Cross-chain Spaces hosted by Earthlings and HashPack – Planet of the Apes (Part 1)

In part one of this Twitter Spaces, Earthlings and HashPack along with other panelists speak about the commonalities in Ape and Monkey projects that have sprung up in various networks since the Yuga Labs Bored Ape Yacht Club launched in Ethereum.

Transcription

Earthlings – Patrick de Grijs – Founder
‍I'm actually missing the music now. I don't hear any music anymore, but I'm afraid to turn it on because we've got so many bugs lately with spaces. And we have one, one time we had the music on, and we couldn't turn it off. It was last, last week, so I'm not turning it on, I'm not touching anything. I don't know, guys, but I do miss the music now. It's relaxing music, I must, I must give them that, they have nice music. So we'll just wait, uh, a bit more. I see that many are already dripping in, so Marc, how is how are things on your side? Oh, I just want to say because Marc is my twin brother today, because Marcel, he couldn't make it unfortunately, so Marc, you just have to pretend to be my brother today. Well, anyway you are, but what's up with HashPack? You got any news there?

HashPack Wallet – Marc Ugas – Director of Operations
‍Yeah, yeah, so hello everyone, so yeah, no, I mean everything's been going great, lots of things coming soon, we've been, you know, working our way through many, many different things lately, but yeah, I'm really excited for the spaces, you know, a lot of familiar faces but also new ones, like to welcome in the Bored Apes XRP Club. Yeah, first time hearing about you guys, so super, super excited for this. And yeah, I mean, I guess some of the things that we've been working on, we're really being focusing a lot on the whole cross chain stuff, which I know that Hangry has as well, and I think that this is yet another example of, you know, what the importance of getting on cross-chain conversations and discussing and basically learning from one another. In terms of things that are coming from HashPack, I mean, we've had multiple announcements come out lately. Obviously, we had secure trade V2, which we're constantly taking feedback from the community and seeing what we can do to make it even better. We partnered with Citadel Wallet and actually the pre-mint, the pre-order, actually went live this morning. So that's basically the first Native Hardware wallet in the Hedera ecosystem. And, and yeah, I mean a lot more things that I wish I could talk about, but it's, it's still too early, so yeah, but yeah, great to have everyone here, and I think we are missing Mad V Apes. Am I wrong with that?

Earthlings – Patrick de Grijs – Founder
‍Yeah, I think yeah, I'm missing them too. I don't know if there's someone from Mad V Apes here because I know that they were coming. I just posted them an hour ago, then just raise your hand or request to, speak because we would love to have you in as well, but we will just start slowly because we've got a lot to speak about. It's going to be a fun space. I'll just do the little intro and then let's hope that Mad V Apes will join still, so I actually expect two of them to come, so we'll see. So what are we talking about today? Well, the name says it all, of course, "Planet of the Apes." Because I always wanted to know why all the apes (and yes, we've got one from our corner as well) don't know if we can call them apes, monkeys. It's actually Baboons, but we count them in as well. Hangry, you'll get your turn. So, we get a lot of guests today. Well, it's all about monkeys, apes, performance, as I said. And as I said, I just have no clue where, well, I did Google it, I know where it started a bit now, but we have some projects today that have actually already proven why this is, and maybe they can shed more light on it as well. They shoot why, why all the apes. So, last week we had Milan, and HBAR Joe. They spoke about Joe and Milan to Earth onboarding to web 3, and what's it gonna take. And that's something from another whole other level, of course. And we'd like to keep it a bit simple today and just go with bananas with our guests. I couldn't leave not saying that, sorry, guys. I know it's not a very good joke, but as usually, we keep it friendly. So, Marc, do you own any apes or baboons or monkeys?

HashPack Wallet – Marc Ugas – Director of Operations
‍Yeah, so I actually own a couple of Hangry Barboons. I still remember back in October, going through that mint, there was, yeah, and I keep them on my personal profile. That's my pfp. And yeah, I'm a big fan, big fan of Hangry here and his work ethic and everything that has been doing for the Hedera ecosystem, bringing people from other ecosystems as well. So, yeah, and I mean, yeah, so I've got a couple, but do you have some, Patrick?

