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Monkey Business: Checking out Just Ape’s Unique Approach to NFTs. Podcast Key Takeaways. 

Feb 2, 2024

AI Summary

Here's your AI summary of Monkey Business: Checking out Just Ape's Unique Approach to NFTs. Podcast Key Takeaways. on Aleph Zero blog

  1. Maturation of the NFT Space: The NFT space has evolved significantly, with projects now focusing on providing real-world value beyond just artwork.

  2. Pudgy Penguins as a Case Study: Pudgy Penguins is highlighted as a successful project that has garnered interest beyond the Web3 community.

  3. Caution in Investment: Despite progress, many NFT projects still exhibit red flags reminiscent of the 2021 NFT bubble, necessitating careful research before investing.

  4. Just Ape's Real-World Integration: Just Ape aims to connect Web2 audiences with Web3 technology by offering tangible benefits like clothing, coffee, and future lending protocols and tokenized real-world assets (RWAs).

  5. Potential of RWAs: Tokenized real-world assets can represent physical and traditional financial assets on the blockchain, leveraging its immutable and traceable nature for business transactions.

  6. Balancing Act in NFT Projects: Successful NFT projects balance creating compelling narratives, offering real-world benefits, engaging artwork, and fostering community engagement.

  7. Apes Across Worlds: Just Ape is launching a collection of 220 NFTs called Apes Across Worlds, allowing users to participate in community governance and influence the project's direction.

  8. Focus on Long-Lasting Value: Modern NFT projects prioritize creating long-lasting real-world value for community members, moving away from the speculative nature of previous cycles.

  9. Engaging Storytelling and Merchandise: Just Ape combines engaging storytelling with merchandise like clothes and coffee to engage community members and offer long-term benefits.

  10. Community Governance: Innovative NFT projects, including Just Ape, are exploring community governance models where NFT owners can vote on the project's direction, further decentralizing the space.

AI Summary

In a recent episode of the Aleph Zero Podcast, we caught up with Groovy of the Just Ape NFT projects to discuss the dynamics of the NFT space, how it has matured in recent years, and Just Ape’s approach towards bridging real-world value to the digital. 

Listen to the episode on the platform of your choice

TL;DL

Too Long; Didn’t Listen

  • The NFT space has come a long way from its beginnings, with many projects realizing the importance of providing alternative sources of value to their communities other than artwork. 
  • Pudgy Penguins is an example of a project that has made incredible strides in gathering interest from beyond the Web3 space. 
  • Despite the progress experienced in the space, many projects continue to raise all the red flags associated with the 2021 NFT bubble, meaning users should still be careful and conduct diligent research before investing.
  • Just Ape is a project that has been highly invested in connecting Web2 audiences with Web3 technology by offering real-world benefits such as clothing, coffee, and, later on, lending protocols and tokenized RWAs. 
  • Incredible potential rests in the popularization of RWAs or tokenized real-world assets that can represent physical as well as traditional financial assets on the blockchain. This allows users to leverage blockchain transactions’ immutable and traceable nature in business dealings. 
  • Building NFT projects is a balancing act of creating attractive narratives that offer real-world benefits, exciting artwork, and community engagement. 
  • Just Ape is preparing to launch Apes Across Worlds, a unique collection of 220 NFTs that will allow users to participate in community governance and help steer the direction of the project. 

Prioritizing Real-World Value 

One of the greatest differentiating factors separating NFT projects currently being built from those deployed in the previous crypto cycle is the attention to creating long-lasting real-world value for community members. As Groovy mentions throughout the episode, the last cycle’s speculative nature is being curbed by projects delivering value to customers that extends beyond the artwork. This comes in various forms, such as by offering NFT holders unique experiences, access to specific products, and community governance models. This is not to say that the space’s growing pains have been wholly eliminated. As mentioned by Groovy, he is still witness to numerous projects that gain incredible funding without offering their investors and users any product of practical value. As always, diligent research is necessary to weed out those projects that he jokingly refers to as “value extractors.”

Bridging Web2 and Web3 With Just Ape 

One of the Just Ape project’s primary goals is to find ways to engage community members and offer them long-term benefits for their involvement in the project. One way in which the team does it is by prioritizing engaging storytelling while combining it with merchandise such as clothes and coffee. In the long run, they want to become more entwined with the DeFi space by offering a lending protocol to users and entering the RWA market. 

RWAs, or real-world assets, are an exciting narrative in the crypto space in which users can leverage the immutable and traceable nature of blockchain technology by tying them to physical assets to prove their originality and history. This concept is leading to new and exciting use cases for the Web3 community while also energizing the NFT space by allowing it to leave the digital realm and inhabit the real world. 

Creating NFT projects requires attention to detail when crafting not only the artwork but also the narrative and benefits that will tie the community to the project, creating brand loyalty. Another innovative frontier for NFT projects to explore is community governance, in which NFT owners will be able to govern the direction of the project through a voting mechanism, further decentralizing the space. In Just Ape’s case, this will happen through Apes Across Worlds, a unique collection of 220 NFTs that will permit users to participate in community governance.

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EP. 26 Monkey Business: Checking out Just Ape's Unique Approach to NFTs

Let's meet Just Ape, an impressive NFT project deployed on Aleph Zero that aims to deliver the missing link between the physical and digital realms. We'll be discussing the project itself and how it intends to create communities that transcend the usual Web3 buzzwords while also diving deep into the changes the NFT space underwent as a whole in recent years.

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