PROPOSAL NAME
ApeCast 2: Onboarding Users to ApeChain with $APE Powered Podcast Intelligence
TEAM DESCRIPTION
I am an engineer and product manager who runs a team that builds products for Web3 companies. I’ve been active in the DAO for over 2 years. I have worked in startups all my life and am familiar with delivering a lot of value with a small team.
My team for this is four engineers and one designer. I will manage the project. We have experience building iOS/Android apps and the necessary APIs to support them. We came together so this project can help onboard new users to ApeChain/ApeCoin. Everyone will work together on a contractual basis, organized by me.
The designer will be the same person who designed the current ApeCast app. He will once again create new designs for the app. There will be 2 engineers dedicated to working on mobile, for both iOS and Play Store. There will be 2 engineers working on on the backend systems, including managing all the AI pipeline implementations. All 4 engineers have years of experience developing in the web 2 space.
PROPOSAL DESCRIPTION
This is to develop ApeCast 2, an AI-powered platform for podcasts and audio intelligence. The goal is to increase $APE utility and onboard users onto ApeChain.
Crypto natives are drowning in audio. Podcasts, Spaces, AMAs - hours of content holding critical alpha. Finding the actionable signal before the market is paramount. ApeCast 2 is your audio intelligence terminal . We use AI not only for summaries, but to surface actionable intel faster. Features like keyword alerts notify you immediately when your targets are discussed. Interactive episode chat lets you interrogate content: ‘What was the speaker’s reasoning for being bullish on [Project X]?’ or ‘Summarize the risks mentioned regarding [New Protocol Y]’. Community-flagged alpha allows savvy users to timestamp and highlight critical insights. Stop wasting hours scrubbing audio. Get the actionable intelligence you need, when you need it.
ApeCast 2 integrates $APE as a core economic engine. Premium features will be accessible via $APE subscriptions. Paying in $APE (and $MOCA) will be cheaper than paying in USD, creating a direct demand sink for the token. Furthermore, a community curation layer will allow users to highlight key insights within content. This will earn them $APE rewards distributed on ApeChain. We aim to establish ApeCast 2 as an indispensable tool for the informed crypto user.
By building the best intelligence tool for audio content, ApeCast 2 naturally creates value propositions (like ad-skipping and summaries) that appeal to mainstream podcast listeners. This provides a powerful, utility-driven pathway to introduce a wider audience to the benefits of $APE and the ApeChain ecosystem. Having already built and launched ApeCast 1.0, my team is positioned to deliver this enhanced vision.
BACKGROUND
So, Here’s the Problem: Too Much Audio, Not Enough Time
Look, if you’re trying to stay sharp, especially in crypto, you know how much listening is involved. There are easily over 50 hours of just crypto podcasts dropping every single week! Add in YouTube streams and X Spaces, and it’s just… a lot. It’s impossible to catch everything. And hidden inside all that talking is the good stuff - the alpha, the insights, the stuff you actually need to hear. Finding it feels like digging for treasure without a map.
And hey, it’s not just a crypto thing, right? Whether you’re into business tips, self-help, or investing news, there are tons of podcasts. Trying to keep up and pull out the useful bits from hours of content? Good luck, even if you crank it up to 2x speed.
Plus, let’s be real, the actual experience of listening can be annoying:
- Wasting Time: You know those episodes where they chat about nothing for 45 minutes before getting to the point? Yeah, you end up skipping around, hoping to land on something useful.
- Ads Everywhere: It feels like podcasts have more and more ads these days. You try skipping, tap-tap-tap, oops, skipped too far. Now you gotta rewind. It’s clumsy, especially now with all the tech we have!
- Just Give Me the Info: Sometimes you don’t even want to listen. Maybe you prefer reading, or you just need the key takeaways, not hours of audio that feels like getting a hundred voicemails.
Enter ApeCast 2: Your AI Assistant for Podcasts
This is exactly what ApeCast 2 will fix. We’re using AI and community smarts to make listening way better:
- Get Right to the Good Stuff: Imagine AI chopping up episodes into chapters with summaries, so you know exactly what’s being discussed and when. Oh, and it automatically skips the ads for you. Need it even faster? We can generate super-short audio summaries - think a 1-hour episode boiled down to 9 minutes of just the key parts.
- Find What You Need, Instantly: Don’t just listen passively. We give you full transcripts you can search. Set up alerts for keywords you care about, so you know if an episode is worth your time. And get this: you can literally chat with an episode. Just ask it, “Hey, what did Mark say about Gold?” and get the answer without listening to the whole thing.
