AIP Idea: Immutable X to be ApeCoin DAO's Trusted Layer 2 Scaling Partner

Withdrawn AIPs
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ABSTRACT:

We propose that ApeCoin DAO remains part of the Ethereum ecosystem by partnering with Immutable X L2; Immutable X is the first cross-liquidity scaling protocol for NFTs on Layer 2. The platform is built on StarkWare’s layer 2 engine, leveraging zero-knowledge technology to achieve significant scalability on top of Ethereum without compromising on security or decentralization.

So far Immutable has minted more than 50 million NFTs and processes more NFT trades per month than any other blockchain or L2 - all without compromising Ethereum security, 100% gas-free minting/trading, and allowing for instant transaction settlement.

Immutable X has raised over $280M USD, at a $2.5B valuation with over 300 employees globally. The top blockchain games and projects in the world are built on Immutable X; including Illuvium, EmberSword, Gods Unchained, Guild of Guardians, TikTok, GameStop, DC Comics, and many more.

MOTIVATION:

Living on Ethereum is key for ApeCoin’s community, and Yugaverse’s continued investment into the Otherside metaverse. Arguably ApeCoin continuing to live on Ethereum is also key for the Ethereum community. It was the BAYC that first brought NFTs to the mainstream audience and got us to a point where the likes of Jimmy Kimmel, Justin Bieber, and Stephen Curry now all own Ethereum assets. ApeCoin forms an important part of Ethereum’s history and hopefully long term future.

Ethereum is the secure blockchain and is where the majority of NFT network effects are; particularly in gaming. The only way for ApeCoin to take full advantage of Ethereum’s unrivaled benefits AND provide a seamless UX (e.g. 0 gas, instant trade settlement, mass-liquidity, and Ethereum security) is via Layer 2s.

Immutable X is the first liquidity protocol for NFTs on Ethereum Layer 2 powering the next generation of web3 games and projects. Utility NFTs, like game assets, have traditionally struggled to achieve strong liquidity at a huge scale without compromising decentralization or security. Immutable X exists to solve those problems and allow hundreds of millions of users to own their assets, while playing the world’s biggest games.

Web3 gaming is in Immutable’s DNA; the protocol is dedicated to enabling the highest possible volume and liquidity for games - with the vision of reaching planet-scale. The Immutable X protocol powers some of the largest web3 games currently in existence, including Gods Unchained, Guild of Guardians, Illuvium, EmberSword and PlanetQuest - with many more launches and announcements coming soon.

In addition to being ApeCoin’s Trusted Settlement Layer, Immutable X will be a strategic partner - consulting the ApeCoin community cross web3 economy building, game mechanics, marketing and design as the Yugaverse continues to innovate and provide world building experiences to the ApeCoin community – all at planet Ape scale.

RATIONALE:

Immutable X as ApeCoin’s trusted Layer 2 scaling partner on Ethereum will result in an immediate gas-free minting/trading environment for holders and instant liquidity across the fragmented NFT ecosystem.

  • Immutable X has minted over 50 million NFTs and in April processed more NFT trades than any other blockchain or Layer 2 – all gas free and 0 reliance on trusted bridges.
  • Immutable X is at the forefront of Layer 2 innovation; most recently announcing the first cross-rollup liquidity layer for NFTs, which will allow multiple L2/L3 zk-rollups with StarkNet. This showcases Immutable X’s core mission of bringing scaling and liquidity solutions to the next billion players of web3 games.
  • Immutable X is a zk-rollup, built using StarkWare’s StarkEx prover/verifier system. This means Immutable orders a batch of L2 transactions, generates a STARK proof that those transactions are valid, and submits that proof to an L1 smart contract “verifier” which updates some L1 state (in our case, the root of a merkle tree containing millions of user NFTs/balances). Importantly, this scales substantially better than natively batching transactions, as STARK proof verification cost scales sub-linearly with the number of transactions. All state transitions must be verified by an L1 smart contract; Immutable can never insert invalid transactions into the rollup, or steal assets, even if Immutable’s systems were fully compromised. This is an extremely strong security property, and part of the reason Vitalik described rollups as the “key scalability solution for Ethereum for the foreseeable future.”

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  • Immutable X is built on a global, protocol-level orderbook, meaning any orders which are created anywhere on the Immutable X protocol are immediately visible on any IMX-integrated marketplace. Our goal is to build an ecosystem where hundreds of niche and natice marketplaces can coexist with larger, aggregating marketplace. Immutable X has publicly announced integrations with OpenSea, GameStop, Rarible, TokenTrove - with many more on the way. This will allow immediate liquidity for ApeCoin community holders.
  • Immutable X offers a vertically integrated platform, not just a rollup; with a full offering of products (orderbook, minting tools, trading primitives, wallet, marketplace, etc) that is accessible via REST APIs and an SDK. No solidity experience is required.

