Keeping Tabs on The Lab #10
To the Bored,
Good evening and thank you for reading the tenth edition of the Bored Ape Gazette’s, Keeping Tabs on The Lab.
Let me start by saying it was great to meet so many of you at Art Basel. The Yuga Labs community is top notch and I’m grateful to be a part of it with you!
With that said, let’s ape into the news and begin this week’s newsletter by covering the biggest story around the swamp: staking!
Horzien Labs, the company tasked with building the DAO’s staking system, took to Twitter yesterday and announced that the window for $Ape holders to pre-commit their coins has opened.
“Ape Staking Update: The day is finally here, $APE holders,” Horizen Labs tweeted on Monday. “http://ApeStake.io...is now LIVE! Pre-commitment period starts now. 1) Go to http://ApeStake.io 2) Connect your wallet 3) Stake your position. On December 12th, rewards start accruing. Get ready!”
The ApeCoin DAO’s staking system will feature four different pools that $Ape holders can stake in based on the NFTs that they own.
The first pool is the “ApeCoin Pool.” This pool does not require the user to hold an NFT and any $Ape holder can commit as much $Ape as they want to this pool.
The second pool is the “BAYC Pool.” This pool requires the user to hold a Bored Ape to stake in it. In the BAYC Pool, users are allowed to commit up to 10,094 $Ape per Bored Ape they hold.
The third pool is the “MAYC Pool.” This pool requires the user to hold a Mutant Ape to stake in it. In the MAYC Pool, users are permitted to commit up to 2,042 $Ape per Mutant Ape they hold.
The fourth and final pool is the “Paired Pool.” This pool is different from the BAYC and MAYC pools because users not only need to own a Bored Ape Kennel Club Dog, but they also need to own a Bored Ape or Mutant Ape. Users who own a Bored Ape/ Mutant Ape and a BAKC Dog can commit up to 856 $Ape per pair they own.
As the window to pre-commit $Ape opens, now is as good a time as any to remind the community that staked $Ape belongs to the corresponding NFT. This means that if someone sells their Bored Ape while it has $Ape staked to it, then the new owner would also get the coins.
“A user’s staked $Ape belongs to the owner of the corresponding NFT,” Horzien Labs Co-Founder and ApeCoin Special Council member Dean Steinbeck told the Gazette on October 18th. “If you sell your NFT before removing it from the platform you are essentially selling your NFT along with your staked $Ape. I really hope users are careful and pay attention to this feature. We’re doing our best to educate users but hopefully others can spread the word too.”
Further, it is important to note that while everyone is permitted to interact with the ApeCoin DAO’s staking smart contract, according to the DAO; a large swath of the $Ape community will be geo-blocked from using Horizen Labs’ ApeStake user interface.
“Please note that ApeStake.io will be available to users in most countries; however, users in the following countries or regions will be geo-blocked: United States, Canada, North Korea, Syria, Iran, Cuba, Russia, Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk,” Hozien Labs posted on November 23rd. “We are aware that geo-blocking some users in North America is inconvenient for many members of the ApeCoin community. Unfortunately, in today’s regulatory environment, we had no good alternative.”
While many $Ape holders will be unable to use Horizen Labs’ staking system, Steinbeck previously told the Bored Ape Gazette that he anticipates a ton of alternative staking options for geo-blocked $Ape holders.
“The smart contract is open source and can be accessed by anyone, anywhere,” Steinbeck previously said. “I expect many third parties to offer UI that interacts with the smart contract and be available to users in jurisdictions that our UI does not service.”
Staking rewards do not begin to accrue until December 12th, according to Horizen Labs. The Bored Ape Gazette highly encourages the community to do their own research before using any unknown staking system. The Bored Ape Gazette will continue to follow the various user interfaces that are built and will keep you posted on which ones community leaders deem safe.
As the ApeCoin DAO gets ready to stake their coins for the first time, the DAO is also voting on four different Ape Improvement Proposals this week.
