Degenerate Ape Academy

Introduction

Degenerate Ape Academy (DAA) is a Solana-based NFT collection of 10,000 3D apes representing diverse personalities through their creative outfit combinations and facial expressions. The project launched on August 14, 2021, marking a new milestone for the Solana NFT space.

Each NFT in the collection has nine traits: background, clothing, eyewear, fur or skin, generation, head, mouth, sequence, and teeth. Although each degen apes are unique, every trait follows a hierarchy system that serves as the basis for their overall rarity ranking.

Additionally, every degen ape lives in the Dingus Forest, which is a part of the greater DAA universe (Degeniverse); as everyone knows, they must keep swinging to dominate and reach greater heights.

The DAA community also welcomes degen who wants to ape in, but there’s a strict requirement: you must own at least one of the smoothest-brained ape students and enroll them in the academy. Please don’t get confused; this only means you should buy a DAA NFT on its official marketplace or third-party platforms, like Magic Eden, Solanart, etc.

What is an NFT?

An NFT is a digital asset that can come in the form of art, music, in-game items, videos, and more. They are bought and sold online, frequently with cryptocurrency, and they are generally encoded with the same underlying software as many cryptos.

Although they’ve been around since 2014, NFTs are gaining notoriety now because they are becoming an increasingly popular way to buy and sell digital artwork. The market for NFTs was worth a staggering $41 billion in 2021 alone, an amount that is approaching the total value of the entire global fine art market.

Who is the Team Behind Degenerate Ape Academy?

The Degenerate Laboratories Inc. created one of Solana‘s OG projects — the Degenerate Ape Academy. It has 12 core members assigned in different areas according to their expertise. They use degen ape PFPs and web3 names that closely represent them.

Monoliff is the founder and creative director of Degen Apes, primarily responsible for the artwork of all collections in the Degeniverse. Sea_Eoh was later added as head of the team to take the ecosystem to the next level. Other members include Dev Lock, the CTO; Crasskitty, the Product Lead; Veritas, the Lead Developer; and more.

Custom Degenerate Ape Academy (Honorary Apes)

Degenerate Ape Academy never forgets its most significant contributors, which inspired the team to launch an honorary set of NFTs called the Custom Degenerate Ape Academy. 

The collection has a total of 69 legacy students, but the team has yet to reveal them entirely. They only know that each has brought a large SOL amount to the project; they’re true degens indeed.

Every custom ape contains at least one trait that portrays its identity. For instance, Degen Ape Phantom (given to Phantom Wallet) has a Phantom Crown and Glasses while Degen Ape Raj Gokal (Solana co-founder) wears the Solana Hoodie and Ape Vipers. 

The Custom DAA NFTs are an ideal way of promoting a web3 identity, especially if you’re one of the legacy students portrayed in the collection. Even Solana Sensei, a well-known collector, was given a PFP that matched his branding style, which he has used primarily on Twitter for a long time.

Exiled Apes

The Exiled Apes is a collection of 518 NFTs, having a resemblance to Degenerate Ape Academy, as they were originally a part of it. Each of them also wears unique styles in different concepts.

While the Exiled Apes are considered a part of DAA’s history, it isn’t a canonized collection in the Degeniverse. However, the team was caught up with heavy traffic issues during the initial mint. Some lucky degens were able to pass through the process and got one out of three results:

• Full Apes came with complete metadata and image;

• Ghost Apes have metadata but no image; and

• Blank or Null Apes are NFTs without metadata and image. 

What Is A NFT Metadata?

NFT metadata is a set of data that makes up the content of an NFT, and is usually specified in a JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) format. The metadata of an NFT can describe its characteristics and properties, such as its name, description, transaction history, traits, link to the hosted image, and more. Additionally, the metadata of an NFT can point to the link you use to view the NFT, whether it’s a photo or video. 

Where Is NFT Metadata Stored?

The data that makes up your NFT has to be kept somewhere, and there are two ways used to store this data: on-chain and off-chain. 

Keeping an NFT on-chain means the whole NFT, including its image and metadata, lives on a blockchain. While this method of storage can ensure that users can verify all aspects of a digital asset, it’s not popular among digital creators or projects. This is because images like JPEG files contain a lot of data, and keeping a large amount of data on a blockchain can be prohibitively expensive. Generally, most creators or project teams store the images of the NFTs they’ve created off-chain. 

Storing an NFT off-chain simply means that parts of the NFT or the whole NFT exist outside the blockchain. While there are creators who choose to store their NFTs on a centralized storage server like Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Google Drive, most opt for a decentralized server like the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), a distributed peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing network. And since files uploaded to the IPFS are secured across multiple nodes, this makes them much less likely to be exposed to server issues. 

Where to buy Degenerate Ape Academy NFT?

Degenerate Ape Academy is housed on the Solana blockchain.

You can buy and sell Degenerate Ape Academy (DAPE) on Magic Eden, Tensor, Hadeswap, and Solanart.

Why Should You Buy Degenerate Ape?

Owning a Degenerate Ape NFT is owning part of history. It also grants you the highest level of possible entry into both The Degeniverse and the Degen DAOO - the largest Solana NFT DAO.