Ethereal Apes Genesis

Ethereal Apes are a 10,000 piece derivative NFT collection that pays homage to historical collections on the Ethereum blockchain. Ethereal Apes was inspired by a desire to see the NFT community raise the bar for derivative projects both artistically and technologically.

We firmly believe that derivative projects must aim for the highest level of quality in all regards. As homages to original collections, there is a responsibility to sincerely pay tribute and add value back to the original community, not dilute their brand or siphon liquidity. The art work must be substantially transformative and the technical implementation an improvement upon the original in some fashion. Derivative projects should feel like 1 of 1 commissions from an artist, a modification of a piece, customized specifically for you, by an artist you enjoy who has a reputation to protect and quality work that speaks for itself. Many derivative projects come from undoxxed teams with no reputation in the space. Many of them only slightly change aspects of the art with little to no unique elements or modifications in the resulting pieces. Few truly understand that these practices are predatory in nature. Andre Cronje (A very prominent DeFi developer) recently said:

Our goal is to break away from this public image for derivatives.

We wish to set the standard for quality in derivative projects and set an example for those who, hopefully, follow in our footsteps.

To illustrate this point more clearly, here are a few examples.

Notice the variety that exists within these different filters due to the unique representations that intertwine with other layers. All “Diamond” background types are sufficiently unique from one another, as are all “Peach” Background Fills. Our goal was to create filters that allowed for granular selection by the discerning collector to assist them in finding their ideal ape. By organizing our metadata in such a way, we are able to offer a superior user experience to those searching for their forever ape by giving them an enjoyable, simple, whiteglove experience when perusing secondary.

Meta traits, in our eyes, are traits that are not represented visually, but only appear when some aesthetic criteria is met randomly by the generator. An example of this might be the same fill being used for both the background and foreground in a piece of the collection. Some collectors prefer these hidden meta traits, but there is a certain friction associated with filtering for them in NFT marketplaces. To solve for this, we added a trait called “Meta”. “Meta” can be populated by the following but is dependent on criteria being met in order to appear.

For example, three Meta traits in the collection that are filterable are.

This should allow collectors to more discerningly search through the collection without having to mindlessly scan through hundreds or even thousands of pieces to find the one with the Meta trait they’d like to acquire.

There is more to discuss as we approach launch, but hopefully this gives those interested a peak inside the immense amount of forethought that has been considered when building this project. We are not simply aiming to be “another derivative”. We wish to move the needle forward in the space for the betterment of the NFT industry as stewards setting an example as to what is achievable when hard work and passion are put above marketing, advertising, and momentum.

Our allowlist is currently open.

Our mint date is TBD, but approaching rapidly.

The price of the mint has been set to 0.08* ETH per Ethereal Ape.

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to @EtherealApes on Twitter.

Godspeed anon.

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