Review of the Apechain Launch Spectacle: MEME, Pumping, Automatic Earnings, Unveiling the Marketing Combo for the Mainnet Launch
In a day and a half, it surged by 135%, and APE has once again returned to the mainstream view of cryptocurrency, but this time it relies on MEME.Author: Frank, PANews
In just a day and a half, APE surged by 135%, once again returning to the mainstream crypto spotlight, but this time it was driven by MEME.
At 4:27 AM on October 20, the official Twitter account of Bored Ape Yacht Club announced that the Apechain mainnet had officially launched. Just over ten minutes later, the market began to respond to this new L3, and the governance token APE started to rise. Meanwhile, with the creation and subsequent rise of the CURTIS token on the one-click token issuance platform Ape Express within the ecosystem, the price of APE also increased simultaneously. As of October 21, the price of APE rose from 0.748 to a peak of 1.758, marking a maximum increase of over 135%.
Many people exclaimed that the king of NFTs had returned in a new way, while others were skeptical, believing this was merely a brief blind stimulus from the market, and the fate of Apechain remained uncertain. Regardless of how things develop next, the events of the past two days have shown that Apechain has once again demonstrated its outstanding operational capabilities, presenting a classic marketing battle in Web3 to the world.
A Combination Punch Tops the Traffic Charts
In the past two years, the presence of NFTs and the metaverse in the crypto world has been quite low, and the glory of IP seems to have long been sealed in the album of history. As one of the most well-known IPs in the Web3 space, the fate of Bored Apes resembles that of a retired superstar, watching as new players continuously emerge in the MEME arena, igniting various communities and cultures to launch new tokens. However, the once most adept at creating IP and stirring up community events, the Bored Apes, have genuinely missed out on the rising tide over the past year.
However, it is evident that the Apechain team seems not to be confined to their small circle. From the products and strategies launched this time, it can be seen that Apechain has almost utilized all of the most effective strategies currently in the market.
Looking at it collectively, Apechain has launched a set of combination punches, divided into several segments: the launch of the Apechain mainnet, a token issuance platform similar to Pump.fun, the new MEME king CURTIS, automatic earnings for APE holders, and price pumping. Any one of these combination punches alone might struggle to create the effect of APE returning to the top spot. But when launched together, the power of the combination becomes evident, even giving the impression that it is difficult to discern what is truly driving the effect here.
Next, PANews will analyze this classic Web3 case.
ApeFest Fan Events Heat Up, Unintentionally Creating FOMO
The evening of October 20 marked the last day of the fourth ApeFest, where countless enthusiasts and holders of Bored Apes celebrated in Lisbon, Portugal. On social media, many Bored Ape holders shared videos and content related to the event that day, laying a solid foundation for the topic's heat around APE. Even BMW's official account repeatedly posted content related to the event on that day.
The launch of Apechain was not like the usual projects that abruptly release a long official announcement. The approach taken by Bored Ape Yacht Club was unconventional; prior to this announcement, the official account had released several tweets introducing the ApeFest event. At the end of this series of tweets, they casually mentioned, "Oh, by the way, while we were tweeting… ApeChain has launched. Start visiting now to see real-time updates." This seemingly casual announcement not only created a light-hearted atmosphere but also seemed to carry an element of FOMO.
Simultaneously, there should have been announcements made on-site, with participants sharing this news on Twitter. After this series of operations, at least on the news front, the heat around APE had already boiled over. On the other hand, as the price of APE began to rise, it further fueled this surge in interest.
Those monitoring market dynamics would check the reasons for the rise, carefully studying Apechain to make investment judgments. Meanwhile, those seeing the news on social media would look at market performance to assess the importance of the news. This created a two-way cycle.
The MEME Wealth Effect and Automatic Earnings Add Fuel to the Fire
Of course, just the launch of Apechain alone would quickly dampen the enthusiasm of external investors, as it appeared to be merely a Layer 3 chain built on Arbitrum Orbit. Therefore, at this point, it was necessary to add some fuel to the fire, and two pieces of fuel were introduced to the market.
One piece of fuel is a MEME coin named CURTIS, which has seen its price rise continuously since its creation. Unlike the leading MEME coins that previously emerged on Solana and other chains, which experienced a pullback before rising, CURTIS has shown a rapid upward trend filled with FOMO sentiment.
The other piece of fuel is the "automatic earnings model for ApeCoin holders," which seems to have alleviated some concerns about the rise of APE. In fact, research by PANews has found that this automatic earnings model may not be as automatic as it seems; users need to select specific apeUSD through cross-chain to achieve this kind of earnings, and the specific return rate for these earnings cannot currently be calculated. Therefore, the actual effectiveness of this automatic earnings feature remains uncertain, but from a performance perspective, it has indeed met expectations.
With the support of these two pieces of fuel, more projects and tokens within the Apechain ecosystem have begun to attract attention. Among them, the most popular is a trading simulation competition called "Top Trader," developed by the Workshop team. This blockchain-based trading simulation game allows users to trade with 1000x leverage, with winners sharing a prize pool of $10,000. Although the prize for this game is not particularly high, its greater purpose is to help the newly launched Apechain quickly accumulate on-chain trading volume and new users. As of October 21, the cumulative trading volume on Apechain had reached 1.3 million transactions (with 1.12 million transactions occurring on October 20).
Will There Be More Combination Punches?
If a good start is half the battle, Apechain has certainly achieved this half perfectly. However, whether there will be new combination punches to follow remains to be seen.
From the data performance on October 21, the skepticism on social media regarding APE being just another "flash in the pan" may not be unfounded. First, regarding the MEME coin, the leading token CURTIS saw its market cap drop from nearly $30 million at its peak to $6 million, which appears to be a significant pullback. Additionally, there are only three tokens with a market cap exceeding $10 million, while the remaining tokens have market caps of less than $1 million. The number of tokens with trading volumes exceeding $1 million is also fewer than five. From this perspective, the MEME heat on Apechain seems to have struggled to maintain its momentum.
Other data also experienced a steep decline, with active users reaching 83,000 on the 20th, dropping to 5,293 on the 21st. APE transfers totaled 93,000 on the 20th, falling to 15,000 on the 21st.
However, the price of the APE token has remained around $1.50, which is relatively positive. From the Apechain official website, the homepage banner features a racing game that has yet to be launched. Based on some of the content displayed on the official platform, it seems that games may still be a major foundation for Apechain, and in the face of severe homogenization competition among various public chains, it will be challenging for the MEME coin craze to compete with the mature MEME ecosystems of Solana, Ethereum, Base, and others.
Looking back to 2022, when Apechain had just announced its launch and Yuga Labs completed the acquisition of CryptoPunks, the floor price of Bored Ape NFTs once surpassed 100 ETH. Many believed that the Yuga Labs team could create a Web3 version of Disney. However, two years have passed, and it is uncertain whether Yuga Labs' vision of building a Web3 Disney still exists. The winds of NFTs and the metaverse have blown further away, and what Apechain can do now is merely to barely catch the last train of MEME. From this lively launch, it is evident that Yuga Labs' operational and promotional capabilities should not be underestimated, and it is worth looking forward to what sparks may fly before the train arrives at the station.
The return of Bored Ape Yacht Club also raises the question: when the Web3 Disney dream fades, is the crypto "casino" the only way out in the short term?