Earthlings – Patrick de Grijs – Founder
‍I'm not gonna tell. Yes, I have some apes, but I don't want to get people jealous and favoring one project over the other. So, I think I'm spoiling Hangry enough, by the way, by having him own the underground in our game. Let's keep it with that. So, Marc, can you introduce the main guests that we have today? I'll walk to my computer and see why if maybe Mad V Apes has problems logging in. If you just do the intro of the three main speakers, and then I'll be back in less than 60 seconds.

HashPack Wallet – Marc Ugas – Director of Operations
‍Awesome. Yeah, no, I can take care of that. So, yeah, we'll start with Hangry from Hangry Baboons here. So he's been, I think that you know, one of the biggest, well in terms of volume, I think it's either top one or top two. I think you guys interchange with Dead Pixels a lot. And so, yeah, it's been great to see everything that Hangry has been doing for the Hedera ecosystem, bringing a lot of people from other ecosystems like I was saying earlier, and just recently, him launching, you know, his ordinals, collection with Pixel Boons, which is incredible. The other day, I found out about it, and yeah, the art again is top tier. And I think that, you know, it's incredible to see the progress, and the community has been built around the Hangry Barboon's collection. On top of that, you know, in more of a long-term haul, we're all expect you know, we're all patiently waiting for the Fregs to come, which is also something that is super exciting. And obviously, you know, the rebels and the underground with their Earthlings is something that kind of caught me by surprise, but then when I saw it was it was incredible. We also have, we will be having Mad Vapes from VeChain. They will be joining, and I don't know if it's going to be Cigtoshi or  somebody else from their team. And there are,there like I said, they're in the Vechain blockchain, and  yeah, it's they've been it's been great to talk to them and having come up with a lot of these Twitter cross-chain spaces to learn about you know, what commonalities between the ecosystem and the Vechain ecosystem are, and also just learn about the ins and out of VeChain. And then a new guest that, you know, like I said earlier, I've never um heard about before, but you know, really looking forward to hearing more, is the Bored Apes XRP Club, which is I mean, I've been yeah when Patrick was talking, I was looking through your art, looks incredible, so yeah, really really excited to get this conversation going. And from here, I think Patrick, would you like me to pass it on to Hangry and Board Apes XRP Club to kind of do a quick introduction of themselves?

Earthlings – Patrick de Grijs – Founder
‍Yeah, yeah, let's have Hangry go first, he's home team, so let's spoil him a bit, okay? And then we'll have both apes as well, and oh man, I hope I just sent, uh, Mad Vapes a message on Discord. I see one of them, you know, he must be a Mad V Apes guest, so if they don't show up for any reason, these things happen, uh, then if any of the fans want to come and defend their honor, you're welcome, guys, but uh, Hangry, come on, go introduce yourself.

Hangry Barboons – Hangry - Founder
‍Yeah, thanks, thanks for the introductions. I'm Hangry, I'm the artist and founder of Hangry Barboons on Hedera, and we've got a lot going on I'm excited about, and like Marc mentioned, there's a lot of cross-chain components that we're incorporating into the project and reaching out to people and getting people excited, not only about Boons but also Hedera and vice versa with the other stuff that's going on other teams. So, interestingly enough, you were talking about like apes and things. I do think if I remember correctly that a baboon is a monkey technically, and a mandrel which is like what Rafiki is actually, also a monkey, so it's not a baboon. Anyways, got other stuff going, on Bitcoin. I've really started getting into that with ordinals, which is a new blossoming ecosystem. So, I've always been in a pixel artist. Many of you may or may not know that, but like, I always love pixel art. So, given that the file sizes over there can only handle so much before the image quality starts to degrade, it's a great place to put pixel art. So, I've made a mini collection, actually several mini collections of pixel art, including Pixel Boons which incorporate some of the traits from the OG collection. And I've inscribed that pretty early on and I'm kind of just trying to get to know the community over there in Bitcoin and basically kind of create a little tunnel from Hedera to ordinals through Hangry Barboons. And then of course, like, I'm working on some other stuff like the Fregs, which is, something that probably will take a long time to create but maybe next year I'll have more information, about that. But like, right now I'm focusing on the Rebels, the free Airdrop that's coming to Rebel holders. I'm like super happy with the design as they're coming out, they look really cool and intimidating and techy, and it really fits with the Earthlings theme with the underground, area for Rebels that I actually got to see a new preview this morning that got me really excited too. So, I really appreciate that team for getting creative, with Hangry Baboons, and, and getting like, some excitement around Rebels aside from the cool art that's coming. And then last thing I want to mention is, is I'm still working on, partnered with Hidruto to continue to work on the gaming stuff. There's gonna be a weapon airdrop that's imminent. I know I've been saying that for a little while, but we've got a cool weapon airdrop coming very, very soon. And I'll have some more details, as soon as Hedera gives me the go ahead.