The first AIP that the $Ape community is voting on this week is AIP-77 titled, “To set up an APE Coin Discord Channel by wAPEd. In total wAPEd is asking the DAO to allocate 78,000 $Ape ($304,980 USD at the time of this article’s publication) per year to cover the cost of the channel.
The second AIP on the Ballot this week is AIP-122 titled, “Feasibility study for Regional Conference & Festival in Phuket, Thailand – 2023 Ape and Friends Festival” by ApeCoin DAO contributor Superman69. In total, Superman69 expects the feasibility study to cost the DAO around $15,000 USD. With the money, Superman69 explained that they would set up a committee to find facts about the idea and identify stakeholders.
The third proposal on the ballot this week is AIP-123 titled, “Apeverse - A Multi-language Web Hub for Ape Ecosystem and $APE Holders,” by BAYC member 0xChrisL. In AIP-123 ChrisL proposed the creation of a place for holders to get news and information about the Asia-Pacific $Ape community in several different languages. In total, ChrisL is asking the ApeCoin DAO to allocate $164,000 USD to create and fund Apeverse’s first year.
The fourth and final AIP on the ballot this week at the ApeCoin DAO is AIP-133 titled “Boring Security- For the Long Haul,” by BAYC member Feld. In AIP 133, Feld asked the DAO for $420,696.90 USD so he can keep running Boring Security and make the project self-sustained via a “treasury strategy.”
While there’s a lot happening at the ApeCoin DAO this week, there have been a bunch of interesting developments around the Yugaverse!
To start, the BAYC has the entire Ape community asking, “What’s in the box?” after it tweeted an update on the Trial of Jimmy the Monkey on November 24th.
At the time of this newsletter’s publication, we do not know much about the box or the trial of Jimmy the Monkey. But we do know that BAYC Co-Founder EmperorTomatoKetchup does not think that the Apes will be able to guess what’s coming next.
“You all are good at guessing but I can guarantee you ain’t guessing this shit," he tweeted on November 24th.
In Punk news, CryptoPunk #305 made her debut at the Institute of Contemporary Art In Miami on Friday night after Yuga Labs donated the Punk to the museum as part of its “Punks Legacy Project.”
CryptoPunk #305 is now part of an exhibit at the ICA called “Why Warhol.” This exhibit features the female punk dubbed “Virtual Lady” by the museum and Andy Warhol’s “American Lady” from the artist’s Society Portraits collection.
The ICA explained that Warhol’s Society Portraits and today’s profile photos share many similarities; hence why the exhibit is called “Why Warhol!”
“Andy Warhol is fairly uncontested when it comes to the title of “Greatest Postmodern Portrait Artist.” His instantly iconic bright and bold silkscreen paintings depict the visages of any and everyone chic, famous, infamous or somewhere in between,” The ICA Miami wrote. “Warhol’s Society portraits were largely commissioned by their subjects as a kind of emblem for their status within the high society of cultural intelligentsia- one might argue they are precursors to the present-day phenomenon of prestigious PFPs. The series is uniform in format: all the paintings are square (40 X 40 in.) and display the subject from the shoulders up, reproducing their image using a combination of painterly and printing techniques. In showcasing #305 (aka. Virtual Lady) alongside Warhol’s (American Lady), our aim is to illuminate the various affinities- both aesthetic and conceptual- that exist between Warhol’s portrait painting practice and the CryptoPunks digital avatar collection.”
Along with CryptoPunk #305 making her debut at the ICA, a bunch of community led projects are building out the Yugaverse lore. Jenkins the Valet is off making his new podcast series as he searches for his missing dog and the Mutant Cartel announced that it will be holding its highly anticipated Mutant Hounds mint on December 12th.
Thank you so much for reading this week’s edition of Keeping Tabs On The Lab and stay tuned for next week’s newsletter, “The ApeCoin DAO-N LOW,” where the Gazette will take a closer look at the ApeCoin DAO.
Sincerely,
Kyle
Editor-In-Chief
Bored Ape Gazette