An Accelerator for $APEs
Builders in the $APE ecosystem should be excited - an accelerator is finally here. And holders are set up to be rewarded as well. Read on for more.
TylerD's Market Summary
GM!
Today's top news includes:
APE Accelerator from Animoca's Forj officially goes live
Daniel Alegre shares detailed "state of Yuga" update
Memeland teases upcoming $MEME farming, Captainz up 11%
Reddit is shuttering community points, leads to broad sell off of $MOON and $BRICK
Stars Arena relaunches trading, with some issues
🐵 Animoca's Forj Launches ApeCoin DAO Accelerator
A DAO launching a useful product?
It's rare to find in web3 these days.
But the ApeCoin DAO may have just done it.
Yesterday, Animoca Brands subsidiary Forj officially launched its $APE Accelerator. designed to help builders within the ApeCoin ecosystem.
The Details
The APE Accelerator has two core components: the Accelerator Program and the Launchpad.
The Accelerator Program is the incubator geared for project founders, providing access to advisors, tools, a network and strategic guidance
The Launchpad is for ApeCoin holders, offering the ability for holders to access these projects (i.e. via exclusive sales) before anyone else
So builders care about the Accelerator Program, and holders likely care more about the Launchpad.
$APE holders are able to vote on which projects they want to see on the Launchpad (after internal due diligence).
And the APE Accelerator charges a 15% commission on all Launchpad sales (5% to the operating team at Forj and the rest routed back to the DAO after expenses).
By The Numbers
The APE Accelerator was inspired by an ApeCoin DAO proposal AIP-209 brought forth in January of 2023.
That AIP asked for $480,000 (~126k $APE at the time) to build the accelerator:
$300,000 for development (UI, Front End, smart contract dev and audit/deployment)
$180,000 for operational costs for 6 months of runway ($30k/month), supporting a team of 6
It's unclear if that's exactly the funds spent on this APE Accelerator but it's likely directional.
As for the ApeCoin DAO - it's got reach:
200,000+ members
11M+ audience reach on socials
70+ regional fan groups
So builders will have a massive built-in audience.
Why It Matters
Yat Siu, the co-founder and executive chairman of Animoca Brands sums it up well:
"Community-driven initiatives such as $APE Accelerator capture the very ethos of Web3 entrepreneurship, and put ApeCoin holders in the driving seat of innovation for the ecosystem they’re a part of. $APE Accelerator provides us with a roadmap for the future of online ecosystem growth, and we eagerly await the exciting new projects that will emerge from this program."
Hard to argue with that.
This is one of the best possible uses for a well-funded DAO - using funds to provide opportunities that didn't previously exist via a distributed network (the Accelerator), and then rewarding the DAO and allowing them to capitalize on the success (the Launchpad).
Aspiring builders can now access tools, network and advisors from the Accelerator (likely even more broadly across Animoca and Yuga if successful), then have a built-in audience to sell to ($APE holders) with large reach, and then those holders are incentivized to help market the product.
It's a solid flywheel.
Now we see which builders are up for the task - and if $APE holders will directly benefit. Hopefully we have more than 6 months to watch this play out...
👥 Friend Tech Trend Tracker
It was a busier day in SocialFI, with a successful major launch in FriendTech amidst a day-long ddos attack, and Stars Arena officially re-launching trading.
Here are some of the core Friend Tech metrics for 10/18 and their day-over-day change:
Return users: 3,875 -> 3,372 (-13%)
Daily Buy volume: $0.83M -> $1.34M (+61%)
Total Volume: $1.95M -> $2.78M (+43%)
TVL: $44.07M -> $44.06M (even)
Highest key: Vombatus 8.33 -> 8.33 (even)
*TVL in ETH terms 27,801 -> 27,834 ETH (even)
Trading volume clearly spiked on the day, mostly due to the CBB mascot CBBuuull launch.
The smooth launch led to the Bull making it to 25th on the leaderboard already at 2.21 ETH, with a surprise announcement expected today.
The rest of the day for FriendTech was mostly non-eventful as the app was barely functional (so take those low returning users numbers with a grain of salt), which the team attributed to a ddos attack (and the app is working normally this morning).
Zooming out a bit, the FT Top 250 Index is now down ~30% from its ATH and clearly grinding down. The price to be in the top 250 is now at 0.306 ETH, down 40% from its ATH (according to data from NFT Stats).
