Join EAPES in Celebrating National Banana Day!

9 min readApr 13, 2023

Hi Tribe,
Welcome to the 5th Edition of our EAPES Update Newsletter. April is a momentous month full of surprises and exciting milestones for EAPES! We are only a few days away from National Banana Day on April 19th. The anticipation is increasing and this day will be celebrated by the entire Tribe. Read below for a recap of the last two weeks and some tasty breadcrumbs of what is coming soon.

1. Community Initiatives

The Ultimate Whale Collecting Contest

The 2nd Ultimate Whale Collection Contest is in the books. After weeks of trades and swaps, the Team announced the two Tribe members who have gone literally bananas.

Congratulations to Jason for his outstanding support. Not only did he spend the highest total EGLD last month, but he also made the single highest purchase earning him the roles of both “King Louie” and “Big Banana”. Jason spent a total of 334 EGLD, including a single purchase of 140 EGLD, making him the undisputed champion!

Secondly, congratulations went to Hattrick for being the winner of the “Ape Collector” role, which is awarded to the participant with the most EAPES purchased. Hattrick added a whopping 13 EAPES to his collection, securing his place in the top winner’s spot.

Both winners will have their roles until the end of April after which new winners will be announced the first week of May. In addition, both Jason.X and Hattrick77 will win special edition merch.

As an EAPES team member Hattrick77 has graciously decided to donate his limited edition EAPES hoodie to this month’s 2nd place Ape Collector winner. This means that there could be up to 4 winners for the month of April!

The merch is being designed and the winners will be notified as soon as they are ready! Thank you to everyone who participated in this contest. Your support and dedication have made this competition another monthly success.

Banana Sessions

We are excited to announce another spin session with @DJ vAPED× scheduled for Saturday, April 29th at 21:00 UTC. With positive vibes and heavy beats pumping, the chat will be lit from beginning to end. This is one that you won’t want to miss, with more tracks and exciting new giveaways for the Tribe.

The session can be viewed at https://www.twitch.tv/djvaped

The winners of the giveaways from the session held on March 25th were announced. Congratulations to the 2 winners drawn in the live draw: @benjaminPag1 & @Mimi_crypt0

Both received an EAPE for attending the session and sharing the hype.

Team Updates

The Team announced two new members: Kim and Leo!

Kim’s role will be to oversee various aspects of the project, including communications, quality assurance, operations, and project coordination. She will be responsible for reviewing communications, ensuring quality assurance for everything before they are released, streamlining systems and processes, and keeping our Team and partners on their toes.

Léo is our newest Discord moderator. His ability to read people, find patterns, and provide assistance will help us in many areas. We believe that his joining the Team will bring positive energy and growth, not just to our Team but also to the community. We are happy to welcome Léo on board and are confident that he will do an outstanding job.

Did Someone Say BANANA BOAT?

We celebrate National Banana Day on April 19th, 2023. We want to make this a significant day for EAPES beginning this year and continuing annually into the future. Banana Day this year represents a momentous event for EAPES, which will tie into the launch of multiple milestones including our light rebranding initiative as well as our Top Secret Project.

But as you know, a large part of the future of the project evolves around EAPES Islands, a paradise destination for our valued community members. (Read more about EAPES Island plus some spectacular sneak peeks in Section 3: Development Initiatives)

Although still in the early concept phase, the Team is excited to present the initial launch of the “Banana Boat”, an old shipwrecked Pirate ship that has been reclaimed by the jungle. This mysterious shipwreck has been taken over by EAPES who have made it into a gathering place called “Club Banana”. Here, EAPES throw huge parties on the Banana Boat where they vibe and chill to the beat of DJ Apes and enjoy Banana Coladas, the drink of choice.

However, in order to be a member of Club Banana, you are required to hold a very special ornament with great value and highly prized by EAPES community members. This ornament represents the only way into the Club. It is your golden ticket. Many have been handed down from generation to generation of EAPES while others have been purchased on the secondary markets. But in the end, if you own one, guard it with your life. So are you going to receive this prized bounty? Stay tuned…

You asked for more sneak peeks and we delivered! Here are two more for you to enjoy:

Our first Club Banana event will launch in June, after most special ornaments are distributed to the community.

Special Trait

Please remember that the Special Pool for staking rewards between April 4–18th is Tribal Torso EAPES. If you have a Trible Torso EAPE, you will need to unstake and restake to the Special Pool.

Important Reminder: anyone who has staked in any old Special Trait Pool must unstake and restake their EAPES in order to continue receiving staking rewards. EAPES staked in old Special Trait Pools no longer receive WEGLD rewards!