Earthlings – Patrick de Grijs – Founder
‍Foreign weapons too, and you're getting sneak previews. Who gives you these sneak previews? We're trying to throw you out of a system and you're crawling back in. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, well, no, we're cool. Love to have you and thank you for the introduction. I do see, I'm not going to get to you, just get IronEd, but I appreciate it so much that you've enjoyed that you joined as well. I'm gonna get to you as well, IronEd. So, let's go, all pleasure, thanks, yeah, okay, great. Thank [Music] XRP Club. If, if I'm wrong with the mistaking, that's a long name and I want to know all about it and why. Bored, are you so boring? Tell me all about yourself.

Bored Ape XRP Club – Baba
‍So, hello friends. I'm Baba from the Board Apps XRP Club. Hope everyone can hear me fine. First of all thanks for the invitation and the opportunity to be here with you and this amazing project. Yeah, let me introduce us. Um, explain our project real quick. Obviously, we've got a collection of 10,000 apes, it's our main collection, and to be a member of our club, it's just needed to hold one ape NFT, and for each NFT, you get one banana per day, and it's paid out in your some wallet. It's probably, yes, similar to the wallets you've got on your chain. We also got a collection of 888 Hawks. Hawks are the partners of our apps, and in the near future, it will be possible, um, to mutate what it requires, you need an ape NFT, a hawk NFT, and a certain number of bananas, and like that, you will be able to get a third NFT. Maybe we are not sure about that, um, but most likely, Hawk NFT will be burned in this process. This, but for now, um, what is sure, we need an ape, we need a Hawk, and we need an amount of bananas to mutate our apes.

Earthlings – Patrick de Grijs – Founder
‍Great, thanks for the introduction, and I must say I like the art a lot, and I think actually, uh, Henry's got some, uh, competition there as well because maybe I'm a noob, angry, but these two, uh, projects, they have a bit of a similar style, and I like both of them, so, uh, great job on that, by the way. So I invite everyone to check up on that, um, I'll be saying then something for our friends to Mad V Apes because they're not here, something went wrong, and I don't want to run back to my computer again, but I'll defend their own on them because that's an amazing project as well. So I love all these projects, but someone needs to speak out for them as well, and what I find interesting, and we're going to get, we're going to get back to that as well, is that they are really doing some awesome things with marketing as well. They've got great graphics, so I invite the people to look them up as well. The link is, of course, in the tweet, and what they're doing, I saw, what is it, a boxing ring or, so I'm not with my martial arts, no, not at all interested in fighting. I did do it when I was younger, but that's that's an a, that's one. Ah, look at this, someone, I think someone from Mad Apes, uh, yeah, so he, I think, uh, you put him on stage, yes, so, but I do love their marketing well, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you the seat in a second, you know, because I love to tell this story. I saw a clip where some fights were in a ring, and in the corners, in every corner, there was this Matt V Ape logo, and I loved that. So that's real, the showing in real life your product. So, you know, would you like to take it up for the for the Mad V Apes?

