In general, the NFT market may be slowing down, but news outlets focused on boring monkeys are gaining a lot of strength thanks to the ApeCoin DAO treasury.
ApeCoin DAO, a decentralized organization that uses the cryptocurrency ApeCoin as its governance token, has voted to fund the news site The Bored Ape Gazette.
Also known as AIP-70, the proposal was passed with brilliant colors. Over 1.1 million ApeCoin tokens voted and 149,000 ApeCoin tokens opposed the proposal to allocate $150,000 to Gazette’s site financing. This offer is for Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT and Mutant Apes (MAYC), Kennel Club (BAKC) , and Otherside, the upcoming metaverse game from Yuga Labs.
Funds are expected to last for one year.
Voting for Snapshot and AIP-70 has ended. AIP giving $APE to turn BoredApeGazette into a 24-hour news site has been approved by the community. Thanks to everyone who voted!
– apecoin (@apecoin) July 28, 2022
This money will be used to pay Solo Writer and Editor Kyle Swenson $7,000 per month to produce more written content with a focus on ApeCoin DAO news and bi-monthly Bored Ape Gazette newsletter production.
NFT, a unique blockchain token that represents ownership, has been heavily invested since the first pour of the NFT Bored Ape Yacht Club in April 2021. According to CryptoSlam data, the BAYC group alone has a total trading volume of $2.3 billion. Creator Yuga Labs was valued at a whopping $4 billion in March.
The proposal also details price trackers for ApeCoin and plans to add activity trackers to the BAYC, MAYC, BAKC and Otherdeed Ethereum NFT pools. The rest of the funds will be used to pay $100 for stories to freelance translators with the aim of hiring writers in the ApeCoin DAO community.
“This is a community paper written by $Ape community members!” read the proposal.
A small site has plenty of room to grow. According to data from a similar site, Bored Ape Gazette has only had 52,400 total visits since its launch in June 2021, a year ago.
The site, written by BAYC proponents and funded by the ApeCoin DAO, raises the question of the apparent risk of biased reporting given that Swenson is a long-time owner of BAYC.
“Objective reporting is important,” Swenson told Decrypt via Twitter DM. “Gazette will always be the voice of the community and work hard to strike a balance when dealing with any story.”
Thank you » Gazette’s AIP passed with 88% support!
We look forward to making changes to our website and addressing this community over the next few years!
Check out the new Substack for the papers below and sign up for their weekly newsletter: https://t.co/yJmrN9guuN
– The Bored Ape Gazette🍌 (BoredApeGazette) July 28, 2022
“Newspapers don’t promote, they tell the monkeys what they need to know,” he added.
Based in Orlando, Florida, Swenson did two internships at Orlando Business Journal’s Dow Jones Newsbox and was editor-in-chief of Knight News, independent of the University of Central Florida. Prior to the release of The Bored Ape Gazette, he was known as “Thrifting With Kyle”, an online clothing seller and community.
Regarding his future goals, Swenson wants to filter out the “noise” that can cause word of mouth on social media.
“My goal is to never tell people what to think,” Swenson said.
The ApeCoin DAO has not yet responded to Decrypt’s request for comment.
