Written by: Frank, PANews

In one and a half days, it surged by 135%, and APE returned to the mainstream crypto spotlight, but this time relying on MEME.

At 4:27 PM on October 20, the official Twitter account of Bored Ape Yacht Club released a message announcing that the Apechain mainnet has officially launched. More than ten minutes later, the market began to respond to this new L3, and the governance token APE started to rise. On the other hand, with the CURTIS token created and starting to rise on the one-click token issuance platform Ape Express within the ecosystem, the price of APE also rose in sync. As of October 21, the price of APE rose from 0.748 to a maximum of 1.758, with a maximum increase of over 135%.

Many are exclaiming that the king of NFTs has returned in a different way, while others are skeptical, believing this is merely a brief blind stimulation of the market, and the fate of Apechain remains uncertain. Regardless of how things develop next, judging from what happened in the past two days, Apechain has indeed showcased an impressive Web3 classic marketing battle with its outstanding operational capabilities.

Combination attack tops the traffic list.

In the past two years, NFTs and the metaverse have had a low presence in the crypto world, and the glory of IP seems to have been sealed in the historical album. As one of the most well-known IPs in the Web3 field, the fate of the bored apes resembles that of a retired star athlete, watching new players continuously emerge in the MEME track, igniting various communities and cultures that create new tokens. Meanwhile, the bored apes, once the most adept at creating IP and engaging communities, have genuinely missed out on the rising opportunities over the past year.

However, it is evident that the Apechain team does not seem to be isolated in its small circle. From the recently launched products and strategies, it can be seen that Apechain has almost utilized all the most efficient strategies currently in the market.

Looking at it as a whole, Apechain has launched a combination attack, divided into several segments: the launch of the Apechain mainnet, a token issuance platform similar to Pump.fun, the new MEME king CURTIS, automatic income for APE holders, and price surges. Any one of these components might struggle to create the effect of APE returning to the top of the charts if released alone. However, when placed together, the power of the combination becomes evident, even giving the illusion that it is hard to discern what is truly driving the effect.

Next, PANews will analyze this classic Web3 case.

ApeFest fan activities heat up, unintentionally creating FOMO.

On the evening of October 20, the fourth ApeFest came to an end. Countless enthusiasts and holders of bored apes celebrated in Lisbon, Portugal. On social media, many bored ape holders posted videos and content related to the event that day, laying a solid foundation for the topic of APE. The official BMW account also released content related to the event multiple times on that day.

Apechain's launch was not like other projects that suddenly release a long official announcement. The approach of the Bored Ape Yacht Club appears unique; before this announcement, they released multiple continuous 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 is now live. Start visiting to see real-time updates.' This seemingly casual announcement not only created a light-hearted atmosphere but also seemed to carry some FOMO potential.

At the event site, it should also have been announced simultaneously, and attendees began posting tweets sharing this news. After this series of operations, at least at the news level, the heat of APE has already boiled over. On the other hand, the price of APE began to rise, further boosting this heat.

People paying attention to market dynamics will check the reasons for the rise and study Apechain carefully to make investment decisions. Meanwhile, those seeing social media messages will look at market performance to determine the importance of the news. Thus, a two-way cycle is achieved.

MEME wealth effect and automatic income add more fuel.

Of course, simply launching Apechain would quickly dampen external investors' enthusiasm, as it appears to be just a Layer 3 chain built on Arbitrum Orbit. Therefore, at this time, additional fuel needs to be added to the fire, and two factors are introduced.

One factor is a MEME coin called CURTIS, which has seen its price rise continuously since its creation. Unlike the previous leading MEME tokens on Solana and other chains, which typically experience a correction before rising, CURTIS has shown a rapid increase filled with FOMO sentiment.

Another supporting factor is the automatic income model for ApeCoin holders, which seems to have alleviated some people's doubts about the rise of APE. In fact, research by PANews found that this automatic income model may not be so automatic. Users need to select specific apeUSD through cross-chain to realize this income, and the specific return rate of this income is currently not calculable. Therefore, the actual effect of this automatic income remains uncertain, but based on the performance of the show, it has indeed met expectations.

With the support of these two factors, more projects and tokens in the Apechain ecosystem began to receive attention. The hottest among them is a trading simulation competition called 'Top Trader', developed by the Workshop team. This is an on-chain trading simulation game that allows users to trade with 1,000 times leverage, with winners sharing a prize pool of $10,000. Although the prize for this game is not high, its greater function is to help the newly launched Apechain quickly accumulate on-chain trading volume and new users. As of October 21, the cumulative trading volume of Apechain has reached 1.3 million transactions (of which 1.12 million transactions came from October 20).

Is there any follow-up to the combination attack?

If a good start is half the success, then Apechain has clearly achieved this half perfectly. However, whether there will be new combination attacks going forward remains to be seen.

However, from the data performance on October 21, social media skepticism regarding APE being just a 'temporary wave' may not be unfounded. First, the MEME coin, the leading token CURTIS, fell from a peak market cap near $30 million to $6 million, which seems like a significant correction. Moreover, there are only three tokens with a market cap exceeding $10 million, while the remaining tokens are mostly below $1 million. The number of tokens with a trading volume exceeding $1 million is also fewer than five. From this perspective, the MEME heat on Apechain seems to have struggled to maintain.

Other data also experienced a steep decline, with active users reaching 83,000 on the 20th and dropping to 5,293 on the 21st. APE transfers were 93,000 on the 20th and decreased to 15,000 on the 21st.

However, the price of the APE token remains around $1.50, which is relatively positive. From the Apechain official website, it appears that a racing game has yet to be launched on the homepage banner. Based on some of the content displayed on the current official platform, it seems that games may still be the main foundation of Apechain, and the MEME coin craze faces tough competition against established MEME ecosystems like Solana, Ethereum, and Base amidst the severe homogenization competition among various public chains.

Looking back to 2022, when Apechain was just announced and Yuga Labs completed the acquisition of CryptoPunks, the floor price of bored ape NFTs once broke 100 ETH. Many believed that the Yuga Labs team could create a Web3 version of Disney. However, two years have passed, and it's uncertain whether Yuga Labs' vision of creating a Web3 Disney still exists. The hype around NFTs and the metaverse seems to have drifted further away, and all Apechain can do now is 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 might fly before the train arrives.

The comeback operation of Bored Ape Yacht Club also raises the question: when the Web3 Disney dream fades, is the only way out for crypto the 'casino' in the short term?