Mad V Apes - Uno
‍Hey everyone, good morning, yeah. Well, first of all, thank you for the shout-out, man. It's awesome to hear, all these amazing projects up here representing a different type of ape or monkey you know, mandrels are still good in my book, but yeah, thank you. Wasn't planning on speaking, so I do apologize if I sound unpolished. I am driving through rain and traffic, but I did want to come up and, as you say it, defend the Matt V Ape honor. And yeah, I just wanted to speak on what you were saying about there were three partnerships that Mad V Apes has been developing. Um, and if I'm not mistaken, this Elite night club, it's the fight, it's an MMA, one of the top MMA,  amateur MMA fighting leagues. And this was a lot of work that went behind the scenes to make it happen, and it's just one of, of a few different projects that Matt V Apes has been expanding on beyond just, the web, web 3 space and linking web 2 to web 3. And,  it's been amazing to see it, um, like you were saying, they have, uh, in the ring, they actually have a Map V Ape logo and the Map V Ape name. And so when you're watching this on TV, you actually see him fighting and you see Mad V Apes in the background, and if, I mean, that makes me feel elite. Like I just feel so good seeing that. And it is one of a few different things that are going in the background. And if you guys know about Vechain, they also, VeChain has a part. Vechain is the blockchain that Mad V Apes is built on, and Vechain has a partnership with the UFC. And it's a similar feeling when you see Vechain and when you're watching the UFC fights, but now we see it also at a more personal level with Mad V Apes. And, and for us, that's just like super exhilarating. And, it kind of adds to that same theme of fighting sports and just really bringing value to holders in that category. And part of that is also, and if I can expand this also, that it allows the average holder to look at beyond just being a holder, right? You can actually use your NFT to expand across to real-life projects because it's not just Mad V Apes. If you have aa ape and you want to create something with it, and there are actually some people within the project that are looking at creating things like, like alcoholic beverages, it's stuff culture, and label it as a Map type of drink. And you have the complete right to do that, which I think it's amazing. And even the fact that people are feeling so hyped or so bullish about the project that they're willing to, to make those type of investments, right? And going outside of the traditional holder role, then and try to create something, become your own boss or something using the project. So that's really some of the things that Mad V Apes is working on outside of just the web3 space. And, thank you for highlighting it. Yeah, if I can answer any questions or provide additional info, I'll be happy to.

Earthlings – Patrick de Grijs – Founder
‍Stay as speaker please, because we do need someone from Mad V Apes. Probably something went wrong, we know we are as project leaders. So, how do you say that you do a project? Usually, a lot of these projects managers have other jobs as well and it's very hard work to set up something like this. So,  thank you so much for representing them. You need an upgrade in your Discord. You're probably going to get a higher pay next day. Yeah, great. Anyway, so, um, but but um, I'll just kick it off with the questions, because I still didn't hear from anyone and of course that's what we're getting to now. While the age, I'll just, do a little nice fun fact. I looked this up and I think, if I'm not mistaking, when I Googled on who was the first ape project, that Google always shows me, it's also Boreds, the Bored Ape Yacht NFTs. I'm hoping I'm saying that right. And the thing is that it says that in let's see what second, where does it say here, yeah, so 270 dollars to mint them in April 2021, but in April 2022, 400,000 for one for one ape. So, guys, do you think that's reasonable? Who wants to comment on that? If no one does, just go to the next question.

HashPack Wallet – Marc Ugas – Director of Operations
‍I mean, it was pretty incredible to see. I mean, I think the Bored Ape Yacht Club was kind of one of the Premier NFT collections that you know, buy Yuga Labs, that really hit a stride. But like you said, you know, this massive, you know, price appreciation from 270 bucks in mint day up to 400,000. I think it's, it's way down since then, but you know, it's the bear market so it's reasonable, but yeah, I mean it's a massive, it was massive, it was everywhere, and then after that, Yuga Labs also purchased the IP rights for CryptoPunks. So, so yeah, I mean it's, yeah, I definitely when I started hearing about this, I know that a lot of people also from just the more web 2 traditional, background and also like traditional media was really following that and it was it was pretty crazy to see the level of price appreciation. That happened on that also the types of utilities that they were offering which is I think that they pioneered a lot of the utilities that we're seeing across multiple projects, but yeah, I mean that just a quick comment on that.