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KEY TERMS:

  • Immutable X Platform: APIs & SDK, allowing immediate access to minting/trading primitives.
  • Commercials: 2% protocol fee on primary and secondary NFT sales*. Does not apply to transferring $APE tokens between wallets, including from L1 to L2 (Immutable X). For full transparency this 2% protocol fee breaks down as follows:
    • 0.4% - Staking rewards, it will soon be possible for $IMX token holders to stake their tokens and and earn yield from this portion of the Protocol fee
    • 1.6% - Covers costs to run ImmutableX Platform
      • Carbon offset cost - All NFTs traded on Immutable X are completely carbon neutral, offsetting the carbon footprint with certified climate conscious partners, Trace and Cool Effect.
      • L1 gas - ImmutableX covers all the L1 gas costs needed to run the platform.
      • Integrated 3rd parties, Magic.Link, Moonpay, Starkware
      • Platform R&D and ongoing product development
      • Support teams, partner success, strategic guidance
    • *Protocol fee cap is on Immutable roadmap
  • $IMX Token Grant: to be discussed with the Yuga team. Available for staking in Q3.
  • Support for the $APE token on par with that provided to $IMX and our game specific tokens $GOG and $GODS. This includes NFT orders listed in $APE, airdrops and staking once available on the platform in Q3.

SPECIFICATIONS:

Immutable X Support:

  1. Technical / Product:

  • Dedicated solutions engineering team to thoroughly map integration with Immutable X end-points.

  • Integration engineering support to walk Yuga Labs / Otherside development team through the start-to-finish integration process.

  • Thorough QA testing sessions (live), dedicated war-room setups for each YugaVerse drop for real-time technical troubleshooting and community management.

  • Direct line with Immutable X’s CTO, Head of Solutions Engineering, and CEO/President.

  • Opportunity for feedback/input on Immutable X’s product and features roadmap.

  1. Go-To-Market, Community and Marketing Support:

  • Dedicated GTM strategy purpose-built for each NFT launch for the ApeCoin community. Will consist of repeatable playbooks/cheat sheets for Utility, Community, Twitter Strategies, Discord Strategies, Whitelisting options/approaches and broader marketing and community playbooks.

  • ApeCoin community will have access to all games, marketplaces, projects, and valuable IP building on Immutable X for unique co-collaboration opportunities; spanning joint launches, interoperable metaverse points, AMAs, live events, etc. ApeCoin can take advantage of the full Immutable X ecosystem.

  1. Web3 Gaming Advisory

  • Provide the ApeCoin community direct access to the Immutable Studio team (the creators behind Gods Unchained and Guild of Guardians) led by an executive team with experience at Riot, Activision, Electronic Arts, and more

  • Access to Immutable’s playbooks and best practices for building Web3 games

  1. Financials:
  • Access to $IMX 500 million fund to incentivize ecosystem growth and development.

STEPS TO IMPLEMENT

  • Executive Alignment: Immediate meeting between Yuga Labs and Robbie Ferguson (Co-Founder & President) and Alex Connolly (Co-Founder & CTO) ASAP.
  • Integration Scoping: Yuga Labs and Immutable Solution Engineers to map integration with Immutable X API endpoints.
  • Integration: Immutable X integration engineers to work closely with Yuga Labs development team; including detailed QA’ing.
  • Proof of Value: Immutable X mints the same number of Otherside NFTs at 0 cost to Yuga Labs, and ApeCoin community users.
  • Partnership: Develop Joint Business plan for deepening the Immutable X & Yuga Labs relationship.

TIMELINE

  • Executive Alignment: ASAP
  • Integration Scoping: 1 week
  • Integration: 2-4 weeks
  • Proof of Value: 2-3 weeks (dependent on upcoming Otherside launches)
  • Partnership: Ongoing

OVERALL COST

  • Zero cost to integrate, mint/transfer assets
  • 2% Primary/Secondary Sales fee
  • For full transparency this 2% protocol fee breaks down as follows:
    • 0.4% - Staking rewards, it will soon be possible for $IMX token holders to stake their tokens and and earn yield from this portion of the Protocol fee
    • 1.6% - Covers costs to run ImmutableX Platform
      • Carbon offset cost - All NFTs traded on Immutable X are completely carbon neutral, offsetting the carbon footprint with certified climate conscious partners, Trace and Cool Effect.
      • L1 gas - ImmutableX covers all the L1 gas costs needed to run the platform.
      • Integrated 3rd parties, Magic.Link, Moonpay, Starkware
      • Platform R&D and ongoing product development
      • Support teams, partner success, strategic guidance

WHY IMMUTABLE X?

Immutable X knows what it takes to build planet-scale web3 games that are fun to play; from the underlying technical and liquidity infrastructure to bringing complex, multi-faceted game economies to a precious community for the first time. We’ve been bridging the gap between highly technical and complex blockchain technology and mass-audience adoption for years, and firmly believe that ApeCoin DAO and Immutable X are uniquely positioned to transform the way web3 games can be built around the most valuable, digitally-native IP in the world.

