The purpose of this proposal is to use the ApeCoin treasury to expand the BAYC/MAYC community by supporting aspiring apes who could not otherwise afford the full price of the NFT.
Idea: Any person who wants to purchase a BAYC or MAYC can stake a fractional amount of $APE (for example, 10% of the cost) in a contract that purchases a NFT, locks it in the contract, and issues a derivative to the buyer. The buyer can:
Hold the derivative indefinitely (and the underlying NFT remains an asset of the DAO)
Hold the derivative for a holding period (for example, 12 months) and then pay the remaining balance (90% in this example) to purchase the underlying NFT
This is not a loan. The buyer is not leveraged, does not pay interest, and is never at risk for liquidation.
Principles:
No cost to the DAO beyond development and pentesting of the smart contract and maintenance of any backend infrastructure required to interface with marketplaces.
No profit to the DAO. The NFT is offered to the buyer at the price paid by the DAO.
Benefits:
The primary benefit of this proposal is to grow the ape community by allocating NFTs to actual Yuga fans and reducing the number of NFTs are flipped or farmed on marketplaces.
Mechanics:
A new smart contract is developed to manage the purchase and locking of BAYC and MAYC NFTs
A third party is contracted to operate backend infrastructure required to interact with marketplaces
When a buyer wishes to purchase a NFT they will stake the required deposit (for example, 10%) and the contract will initiate the purchase from an NFT marketplace, lock the NFT, and then issue a derivative to the user.
After a holding period the buyer may (but is not obligated to) pay the remaining balance (90% in this example) to unlock the underlying NFT and burn the derivative.
The DAO may adjust the required deposit at its discretion to manage the budget during periods of high or low demand.
The DAO may liquidate airdrops to support ongoing operations (for example, of backend infrastructure that may need to be maintained under contract with a third party).
I think itās not a bad idea per se, but the issue may come when people cannot repay, or floor price rises/falls etc. There are so many options for loans out there already, I donāt know if this would make sense for the DAO to get into. There would be a dev/contract cost associated with it as well, and unfortunately we may see flippers take advantage of a lower interest from the DAO to just wait and flip when floor goes up.
And I also donāt think the holders should get the same rights, airdrops etc. Who is to say you wouldnāt put a small amount to start a loan, get access to benefits and just not repay afterwards?
If you can think of mechanics to avoid people taking advantage of the program, I think that is great. I just worry some people would take advantage of the DAOās offer thereā¦
This isnāt a loan. The closer analogy is layaway. The buyer puts down a deposit and receives a derivative as a receipt. It is their choice whether to later buy the NFT or to hold only the derivative. Until that happens the DAO carries the NFT as an asset. This wouldnāt serve the flippers well because there would be a minimum hold period before they could obtain the underlying NFT.
So the DAO would load the smart contract with BAYC/MAYC, and sweep the floor for X amount of each, and create a new marketplace for people to āpurchaseā these, correct?
I think adding some type of % interest to buy out the BAYC/MAYC would be better suited to this. As this could be gamified by whales in the event of floor price fluctuations.
I donāt think airdrops should be passed along to the holder. It could get really complicated and I think it could lead to a gamification.
As I read through this feedback I am finding flaws in my initial idea. Iām thinking of making some corrections to the original post like:
Derivative holders will not have signing rights or airdrops
If we sweep the floor in any way it could still be gamed by flippers who are willing to wait months to cash out. It might be better if NFTs were acquired by the DAO at the moment that the buyer wishes to acquire.
This will require some thinking around how to interface with with marketplaces. The DAO might need to pay an intermediary to operate the necessary backend infrastructure.
The buyer would interact with a smart contract, which would lock the NFT to the buyer and send them a derivative token. Open question on whether this would be an inventory that the DAO maintains or if the acquisition of the NFT happens in real time (see last post).
While I would love Blur to end as quickly as possible, I worry about people trying to buy highly volatile assets with money that they donāt have. I think this sort of system still adds a lot of volatility into a system and prices fly up and down and people default on their payment schedules.
Ultimately the marketās demand will dictate what developments are made in the future, but Iād love to see NFTs move away from the current trend of hyper financialization.
With this particular proposal there is no payment schedule. It is not a loan. The buyer can choose to only ever pay a fraction of the cost BUT the DAO would hold the underlying NFT indefinitely. It is up to the buyer when and if they pay off the contract and buy the actual token at a future date.
Thank you for the clarification, thatās interesting. Iād be interested in a proper legal review.
Iād also push back against the idea of people gaining full ownership benefits before owning the item. That feels like a fairly easy way to gain the system to earn benefits at a fraction of the risk of an actual owner. Iām sure some reasonable compromise could be reached, but ideally such a system would be as simple as possible.
Interesting concept. This sounds like an āoptionā on a BAYC which one would exercise if the price is favourable i.e. if the contract locks the BAYC at 30e but the floor pumps to 50e in the following week, the buyer would simply exercise their option.
Apart from taking assets off the market for a period of time, I donāt understand at this point what the benefit to ApeCoin (which is discrete from Yuga) would be by implementing. I do also query whether or not the DAO can engage in speculative investments which this would almost certainly be.
This is a great idea and excatly what I have been looking for, I hold $APE but would rather not liquidate to take a loan on these other platforms. The ability to pay over time and not pay 50% above purchase price would serve me and others in a position similar to mine. Even setting up a monthy payment would be great, of floor price moves the loanee is incentivised to pay it off. If one or more of the DAO SC or other admins were to structure basic requirements to those interested in participation. I would be willing to share all my assets/wallets to check activity as well. Looking forward to other thoughts on this
The benefit is to the user who can buy a NFT that they could not otherwise afford. Taking a NFT off the market is a potentially beneficial side effect. I should do a better job at describing this and will take another pass at the idea.
An earlier version of this idea would involve sweeping the floors. I removed that in favor of a just in time acquisition of the NFT that the user wants to acquire. The intent of this idea is to make it easier for fans to acquire apes. It is NOT the intent of this idea to manipulate market prices nor is it clear that facilitating sales to a niche group of buyers would have a material effect.
You mention that the intent of the DAO is not to support Yuga, BAYC, etc. A couple of thoughts/questions:
What is the intent of the DAO? Is it literally to support $APE coins and never anything else in the BAYC ecosystem?
What are some examples of activities that do not prop up prices? I would argue that almost everything the DAO does has the long term goal or effect of propping up a price or could be thought of as a financial scheme by this logic (see $APE staking).