AIP-379: Thank APE - Phase II: Amplifying a Movement

ABSTRACT

ApeCoin must create value now. To do that, we must attract, fund, and coordinate the best talent to address our DAO’s biggest needs. Speed and accuracy matter. Trust matters. Automation and decentralization matter. Utility is essential.

Thank APE - Phase II is a one-year initiative that proposes to:

• Continuously sense into the biggest needs and opportunities for ApeCoin DAO
• Attract, fund, and coordinate the best talent to quickly respond to those needs
• Incentivize community members to engage and support value-creating projects

Initially funded nearly a year ago, Thank APE has attracted, funded, and coordinated more talent to create value for ApeCoin DAO than the rest of our DAO AIP process - combined. And we’ve done it with less than 0.4% of the treasury.

Thank APE's Motivation: We are Apes. Our motivation is to create enormous value for ApeCoin DAO - by rewarding and recognizing valuable decentralized contributions to our DAO. We’ve been doing this since our first Thank APE Proposal AIP-124 passed almost a year ago.

Our motivation - combined with our tech and expertise, and your partnership - has helped support significant accomplishments since we launched in April of this year. We’ve done it all through a bear market, decreasing ApeCoin value, and wide-ranging coordination problems in the DAO:

Recently, big proposals have passed that reflect a shared realization that we must create more value now. Examples include AIP-297, AIP-304 , and AIP-317 - all of which are seeking to shake things up and help build value in new, big ways for our DAO.

While the impact of these proposals isn’t yet known, the DAO recognized they we must invest to ignite an ecosystem whose future depends on us. Thank APE is proposing another big bet - one that, we believe, addresses the biggest need in the DAO:

We must create greater value, utility, and efficiency in our DAO now.

To do that, our Thank APE - Phase II will support effective decision-making and allocation of resources - and attract, fund, and coordinate top talent that quickly addresses the biggest needs in the DAO.

• Our DAO has passed some proposals - but few have created significant impact yet.
• Our DAO has organized into various groups - but much is still left to be desired.
• Our DAO has built some things - but not enough people use them and none generate revenue.

Thank APE has already been a consistent force in ApeCoin DAO fixated on solving this massive need. We’ve funded and coordinated the building of hundreds of projects creating value in alignment with the feedback of our community and the needs of our DAO.

Background: Our ApeCoin community was founded with a simple mission of driving culture forward into the metaverse. This mission requires building a thriving ecosystem around our culture and community.

A year ago, we had a treasury war chest valued in the billions. Today that same treasury is valued at a fraction of what it was. This is largely because the DAO has generally had a hard time consistently attracting top talent to contribute to our ecosystem.

There is a simple reason for this: Passing an AIP in our DAO environment is hard. It requires that a builder also be a diplomat and a salesperson, not get paid for months, and - at times - put themselves in the crosshairs of public misinformation campaigns from people with their own interests.

Top builders don't need to put themselves through that kind of pain. They can fund their projects in easier ways than our AIP process provides. For example, ThriveCoin is funded by well-recognized web3 VCs, all of which provided an easiest, less stressful path than passing an ApeCoin AIP.

Thank APE has been changing this.

Through Thank APE, top builders have been able to quickly and easily contribute to ApeCoin DAO in ways that are aligned with the biggest needs of our DAO. The impact is that we've attracted thousands of new contributors that has resulted in hundreds of new projects for ApeCoin DAO.

This is just the beginning. With Phase II, we are doubling down on everything that's worked, making our tech even more accessible and extensible, and focusing all of our energy on attracting greater builders from across our ecosystem to build with ApeCoin!

With Phase II, we are proposing to take a bigger role in helping our ApeCoin community create greater value, efficiency, and utility now. Our shared future requires that we get this right.

BENEFIT TO APECOIN ECOSYSTEM

ApeCoin must expand the size of our talent pool and continue to create more and more value now. This requires being faster, better, and bolder.

Thank APE is proposing to expand our role as a trusted party in maximizing value creation for our DAO - and doing it in a way that ensures greater utility, value, and efficiency across our decentralized community. The benefit to the ApeCoin ecosystem will be:

• Greater community-wide clarity about the biggest needs of our ecosystem
• Quick, precise funding of decentralized talent to address our biggest needs
• Incentives for members to use and engage projects addressing our biggest needs

We expect to predominately serve three areas of known ecosystem needs (the details of which will be further clarified in the continuous Sense process described below):

• Tech builders: e.g. development teams, developers, etc.
• Culture builders: e.g. influencers, artists, writers, events, local communities, etc.
• Small businesses: e.g. online and offline merchants, service providers, etc.

** If ApeChain is funded, we intend to be a strong support for onboarding and building on ApeChain.

** We intend to give special consideration to projects that drive revenue for the ApeCoin ecosystem.

OVERALL COST

We request 4.2M APE for a 1-year deployment. Like with Phase I, the proposal is 100% Performance-based.

• 80% of requested funds allocated back to the ApeCoin community for value-creating contributions.
• 20% allocated to service provider fees.

Below is an overview of how we expect to allocate funds for Phase 2 over one year (final allocations clarified during ongoing Sense processes, which all community members can influence):

3.36 million APE allocated back to the community in the form of rewards. Includes:

• 1.68M to Tech Builders
• 1.18M to Culture Builders
• 500k to Small Businesses
• 336k to Emerging Opportunities

840k APE allocated to ThriveCoin, Thank APE Board, and other support services. Includes:

305k - Protocol and Platform Design & Development

• Product Architecture, Design, and Management - 70k
• Backend Development Support - 90k
• Dashboard / UI Development Support - 50k
• UI/UX Design - 10k
• QA - 20k
• Admin Dashboard UI Development - 25k
• Smart Contract Development - 20k
• Smart Contract Audit - 20k (third party)

400k - Deployment Support, Partnerships, Community, Legal

• Community Project Manager - 60k
• Integrations / Contributions Specialist - 60k
• Community Relations / Support - 60k
• Community Management / Moderation - 60k
• Data Analyst - 40k
• Funding Allocator - 60k
• Event Management - 40k
• Legal - 20k

75k - Hosting Costs

• AWS Infrastructure Costs - 60k
• Blockchain Indexing / Data Storage - 15k

60k - Thank APE Board Members not part of the APE Foundation

PROPOSAL

Link to the full proposal: https://forum.apecoin.com/t/aip-379-thank-ape-phase-ii-amplifying-a-movement/20324

The AIP implementation is administered by the Ape Foundation. Implementation may be immaterially or materially altered to optimise for security, usability, to protect APE holders, and otherwise to effect the intent of the AIP. Any material deviations from an AIP, as initially approved, will be disclosed to the APE holder community.