Hangry Barboons – Hangry - Founder
‍Yeah, and I think was the general question like why the Apes and stuff like that was?

‍Earthlings – Patrick de Grijs – Founder
‍Yeah as well that was actually meant to be the first question, so kick it off.

Hangry Barboons – Hangry - Founder
‍Well, you know, the CryptoPunks to my knowledge were like one of the very first projects that really got this PFTP thing going and one of one of the traits in that collection was actually an ape Punk, and I believe those are pretty highly sought after. So I'm imagining that, Yuga, when they were creating their board Apes, they took inspiration from that project. And I don't mean, I don't know, I haven't read too much about why they chose apes and things, but like that, that may have been a component that they saw that trade and, uh, maybe imagining like let's make old project out of this in a different art style or something. But, um, you fast forward, you know, to say 2021, like around the time that I started looking into NFTs, I noticed that all the major blockchains had ape projects and those projects did pretty well. I mean, it seemed like. Back and still to this day, there's a lot of um tribalism in terms of the different chains and so it seems like almost every chain wants its own a project in a sense. And when I, when I found Hedera and I, you know, joined the community and everything, I was trying to decide like what type of project do I want to bring and I felt like a monkey, you know, or eight project was something I could do well with the art style that I draw in and bring that to Hedera. So that was one of the, the things was like, you know, Hedera, I want Hedera to be a huge chain. It seems like we need this type of project here, at least this, you know, I can put my own twist on it and so I designed my own style of monkey, in a with a baboon. Um, so I think it's a lot of this has to do with the culture of NFTs in general, like monkeys and apes are just ingrained in the culture at this point. And people gravitate towards them would be my comments great come.

Earthlings – Patrick de Grijs – Founder
‍And then, and I want to come back to what Uno said as well. For me, monkey all the same, Hangry if didn't you see the Planet of the Apes movie, it was all one big happy family, so they all count. Iron Ed, I did not forget, well, I did forget about you, but we'll go to Uno before he, uh, loses what he wants, uh, forgets what he wants to say. But I read, I'm sorry, I did forget you, um, two seconds ago. I want you to, uh, introduce yourself as well because you're someone that joins us a lot and I would love to hear about you, uh, uh, as well and hope you join the conversation about the Apes as well. And what apes are you holding? But you know, you first say what you want to say.

Mad V Apes - Uno
‍I think it's important to highlight um, the timing and Community is everything, right? And I mean, no project. Is a project without a great Community or, um, and more tapes Jack Club just hit it. The timing was perfect, the community was strong, and when you put those together, it just worked out for them and hit the whole, you know, they got the home run that everybody wants to hit. Um, they were basically one of the first in the space and and really put NFTs in the map, right a lot of folks prior to Bayc, they had no idea what an NFT was, and it opened the door to expanding on that, you know. And then a lot of blockchains, you know, you're gonna imitate success. So I'm not, I'm not saying that any projects or any other ape or monkey projects are imitating that particular project, but I believe they did set the standard and a lot of people aim towards making something that's going to be as great or hopefully better. But yeah, that's my take on Bayc.

Earthlings – Patrick de Grijs – Founder
‍Yeah, I agree. I agree fully. Thank you for that comment, Ironette. State stage, introduce yourself and join the conversation about baboons.

