.
The Ape Launchpad aims to maximize the Ape community’s benefit, facilitate the use of ApeCoin and together as a community contribute, fund, and empower the future of decentralization.
The ApeCoin Community can engage in the Ape Launchpad in three ways:
- Initiator
- Projects that aim to launch on the Ape Launchpad need to spend # $APE to submit a proposal.
- Encourage NFT collections/projects to purchase $APE coin
- $APE burn to lower circulating supply
- Project should accept a percentage of funds raised in $APE, a percentage of commission will be charged to the initiator on the total amount raised through Ape launchpad.
- Submission fee and commission will be burned or donated to the charity or sent to a separate DAO-controlled wallet to be used at a later date based on DAO decision.
- Voter
- After projects submit proposals, the Ape community can use $APE to vote whether to launch this project on Ape Launchpad.
- Autonomous Project Selection from the community
- If a proposal is approved, voters will share a percentage of commission from the sales by Snapshot.
- Engage voters to participate and earn
- Participants
- Approved projects will launch on the Ape Launchpad, accept ApeCoin as payment, as well as other tokens
- Ape community get valuable, high-experience NFTs every month.
- Add utility to $APE token.
- Ape Launchpad will embed the staking pool from AIP 21/22, users need to stake to gain access to the launchpad. See More in “Specifications”
- Get the community to stake $APE, reward committed stakers with ongoing benefits
Rationale
To grow the Ape ecosystem, a core strategy is to add more use cases for the ApeCoin. Therefore, having this Ape Accelerator can
- Get the community to stake $APE in order to participate in NFT and token sales, and reward committed stakers with ongoing benefits
- Ape community get valuable, high-experience NFTs every month
- Get community use $APE to access any primary sales on Ape Launchpad
- Encourage NFT collections/projects to purchase $APE in order to launch on Ape launchpad
- Increase $APE utility by allowing community use $APE to vote, and get rewarded for participation
- A percentage of collected $APE will be burned or donated to charity or sent to a separate DAO-controlled wallet to be used at a later date.
Specifications
- Ape launchpad will be on the ETH network first unless it is added to another chain.
- ApeCoin and BAYC ecosystem NFT holders will have exclusive access to participate and support projects in NFT sales. Launchpad Participation is based on a tier structure, where tiers are determined by user’s amount of $APE in staking pools and qualifying NFTs users hold (BAYC, MAYC, BAKC, Meebits, Crypto Punks, Otherdeed of otherside).
- Staking pools: users need to stake $APE in a pool for at least 14 days to be eligible for tiers - AIP 21/22
- Snapshots will be taken 1 day prior to the sale to verify eligibility.
- Detail tier justification:
- Platinum Tier - 10,000 $APE + 1 of BAYC NFT
- Gold Tier - 8,000 $APE + 1 of BAYC, MAYC NFT
- Silver Tier - 6,000 $APE + 1 of BAYC, MAYC, BAKC NFT, Otherdeed of otherside
- Bronze Tier - 4,000 $APE + 1 of BAYC NFT,MAYC, BAKC NFT, Otherdeed of otherside, Meebits, Cryptopunks NFT
- Friends Tier - 1,000 $APE + 1 of Forj & Animoca Ecosystem Partners NFTs
- Public Tier - Any $APE stakers
- Users in a higher tier can enjoy priority sales, higher purchase limits and better allocations of rare NFTs
- The current tiers design is based on the emphasis on $APE and the BAYC NFT ecosystem - with the lower tiers reserved for partner projects or non-ape project NFTs to avoid showing preference for any one collection over another’ or something similar. Tier requirement is subject to change based on a defined ApeCoin DAO voting process.
Draft UI Design
The product images and information shown are for illustration purposes only and may not be an exact representation of the product, which is subject for further change.
Steps to Implement
- Finalization of Economics Model
- We will work with the APE community to determine
- Submission fee from initiator. Range from $1,000 to $5,000 worth of $APE
- % of commission from sales on Ape Launchpad. Range from 10% to 15%.
- % of the commission shared with voters if the proposal gets approved. Range from 0.5% to 1%.
- % of the fund raised in $APE for each project. Range from 30%-100%.
- Smart Contract deployment & Audit
- Forj Team has successfully launched 16 projects on Forj Launchpad. We will use the same smart contract, adapt it to ApeCoin and send it to the most trusted auditors in the industry, such as Certik.
- UI/UX Design+Landing Page
- Have the creative team to design UI/UX with specific Ape elements. Takes 2-3 weeks to draft, amend, and set.
- Will embed the approved AIP21/22 ‘Ape Staking Pool’ into the landing page.
- Business Development
- The essence of launchpad relies on quality projects and a resilient team.
- Leverage Animoca ecosystem support to screen at least 2 of the best projects as the first kick off of Ape Launchpad
- BD teams need to ensure that there will be at least 2 projects submitting proposals each month.
Being part of the Animoca family, Forj has:
- Animoca ecosystem projects exposure to participate in the sale
- Deal flow from Animoca investment portfolio
- Wide connections to NFT projects and VCs
- Already established products that have successfully launched 20+ projects e.g., Kylin Network, Altava, Phantom Galaxies
- Experienced team: Team of 50+ employees, led by
- Harry Liu— CEO
Founder of Forj, leading Launchpad for Animoca portfolio projects such as Phantom Galaxies, Altava. Creator of Yuga IP Ecosystem Map. Led community driven BAYC experience for Sandbox Season 3. Previously Fore Media, Google Partner.
https://twitter.com/harry_forj/ - Rob Tran - COO
25 years experience in scaling Music, SaaS, AI businesses, a track record of early-stage projects strategic advisory.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/roberttran/ - Charles Stanton - CMO
Digital Marketing leader at brands including KPMG, The National Lottery, and BUPA
https://twitter.com/Chas_Stanton - Terrence Gatsby - CTO
Vast experience across disruptive technologies including Blockchain, Cryptocurrencies, DeFi, Digital Assets, Tokenization, FinTech, WealthTech, Edge Computing, and Internet of Things
https://www.linkedin.com/in/terrencegatsby/
- Harry Liu— CEO
Timeline
Milestone 1 - Project Approval by ApeCoin community
- Finalize proposals with the community and get approval.
- Securing financing, equipment or resources
- Assembling a project team.
- Define KPI for each department: Business Development, Operation, Tech.
Milestone 2- MVP Launch
- Smart Contract Development and Audit
- Launchpad UI/UX design by product team and ApeCoin DAO
- Integrate AIP21/22 ‘Ape Staking Pool’
- Product Approval by ApeCoin DAO
Estimated Timeline - 2.5 months
Milestone 3- Project Deal Proposal Submission
- Business development team submit 2 projects proposal
- Proposal submit from project side
- APE community vote for approval
Estimated Timeline - 2 weeks to 1 month
Milestone 4- First Ape Launchpad Sale
- Marketing Activation with major media platforms
Estimated Timeline- 1 month
*Total elapsed time is 3 months
Overall Cost
Total Ecosystem Ask - $480k
Development cost - $250k development cost
Operation Cost - $180k for the first six months($30k per month)
- Team members:
- 1 product manager
- 1 tech manager
- 1 designer
- 1 operation associate
- 1 business development
- 1 marketing associate
- website maintenance/snapshot/airdrop
- Provide monthly project updates
Commission: 5% on each Ape launchpad sale revenue
Allocation: 25% of total Ape launchpad allocation
Appendix - Yuga lab IP Ecosystem Update by Forj Team