2. Marketing Initiatives

Light Rebranding Campaign

Elevate. Energize. Engage. As part of our rebranding journey, the EAPES Team made a conscious effort to preserve the visual elements of our original Elrond Apes logo that is synonymous with our brand. We reiterated the significance of staying true to our roots while evolving with the times and explaining what the ‘E’ in EAPES represents to us.

Our light rebranding campaign continues with some exciting new updates coming in the next week including our official logo and video reveal, new brand standards guide as well as an update on our merchandise store relaunch!

This is a pivotal moment for EAPES as we work with you to sculpt and perfect our brand, message and vision. Thank you for your patience and support!

3. Development Initiatives

EAPES Islands

The Team continues to work on the early concept stages of EAPES Islands. The first initiative will be released on National Banana Day with the launch of Club Banana on Banana Boat. This self-contained immersive experience will give our Tribe members a taste of what’s to come through story-telling and secret quests and bounty hunts for lost treasures.

As we solidify the vision for EAPES Islands, we continue to speak to vendors who specialize in Unreal Engine development. We will keep you up-to-date when we have more information.

In the meantime, here are some sneak peeks at our early concepts for housing on EAPES Islands. Kind of a blend of Bali meets Avatar don’t you think?

National Banana Day TOP SECRET PROJECT

We are only 6 days away from the Top Secret Project reveal. This is an exciting endeavour that will signify a huge evolution for the EAPES project. Stay tuned…. #letsgobananas

4. Partnerships and Collaborations

Cyberpunk City — CYBER Token Distribution

The Tribe received a whopping 138,000 CYBER tokens from our partnership with Cyberpunk City.

If you haven’t claimed your $CYBER, you can do so now. Please note that the $CYBER rewards are not visible in the dApp. However, when you claim your WEGLD, the $CYBER tokens will appear in your wallet once the transaction goes through. Please go to https://app.elrondapes.com/ to claim your WEGLD and CYBER rewards.

You can swap your $CYBER tokens on xExchange or stake them at a very attractive APR here : https://dapp.cyberpunkcity.com/

Congrats to the Cyberpunk City on their quick sellout of their CITIZENS NFT Phase 1 mint. Stay tuned for more details about the Phase 2 mint. Here is a footage from the game they are building from scratch. Many projects will be advertised in their game https://twitter.com/cyberpunkcity/status/1642460360392187905?s=20

Home X

The EAPES and Home X collaboration continues with the release of details surrounding their artwork and game. Mint date is TBD.

The art direction, rarity and traits for The First Travelers collection was revealed here: https://cutt.ly/241iPJA

Home X announced that the 3,333 NFTs are split into the following rarity classes:

✅ Common: 1300 NFTs
✅ Uncommon: 1150 NFTs
✅ Rare: 633 NFTs
👑 Royals and Elders: 200 & 50 NFTs

In addition, Home X released their exciting Game Trailer here: https://cutt.ly/r7exgnA

The video introduces the Season 1 of the immersive story-driven game which will launch right after the mint in addition to more details about active and passive rewards for NFT holders. More information about the Home X Game was published here: https://cutt.ly/t7enWiW

Home X published an article about Chapter 1: Staking details here: https://cutt.ly/z7gkCpa

✅ Holding a First Traveler NFT ➡️ Access to game S01
✅ Staking your Travelers ➡️ Earn ENERGY tokens, the main resource used in completing the weekly quests
✅ Once a week: Swap your ENERGY ➡️ $EGLD

This week, Home X also published an article about Chapter 2: Quests. Please click here for more info: https://cutt.ly/i7TN6QO

Each Quest has:
1. A cost = tokens/resources
2. A reward = tokens/resources
3. A cooldown = vesting time for the reward to be redeemed

There are 4 types of resources:
⚡️ ENERGY tokens (earned mostly through staking)
🌿 HERBS, GEMS & ESSENCE (earned only through quests)

The Final Mission — a special quest:
💰 Requires all 4 resources
⏰ Has the longest cooldown
1 Final Mission completed ➡️ 1 Ticket 🎟️

Strategy:
In order to accomplish more Final Missions, you must fulfill quests in an optimal order, gathering as many resources as possible.

Home X Twitter Spaces

Home X and EAPES hosted a Twitter Spaces on April 8th to introduce the project to the MultiversX community. We had an amazing turnout with over 125 listeners. Home X revealed more about their NFT artwork and inspiration as well as details about the story driven game and rewards.

Here is a recording of the Twitter Spaces if you missed the live event: https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1MYGNgpXlZbJw?s=20