Fast Society – IronEd
‍Okay, uh, hi everyone, I'm Ironette. We are building Con. We are building a collection of muscle cars and a little bit more right now, but I don't want to spoil it right now, but we are building a mobile game on-chain mobile game. We started in Cardano ecosystem, but we are also multi-chain projects because we want to make a second flower collection or second part of our encouraging on Solana or maybe any other chain. But right now, we are focusing on Cardano and we are strictly connected to mobile games and taking Web 3 technology into mobile games. But jumping back to ape conversations, I guess from my end, it was one of the entry points into NFTs, obviously. The Bored Ape Yacht Club was one of the first collections I heard about, and like my producer said, they definitely made a lot of work around marketing for NFTs, for building NFT community. And saying all that, I have to admit that I don't have any ape in my wallet. I mean, they were already too expensive back then when I jumped in in 2021, and after that, I felt like most of the projects, most of the blockchains that were doing NFTs were kind of, you know, copycats of monkeys. Obviously, everyone had different ideas behind apes or different twists of what Bored Ape had done. But I felt that like I never felt this, you know, monkey market enough to just, you know, buy in. But maybe that's why I'm here, and I will listen to all the projects that are here, and maybe they will just simply convert me into a monkey and a piece of the market. So I'm super excited to hear what you are all guys wanted to say, and I will be more than happy to throw some of the questions into our report of questions today. So, thank you very much for having me here, and I'm looking forward to all the questions from Earthlings.

Earthlings – Patrick de Grijs – Founder
‍Well, my question is why Solana? Come to VeChain or Hedera? Is it about cross-chain? Come on, come on over the PK maybe, but we'll have a talk. Well, that's something else. But I want to hear from both apes as well. Why did you pick for this monkey business? What convinced you guys? Maybe you still need to unmute yourself, Board Apes what convinced you to go for apes and monkeys and stuff, so here we go.

Bored Ape XRP Club – Baba
‍Well, I think, we see this in our name, like, Bored Apes XRP Club. It is definitely, inspired by the original, I call them the Original Apes, from the ETH Network. And, well, I talked to our founder and asked him the question why apes back in the days, and he was like, well, apes are intelligent, they are social, and they've got a strong sense of community. And this is, this is the thing who inspired him to go with Apes. Obviously, the name is just very close to the ETH Project, but I think everything else isn't a copycat. Like, we have here before, we've got our own art, we've got our own style, we've got our own ecosystem. It's just different, you know? And yeah, apes are relatable to humans. They share similarities in behavior and physical traits. So, I think in that case, it just makes sense to go with the ape theme, right? And the monkey or ape art, in general. Well, there's definitely a difference between a monkey and an ape, but an NFT is also associated with utility benefits, and this even, you know, beyond their artistic value. For example, they can be used as proof of ownership or membership in our case. Also, as a gamification tool. And yeah, I think that's it so far. You've got a question to that.

Earthlings – Patrick de Grijs – Founder
‍You answered the question very well, actually. And, indeed, you are. Sorry, I didn't say anything. Sorry. Oh, okay. I thought you wanted to continue again. So, no problem. You answered the question's father. Just wanted to say, Trace is a bit filled up. We are doing a little giveaway. I don't know if you read the text in Twitter that we threw out, but just retweet it. It's on the right bottom corner, and you'll have a chance to win one of the airships. So, and it's like YouTube, you know, you see your favorite channel, and you see a zillion answers below, and everyone loves it. But there's only three likes, you know? Come on, retweet it a bit. Share the love, share Planet of the Apes. And, I'm sure that these, our main guests will appreciate it as well. So, let's go to the next subject then. So, I'll just, uh, quote this one. I wrote this one down. Someone said, and I'm quoting, 'Um, NFT monkey art or ape art, Henry or baboons, is more than just cool art. NFTs have utility and benefits that go beyond the cool art. In fact, it is often the case that the monkey NFTs are more like tickets than art. So, how much of this is true when it comes down to your project?' And I think I'll give, so you know, you'll get some time to think because you don't know anything, well, you know about your project, but you didn't know about the questions. And I did spill them a bit to the other projects. Hangry, what is your comment on this one?

Hangry Barboons – Hangry - Founder
‍Yeah, I think the very nature of NFTs is that, it's something that can access as a token-gated path to something else, you know. But at the very core, in my opinion, of, at least in my project, what I was trying to create was very, you know, collectible art that people resonated with and brought attention to the community. So, even though, yes, you know, these NFTs function as, as, uh, you can call it, the token-gated passes or say they have utility for other functions, at the end of the day, you want to create, well, I wanted to create, art that was highly collectible and fun to look at and trade in the ecosystem.