The Queen’s Gamble : Part 2
April Fools Malafucures! April 1st, 2022
Well wasn’t that just the April Fool of all April Fools!?
Things had been a bit strange around the lab. Some of the management weren’t showing up for duty, the staff were doing their best to keep everyone else unaware of potential problems, but there was no denying it, we had radio silence
Tl;dr…
I don’t really want to thrash out all the details, simply because they are so far in the past now that I don’t think it’s relevant (especially when we look at how much we have achieved already). But, in short, a couple of bad actors left with some funds and we had to come up with a really resourceful plan to execute a new Roadmap with what was left
My bag was heavy, and my heart was starting to feel so too…
At this point I was pretty heavily invested, having been totally hooked by everything the project had to offer. I aped like a mad woman, selling other NFTs to buy more Moon Apes, not stopping when the bull market hit its peak, buying the ATHs. The reality was that we were investing our finances at the same rate as we were investing in our love for these cool jpegs
Get your business head into gear…
I started to look behind the scenes, checked wallets, listened to what others were saying — we were all trying to figure out what was going on. And then someone noticed that one of the team had been selling off their apes for the past week, including their pfp. Things weren’t looking great
As panic set in around us, it was time to manage the chaos
If things were going south, we needed to control how fast - at least we might give ourselves a chance at a rescue. So, on a separate server, I pulled in a group of about 20 active holders (most with big bags and established credibility within the community) to formulate a plan
Step 1, hold. Between us we held about 300 apes. We recognised that if any of us tried to sell off it would create instant fud within the community and we could pretty much call it a day
A real act of passion…
I mean things have gone tits up in other projects I am in, and yeah it sucks, but it’s just one of those things that happens. Annoying, but I haven’t really cared that much, it’s all part of the game, right? Not here. This was something special, nobody wanted to let go of Moon Apes!
Step 2, create a plan for a worse case scenario. We spent a week planning and prepping and sharing ideas. We took time to understand our skill sets and delegated the work to be done accordingly. We worked quietly, within our circle of trust, knowing that every minute counted. And then, we were ready to pitch our rescue plan
Pitch to the Prof
We had a meeting with 3 of the remaining founders, Prof and the artists, and we presented our business plan. They liked it and so it was. We created job specs for leadership positions, votes were made and the new team was formed
We spent the next few weeks preparing documents for the transfer of ownership of assets, set up a multisig wallet for all community funds and facilitated doxxing of the leadership team, while keeping the holders informed of our plans every step of the way. The support of the community was incredible and it was clear that everyone felt the same way about Moon Apes. We all wanted to make it
Independence Day! May 14th, 2022
Finally, all Moon Ape assets were transferred to us: smart contracts, funds, social media accounts, Discord, emails, domains and the website. We were really doing this!
I would say I’m pretty fearless and I take life in my stride. But to be honest everything happened so fast that I didn’t really have time to fully appreciate what I was committing myself to
There was a need for action and we had stepped forward to serve…
I can’t pretend that there weren’t times when I questioned what I was doing, the enormity of the task at hand — there was so much to do, so much expectation, so many people’s emotions to manage
But.
I wasn’t alone. I had the team. The team wasn’t alone. We had the community. A community who took a leap of faith and have stood behind us ever since. We have a family! A big family and everyone needs feeding. Each comes with a different diet and a different idea of how their meal should be cooked
We needed a new recipe…the lab needed to cook up something good!
Part 3: A New Moon Rises
