NFTs gained traction and soared high in popularity, to the point it was named the word of the year in 2021 by the Collins dictionary. NFT sales were approximately $24.9 billion in 2021, an exponential rise from $94.9 million in 2020. From 545,000 wallets that traded NFTs in 2020, about 28.6 million NFTs traded NFTs in 2021. However, some of the most notable projects are expanding their ecosystems by offering token incentives and community-centric perks. Let's have a look at the top-performing NFT projects in April 2022. Conjecture Many people wouldn’t have imagined the imminence of its emergence a few years before the advent of blockchain technology. Even when blockchain came mainstream, many artists wouldn’t have believed their expertise would earn them a fortune on the novel technology. Like many other industries, blockchain has transformed the art industry into an epoch of unique and algorithmically generated art pieces with their aesthetic traits and rarity score. Beyond naysayers’ imagination, NFTs debuted in the mainstream and grew into a larger market in the blockchain industry. Its growth became enormous when various art labs and investors started diving into the NFT market and promoting it. Venture capitalists were not left out, and media organizations and big brands were not spared. Every movers and shaker of the global economy want to have a bite of the flourishing NFT economy. Like DeFi has its self-sustained economy on the blockchain, the frenzy of adoption of NFTs paved the way for an independent economy for NFTs too. This was achieved with several NFT projects that drove NFTs beyond mere trading of digital arts. They gave NFTs utility and extended their functionalities to an immersive ecosystem—metaverse—to widen the horizon of NFT economies. Integrating NFTs into the metaverse maintains a deep-rooted economy and assures investors that NFT and its economy are not for frivolities and are here to stay. Every persona, objects, collectibles, environment, and other valuable tools and features in the metaverse are NFTs. To keep the flame of NFT burning, several NFT projects regularly incentivize their holders to ensure they keep their NFT assets; to extenuate panic sales, which could be a heavy blow to its economy. Let’s dive into four notable NFT projects in the industry. These fantastic projects include Bored Ape Yacht Club—BAYC— and its ApeCoin, Moonbirds and their nesting features, Cool Cats and their milk, and CyberKongs alongside their bananas. Bored Ape Yacht Club—BAYC BAYC was created by the notable Yuga Labs on April 23, 2021, on the Ethereum network. The project has grown into one of the most prestigious collections in NFT marketplaces. BAYC is a collection of 10,000 Bored Apes, which grants its holders access to the club—BAYC— for future incentive models. These incentives came through other NFT collections from Yuga Labs, like the Bored Ape Kennel Club and Mutant Ape Yacht Club—MAYC. The gross evaluation of all NFTs in these collections totaled $3 billion. Yuga Labs successfully made their NFT projects top-notch with captivating activities to engage their community as incentives. These unending engagements drove millions of users and investors from many industries, including celebrities, to their NFTs. Yuga Labs witnessed significant events in March 2022 to further establish its tentacles in the NFT industry. These include its acquisition of Meebits and CryptoPunks (another NFT projects’ company), raised $450M in funding on March 22, 2022, and also announced its ApeCoin. The advent of ApeCoin, an ERC-20 token, marks another grand era in the entire BAYC and allied clubs in the Yuga Labs ecosystem. It began with distributing a 1/1 NFT to the Ape Foundation, which executes the ApeCoin DAO’s decision. The ApeCoin DAO, like other DAOs, is governed by all token holders to vote on decisions like partnerships, governance protocols, new projects, and fund allocations, among others. ApeCoin Token Utility ApeCoin grants its holders the right to participate in the decision-making process through voting. Since the token is decentralized, it’s governed by ApeCoin DAO, which decides what’s next in the ecosystem. This decision-making lies in holding ApeCoin to be part of the governance. It is pertinent to note that Yuga Labs has no governance authority. Governance Aside from being a governance token, ApeCoin will also be the native token of the Ape ecosystem, which can be used to offset charges on the ecosystem and purchase future products and services without centralized intermediaries. Native Crypto of the Ape Ecosystem The ApeCoin DAO encourages third-party developers to integrate ApeCoin into their games, projects, and other services. As P2E games incentivize their players with the ApeCoin, it will further promote the token beyond the Ape ecosystem. Incentives With the emergence of the Ape token, holding an Ape before being part of the ecosystem has ended. With ApeCoin, holders can now access the Ape ecosystem, which will house many intriguing activities. Access ApeCoin generally aims to be more than a community-based token; as it keeps forging ahead, it will soon be available for staking and other DeFi protocols to invigorate the token and promote the Ape ecosystem. ApeCoin Token Distribution The ApeCoin has a fixed supply of 1 billion tokens which has been minted already and can’t be burnt. The token was launched on March 17, 2022, with 30.25% of the token unlocked to be in circulation. The remaining supply will be released to circulation at an average of 1.5% of the maximum supply every month for 48 months. From the total supply, 16% was allocated to the Yuga Labs team, with 1% allocated to Jane Goodall’s Charity Foundation. Another 14% of the token was allocated