- Smarter Together with Community Notes: AI provides the map, but the community digs for treasure. ApeCast 2’s community notes layer becomes a crowdsourced alpha feed. Users (rewarded in $APE on ApeChain) can timestamp specific predictions, highlight overlooked tokenomic details, flag potential FUD or shilling, or link to relevant on-chain data discussed. This turns passive listening into a collaborative intelligence-gathering effort, amplifying everyone’s ability to spot opportunities.
We’re taking podcast listening from something that can feel like a chore and turning it into a smart, fast, and even rewarding way to get informed. We’re starting with making this killer for crypto folks, but honestly, these features are useful for anyone who listens to learn.
$APE USAGE & REVENUE
The app will be a freemium product. The free version will be a normal podcast player with the notes functionality. All podcasts will be supported and notes will be incentivized. The paid version will entitle users to credits that can be spent on text/audio summaries and enable chat for episodes. The paid version will be a monthly/annual subscription that will be enough to sustain the product long term. We are still working out the details but it will be in the $10-$20 range per month with a large discount for annual subscribers.
Large $APE holders will get free credits to spend as a thank you. Smaller $APE holders can pay for the subscription via $APE to get a generous discount. We will also include a smaller discount for our $MOCA friends. This will incentivize non-ApeCoin holders to buy and pay with $APE just to get the discount. Note curators will also be rewarded in $APE. So normies that want to earn a little extra will have to start using ApeChain.
This will aim to be a fully self-sustaining app that will onboard the masses via an app that provides real utility to all podcast listeners. There are over 500 million podcast listeners. Of those, our target will be the listeners of informational podcasts.
MAIN APP FEATURES
Full Transcripts
Full transcripts for following along with podcasts in loud environments. Transcripts are also searchable and browsable. You can start playing from a specific sentence.
Chapter Summaries
AI-generated chapter summaries for podcasts that can help you skip to the most interesting parts of a podcast. For the rest, you can just read the summaries. This includes automatic ad skip as well.
Ad Skip
When an episode is processed, ads will be identified and skipped. If you are a regular podcast listener this can save you hours.
Audio Summaries
Podcasts can be compressed to provide much shorter audio summaries (1 hour → 9 mins) that include excerpts from the podcast itself. Listen to this for example, which is a summary of this episode.
Keyword Alerts
Set hyper-specific alerts for keywords mentioned across your subscribed podcasts. Get instant push notifications the moment critical intel drops in audio form, giving you a crucial time advantage over those relying on manual listening or delayed summaries.
Community Notes
Tap into the collective intelligence. Users earn $APE on ApeChain for adding high-value, timestamped notes identifying key predictions, potential FUD, critical strategic insights, or links to relevant resources (Etherscan links, Dune dashboards, tweets) mentioned.
Episode Chat
Ask the AI specific, pointed questions about the content: ‘Summarize the bull case for [Token A] presented by [Speaker B].’ ‘What security concerns were raised about [Protocol C]?’ ‘Extract all mentions of potential catalysts for [Project D] in the last 20 minutes.’ Get granular, context-aware answers and specific timestamps without scrubbing, allowing for rapid research and cross-referencing of opinions.
YouTube/Spaces Integration
Listen to YouTube and X Spaces links as though they are podcast episodes. ApeCast will extract and process the audio to enable all of the above features.
Email Summaries
Get summaries of episodes as soon as they are released straight to your inbox.
Multiple Languages
Just like v1, we want to ensure that all communities benefit from the summaries and notes. So, we’ll be translating the notes into all the languages we support: Simplified Chinese, Spanish and French.
PROOF OF WORK
My team and I have already proven ourselves once by building ApeCast v1. You can see here where we shared our detailed progress report throughout our journey. You can also download the app now on the App Store and Play Store. We support 3 spaces (ApeCoin, Mocaverse and BotB) and over 40 podcasts right now.
Due to $APE’s slip in price, v1 was built at a net loss. We spent significantly more than the original budget because we are passionate about the potential. We wanted to prove to the community that we are serious and that we are here to build. We have continued to build even well past project completion.
We built audio summaries as a bonus for example. We also built out Thio, an automated X account that summarizes all 40 crypto podcasts as soon as they are released. Using the collected data we also built a weekly newsletter that summarizes narratives and trends from the week’s podcasts.
This time we want to aim much higher, and significantly empower the community.
BENEFIT TO APECOIN ECOSYSTEM
ApeCast 2 is designed to deliver substantial and measurable benefits directly impacting $APE token value and ApeChain activity:
- Creates Direct Demand for $APE: By offering significant discounts on premium subscriptions and features when paying with $APE, ApeCast 2 establishes a consistent demand sink for the token. Users seeking the best value will be incentivized to acquire and utilize $APE, directly increasing buy pressure. Furthermore, offering exclusive perks or free credits to large $APE holders incentivizes long-term holding.