IMMUTABLE X THOUGHT LEADERSHIP AND CUSTOMER EXAMPLES

1 Like
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Yes, please!
I would like to include 0.5% more in fees for Apecoin token stakers.

4 Likes
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I like this one and tested buying from their marketplace recently. I like that Animoca has invested into Immutable and I like their focus on gaming. Scaling to a large amount of players is an exciting topic!

This has the same flaw as another proposed idea: As it reads, they haven’t collaborated or met with Yuga Labs. Its difficult and risky for us to make a decision without Yuga’s direct input on these topics.

This would be a much easier decision to make if we had input or even a nod from the Yuga Labs that this is the direction they’d like to go. Until then, I’ve got a really conservative stance that says “wait.”

8 Likes
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I like this very much. In my opinion it’s either using an existing L2 like Immutable or creating our own AKA “ApeChain” but the idea that Immutable already has partnered with some of the best in the industry gives me more confidence to personally partner with Immutable to scale. Love it!

4 Likes
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I agree with those above. I think this is the best choice presented so far. Also, I agree with @0xSword , ApeCoin is best used as a utility token for games at present(not to say it will not go much much further). At present I see this option most desirable for everyone.

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I first want to state that I’m a big fan of what @Immutable_X is doing, as well as StarkWare and StarkNet, which are all connected.

However, this is the ApeCoin DAO so we have to be prudent to keep that in mind when reviewing proposals.

So I ask Immutable X: considering:

  • ApeCoin is independent of Yuga Labs
  • The ApeCoin DAO has no direct connection to, nor control over what Yuga Labs does
  • ApeCoin is a fungible token, which is not what Immutable X specializes in

What does Immutable X want to do with ApeCoin specifically?

Most of the proposal talks about Yuga Labs, and their direct involvement, which this DAO has no control nor direct influence over.

Put more bluntly: if Yuga Labs couldn’t play a role in any way, not even indirectly, would this proposal exist? And if so, what would it look like? If this can be considered, I would recommend re-writing the proposal with those considerations as a litmus test.

10 Likes
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We should consider all L2 scaling solutions and then make the choice of which to go with.

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Agreed. A lot of these solutions are really early. All of these existing L2s have had outages due to their centralized sequencers. I don’t think any of the existing solutions are very decentralized nor have that great of a user experience. We should evaluate all technology solutions objectively. Does immutable x support smart contracts yet or is it just NFTs? How mature is the starkware tech stack? Looks like things are written in Cairo, how mature is that? How decentralized and fault tolerant are starkware nodes that construct proofs? I saw DYDX that was running on starkware went down because of an AWS outage. We need to know all of the risks.

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Just saying it’s an L2 that shares ethereum security doesn’t mean it’s completely safe. See my comment above. We as a community need to take a critical look into how these technologies work.

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Truly support this. Immutable is the best ERC L2 so far as we do not need to shift any assets anywhere else, it is on ERC itself. Convenient and zero gas.

1 Like
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There is a lot to like here. This is Ethereum-based, and there are some ties to Yuga. However, for this ape, I’m uncomfortable partnering so strongly so quickly. Is this an opt-in system, or would all ape be migrated to this L2? I’m not deep in the weeds on L2s, can we use something more well known like Polygon instead? For me, I’d like to see a more incremental progress that doesn’t require us to choose a life partner in a week.

2 Likes
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Hello Immutable X & team! Many of us are positive about your brand. Send team members to explain and talk more. Hear our feedback about how we can’t control the Otherside or Yuga Labs and make adjustments.

How can you help our DAO expand into other games? What is going to take from us to do so?

@mg above makes great points above that should be addressed by your team members before moving forward. Thank you!!

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@0xSword @mg @apein @GuruOfTroyHill (and the rest of the ApeCoin Community): We hear you!

Immutable X is hosting a Twitter Spaces Town Hall on Thursday (June 2) @ 7 PM PST to answer questions raised in our proposal comments. Robbie Ferguson (Co-Founder & President) will be moderating.

Is a representative from the ApeCoin DAO community interested in co-hosting with Robbie? Comment here and we can set it up - would love to have you as a part of the dialogue.

Information below:

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I vote for @mg and @0xSword to cohost. Imo they provide tangible feed back consistently and always add to the conversation. I know there are many others who are qualified but I read, understand and take their points most often within the dialogoues.

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I’d be happy to participate. Not sure I’d be able to co-host but I’d definitely be happy to jump on and into the conversation.

1 Like
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Hey @mg and @0xSword - Lets do it. Keep an eye out for a Twitter Spaces speaker invite 5 minutes before we go live!

1 Like
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Alright - game on! Let’s talk about ApeCoin and gaming and how Immutable X can further our expansion into that world. Thanks for the invite!

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See you there @0xSword !!! :fire: :fire: :fire: :fire:

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Hi @Immutable_X,

Your topic will be automatically closing in around 24 hours. Are you content with the feedback received, or do you wish to extend community discussion for a further 7 days?

We look forward to hearing from you.

- river

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Hi @river,

Can we extend the community discussion for 7 days?

1 Like