The other major event of the day in SocialFI - the stealth re-launch of trading for Stars Arena.
Earlier in the day the team announced that trading would come back on randomly, and it did so, around 6 pm ET.
But the re-launch did not come without issues:
The app was frequently laggy
Users had to migrate to a new wallet, log out and log in to trade (confusing for some)
Portfolio balances and key prices are not updating, making it difficult to understand what's happening in the market at a glance
With all that said, spirits seemed to be high and the highly expected dip doesn't seem to be as bad as many predicted - and some top keys are already up.
TVL dipped to $1.8M or lower in the first few hours after open, but is since back up over $2M.
Now we wait for more comms and perhaps a spaces from the Stars team, along with fixes to key functions like share price and portfolio balance.
🚚 What else is happening in NFTs?
Here is the list of other notable headlines from the day in NFTs:
Trading volume fell 10% to $7.4M (4,700 ETH) on Tuesday; the leaderboard saw more red than green
Memeland Captainz led notable top movers up 11% to 3.9 ETH as $MEME approaches; Winds of Yawanawa led losers down 16% to 10 ETH
Yuga CEO Daniel Alegre shared a detailed "state of Yuga" post last night, explaining how he sees each aspect of their ecosystem and what they're focused on (plus promising a Clubhouse)
Courtyard's 2nd Pokemon pack sale was a success, selling 500 cards/packs out in seconds at the $100 price point
Sugartown announced that the Oras reveal date is coming this Thursday; the floor held on the news at 0.2 ETH
Memeland shared a teaser image highlighting its upcoming $MEME farming, which appears to be literal virtual farming quests to accumulate Memepoints
OpenSea Pro added flexibility to ERC-1155 listings in latest update, including the ability to split listings and overall improvements in listing management
VeeFriends Series 1 holders and their families may be eligible to celebrate Gary Vee's 48th birthday at Chuck E. Cheese
🌎 Around Crypto and Web3
A few other Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:
The crypto market chopped on Tuesday; BTC -0.4% at $28,380; ETH even at $1,580; SOL -1.2% at $24.00
Reddit is shuttering its Community Points feature, which provided creators and developers an opportunity to "own a piece of their community"; the $MOON (-85%) and $BRICK (-52%) tokens fell hard on the day
The Sandbox appointed gaming expert Nicola Sebastiani as Chief Content Officer, who boasts experience from PlayStation and Apple
Sweat Economy, a web3 ecosystem promoting physical activity via its $SWEAT token on NEAR, is now available in the U.S. and eight additional countries
Animoca subsidiary Darewise Entertainment raised $3.5 million in a token presale to expand its Bitcoin-connected ecosystem and the upcoming MMO game, Life Beyond
🚀 NFT Total Volume
BAYC (1,921 ETH, 24.4 ETH Floor)
Pudgy Penguins (343 ETH, 5.33 ETH)
DeGods (288 ETH, 3.24 ETH)
MAYC (276 ETH, 4.78 ETH)
Winds of Yawanawa (270 ETH, 10 ETH)
📈 NFT Floor Price Increase
Billows by Aleksandra (305%, 0.09 ETH Floor)
hausphases (240%, 0.09 ETH)
Saints of LA (134%, 0.14 ETH)
Aopanda Party (108%, 0.16 ETH)
Mittaria Genesis (56%, 0.28 ETH)
🗓 Upcoming NFT Mints and Reveals
It's a busier day of drops today, spanning PFPs, Memes and art. Pho is the meme card artist today, with Caravaggio on Noble Gallery and Killer Acid doing an edition drop.
See the full list and dive in for more details with Swizzy's daily mint monitor.
Cel Mates - Inkmates (10:20 a.m. ET)
Memes by 6529 (11:00 a.m. ET)
WalletWars.io (11:00 a.m. ET)
Afonso Caravaggio x Noble Gallery (11:00 a.m. ET)
Killer Acid - Breakthrough (3:00 p.m. ET)
Enjoy this write-up and/or want to sponsor the Morning Minute? Follow along with me on Twitter @tyler_did_it or reach out via email tyler.warner@luckytrader.com.
For all volume and floor price data, see Lucky Trader's Project Rankings page.
For all upcoming mints, see Lucky Trader's NFT Calendar page.