- Drives New User Acquisition for ApeChain: The $APE-based rewards system for community note curators necessitates interaction with ApeChain. To earn and claim rewards, curators must set up and use an ApeChain wallet, directly onboarding potentially thousands of new, active users (not just speculators) onto the chain who are engaged via a tangible utility.
- Increases ApeChain On-Chain Activity: The distribution of $APE rewards to numerous curators will generate regular on-chain transaction volume. Hopefully the ApeChain ecosystem is mature enough to lure these new users into other projects.
- Enhances Ecosystem Value & Information Flow: ApeCast 2 provides powerful AI tooling (summaries, chat, alerts) specifically tailored for navigating crypto. This equips the existing ApeCoin community and attracts and retains high-value crypto natives by providing a purpose-built alpha generation toolkit. ApeCast 2 gives the ApeCoin community a tangible edge in navigating information overload.
- Establishes a Sustainable Utility Model: Unlike temporary initiatives, ApeCast 2 aims to be a self-sustaining application generating ongoing value. Its success provides a blueprint for utility-driven growth within the ApeCoin ecosystem, attracting users based on real-world usefulness, ultimately benefiting all $APE holders.
STEPS TO IMPLEMENT
Payments will be paid at the beginning of the step. Once complete, the next payment will be made to begin work on the next step. The milestones are below:
- 3 Months: Design and Development ($250,0000)
- Expand existing app architecture to support community notes
- Develop a voting mechanism for note curation
- Improve audio processing and transcription accuracy
- Enhance UI/UX for note creation and navigation
- Add support for any podcast, not just crypto feeds.
- Add support for YouTube videos and X spaces.
- Convert the app to a freemium model
- 1 Month: Incentive System Development ($100,000)
- Design and build a distribution mechanism for note curators
- Implement $APE discount
- 1 Month: Beta Testing ($100,000)
- Conduct closed beta with selected community members
- Gather feedback and implement improvements from user testing
- 1 Month: Public Launch and Marketing ($200,000)
- Official launch of ApeCast 2
- Community outreach and user acquisition campaigns
- Bug Fixes
- 6 Month: Ongoing Development and Maintenance ($100,000)
- Regular updates based on user feedback
- Expansion of supported content sources
Start Date: Immediately after 1st payment. This will start the clock
App Release: 4 Months
End Date: 12 Months after 1st payment.
We expect the app to be self sustaining after this. We won’t require anything from the foundation.
OVERALL COST
The total amount requested from the ApeCoin Ecosystem Fund = $750,000 in $APE
Development Costs ($250,000)
Personnel Costs ($240,000)
- 2 Senior Full-Stack Developer (~2000 hours)
- 2 Mobile Developers (~2000 hours)
- 1 UI/UX Designer (~100 hours)
- 1 Product Manager (~1500 hours)
QA and User Testing ($10,000)
- Automated Testing Tools: $2,000
- User Testing Sessions: $3,000
- Testing Devices and Equipment: $5,000
Technology and Infrastructure ($150,000)
- Cloud Services: $65,000
- Development Tools and Licenses: $5,000
- Subsidy for $APE holders: $80,000
Marketing & Incentives ($350,000)
User Acquisition ($150,000)
- Sponsored Content: $100,000
- Meta/TikTok/X/Reddit Ads: $50,000
Incentives ($200,000)
- Curator Payouts: $180,000
- Signup Incentives: $20,000
Marketing will be the primary distribution method to reach non-crypto users. Since there is a strong real use case, more users for the app would mean more users for ApeChain. This will result in a win-win scenario. More than half of the budget will make its way back to users; $300,000 from the marketing budget and more than $80,000 in the form of subsidized usage for $APE holders.
REPORTING EXPECTATIONS
I pledge to submit progress reports for the community on the ApeCoin DAO forum on the first day of each month, upon completing each milestone, and when each funding tranche is received until my proposal is finally classified as an Implemented AIP.
DEFINITIONS
N/A
WHY NOW
Look, we all know how crypto cycles work. The next big run could be explosive, but let’s be real - many feel like the easy “100x” days might be fewer and farther between. Getting ahead might require more than just luck; it’ll demand being faster and smarter than the herd. Missing that crucial piece of alpha buried in hours of podcasts or Spaces could be the difference between catching a wave and watching it pass you by. If this cycle is the one you’re counting on to really “make it,” you can’t afford to be drowning in noise when the real opportunities surface.
This is why funding ApeCast 2 right now is critical. This tool is designed specifically to give you that edge - instant alerts on keywords, AI summaries cutting through the fluff, community notes flagging hidden gems, and the ability to directly interrogate audio content. Funding this now equips the community (and yourself) to maximize chances in the next run, while simultaneously driving real demand for $APE and onboarding users to ApeChain before the peak frenzy hits.
Let’s get this built so we’re ready. This is the perfect the trojan horse to onboard normies.