Keeping Tabs On The Lab #40
To the Bored,
Good evening and thank you for reading the 40th edition of the Bored Ape Gazette’s Keeping Tabs on the Lab newsletter!
The Yugaverse is expanding following Yuga Labs’ acquisition of the PROOF Collective. The vibes are returning to the swamp after Yuga Labs’ CEO, Daniel Alegre, held a first-of-its-kind bored meeting over the weekend. ApeCoin is evolving after the DAO picked the Horizen Labs and Arbitrum team to build an ApeChain. And 50 community members are leading the charge to make new members feel welcomed.
But before we ape into all that, I’d like to start this week’s newsletter by welcoming the Moonbirds to the swamp. I’m happy to have you here and I can’t wait to learn more about your community and cover the amazing things that you all do!
With that said, let’s get into the news and keep tabs on the lab!
To begin, Yuga Labs announced that that it had acquired the PROOF Collective, its signature collection Moonbirds, The PROOF team, and the project’s resources in an all-stock deal on February 16th.
“As a company committed to championing art, culture, and community on the blockchain, we’re excited to have PROOF join the Yuga ecosystem,” Yuga Labs CEO, Daniel Alegre said in a press release. “Moonbirds is a collection with great potential and many unifying brand elements with Otherside. We look forward to PROOF Collective becoming an important part of our ongoing art and community engagement efforts.”
After the deal, many in the community took to Twitter and gave their two Sats about the acquisition and voiced their concerns about PROOF’s controversial Founder, Kevin Rose, who Alegre assured the community will not be working at Yuga Labs.
Due to all the comments and concerns raised by longtime Apes on Friday, Alegre called a town hall meeting in the BAYC Discord on Saturday night.
To kick off the meeting, Alegre assured the community that Rose does not have a job at Yuga Labs.
“Kevin Rose will not be joining Yuga,” Alegre said. “He will help with the integration, obliviously he knows the team and he knows the business, so he will join as an advisor to my team and me as we work through the integration. But he is not going to be joining Yuga.”
As the meeting continued, 700 plus Apes listened as Alegre, the BAYC’s Creative Director, Jeff Nicholas, and Yuga Labs Co-Founder Garga explain that Moonbirds will be part of Yuga Labs’ Otherside plans, that the company had to retool its metaverse plans last year, that an in real life clubhouse is coming, and that Apes will always be at the center of everything they do at Yuga Labs. “BAYC is the center of our universe,” Nicholas said.
Acquisitions and bored meetings weren’t the only things happening around the Yugaverse last week. Nearly two years after Yuga Labs’ Otherside mint and their public recommendation that the ApeCoin DAO look into making its own ApeChain, $Ape holders cast 49.6 million votes in a ballot to determine who will build an ApeChain for the $Ape ecosystem, selecting the Horizen Labs and Arbitrum team by a wide margin.
“This has been an amazing process that involved world-class teams all around,” Horizen Labs’ VP of Ecosystem Growth Blockchainzilla told the Gazette. “We said at the beginning of this process that the time for ApeChain is now and it really is. In terms of next steps, the OffChain Labs, Arbitrum and Horizen Labs teams will be working hard on recommendations and any additional questions that will need to be brought before the community. Most of all we're looking forward to collaborating and bringing everybody together to push ApeChain forward.”
The Horizen Labs and Arbitrum team’s eventual ApeChain will see $Ape used as its native gas token, will generate revenue for the DAO via a transaction fee, will feature have low gas costs, have customizable code that the community can change, and will let $Ape holders govern ApeChain, according to their approved proposal.
After the DAO’s vote last week, Yuga Labs, who has said for years that Otherside and its other games will be powered by $Ape, took to Twitter and said that they look forward to building on $Ape!
As Yuga Labs and the entire Yugaverse welcome an ApeChain a group of 50 plus Apes are welcoming new holders to the BAYC through their Welcome Apes initiatve!
Tomorrow evening, the Welcome Apes will be hosting their first ever ‘Welcome Wednesday’ Twitter Space where they will introducing new members to the community and getting them involved in all thing Ape!
“We'll be welcoming new apes to the club and introducing them to any regional clubs and other sub-communities,” BAYC member ChrisJourdan told the Gazette. “But all apes should tune in and get to know our newest club members, learn more about them, their background and their "why" behind joining the club.”
Thank you so much for reading this week’s edition of Keeping Tabs On The Lab and be sure to follow the Bored Ape Gazette on Twitter to stay up to date with all things Yuga!
Best,
Kyle
Editor-In-Chief
Bored Ape Gazette