to ApeCoin launch contributors and 8% for Yuga Labs & BAYC’s founders. The remaining 62% was allocated to the DAO community, where 15% was airdropped to holders BAYC, BACK, and MAYC NFT holders, while the remaining 47% was reserved for the DAO treasury and resources. Tokenomics From January to April 2022, BAYC trade volume peaks slightly above $43M, with its average price closing on $400k. Its market cap peaks at $4.3B towards the end of April 2022. Moonbirds Moonbirds is another remarkable NFT project launched on April 16, 2022. It is a collection of 10,000 PFP (profile picture) NFTs that grants membership to a private club and additional benefits to their holders, like nesting. The project was developed by PROOF COLLECTIVE, a private club of 1,000 dedicated NFT artists and collectors. Moonbirds has underlying utility in web 3 and beyond; it gives users exclusive access to a social club restricted to its holders. Its holders are also entitled to staking rewards and subsequent airdrops like the Moonbirds-embroidered hoodies and future airdrops. Not only that, holders of any NFT in this collection also have access to PROOF’s metaverse community. These utilities will be the cornerstone of potential utilities yet to be disclosed. Top of the Moonbirds utility is “nesting,” a soft staking model that allows owners to lock their NFTs in their wallets without transferring or listing them. Like Bored Ape holders were rewarded with ApeCoin, Moonbirds will also reward nested bird owners for how long they hold their NFTs in their wallet. Moonbirds Growth and Tokenomics Moonbirds started growing its economy immediately after launch; the project was minted on the Ethereum blockchain and recorded remarkable secondary sales. With its 49,000 ETH volume made from secondary sales in a single day, it broke the MAYC single-day record of 41,000 ETH. The project recorded over 70,000 ETH in sales volume within the first 2 days of launching with a current floor price of 33 TH. Moonbirds average price peaked at $120k with a sales volume of almost $40M between April 21-22, 2022. *Source: InToTheBlock* Cool Cats Cool Cats is an NFT project co-created by Tom Williamson, Rob Mehew, Evan Luza, and Colin Egan in July 2021. It is a collection of 9,999 randomly generated NFTs, with each cat having unique traits like body, face, hats, outfits, etc. These randomly generated NFTs have rarities like Exotic, Classy, Wild, and Cool to mark their uniqueness. Utility Aside from their appealing aesthetics, owning or holding this NFT grants access to additional perks like airdrops, passive token rewards, minting additional NFTs, and more that are yet to be unveiled. Cooltopia –Cool Cats ecosystem– announced Cool Pets and a $MILK token in September 2021. Cool Pets is another 19,999 collections of NFTs, 50% of which were reserved for Cool Cats holders. The $MILK token is the ecosystem native token and is automatically generated by all genesis Cool Cats daily. It can also be earned alternatively by sending Cool Pets on a quest. You can buy Housing or Battle chests or evolve your Cool Pets with the $MILK tokens. Furthermore, Cool Pets earn token rewards via staking, and the team behind this project is developing a lending protocol that allows holders to lend out the NFTs to complete a quest and earn a reward in return. Growth and Tokenomics The announcement of Cool Pets and $MILK doubled the market cap of Cool Cats NFTs, which ranked the 11th largest NFT project in March 2022. It recorded a trading volume of over $300M in April 2022. By January, the average price of Cool Cats was above $40k with a market cap slightly above $400M and plummeted to $14k with a market cap of $65M by the end of April 2022. CyberKongz CyberKongz journeyed into NFTs in early March 2021 with its 2D randomly generated collection of NFTs. It is a collection of 1,000 unique PFP NFTs created by an artist called Myoo, who generated 989 Genesis CyberKongz and 10 Legendary CyberKongz. The project was later upgraded with more functionality in April 2021, transforming the ecosystem into an independent and prosperous one. It paved the way for further potentials yet to be unveiled to its community. This landmark upgrade constitutes an inbuilt token emission which makes the CyberKongz ecosystem algorithmically distribute $BANANA—its native token. Furthermore, it also paved the pathway for minting more NFTs —like the CyberKongz VX and Kongnium Ore—without jeopardizing the value and functionality of the Genesis NFTs. The upgrade also edged the ecosystem towards gamification, where NFT holders can earn rewards by participating in quests. About the Emission The emission generates revenue via the Genesis NFTs; each genesis NFT will emit 10 $BANANA daily for ten years. The $BANANA doubled as the ecosystem’s utility and governance token with various utilities. With the token, CyberKongz’s holders can partake in the stake-to-play protocol, customize and upgrade CyberKongz NFTs, use them to mint extra NFTs, and more that are yet to be introduced. Like other governance tokens, $BANANA allows its holders to have a say on different proposals and upgrade the ecosystem through voting. The current price of $BANANA is $9.53 per token, meaning each CyberKongz will emit $95.30 per day and $34,784.5 per year at this current price for holding on to the NFT. The uniqueness of the $BANANA Token in the Ecosystem Aside from being the governance and utility token, the $BANANA token has another layer of underlying functionality within the ecosystem. With 600 $BANANA as gas fees, holders can freely mint two Baby Kongz through the cybernetic breeding process. Baby Kongz is 4,000 limited breeds of the genesis CyberKongz and can further be modified—name and bio—by spending more $BANANA tokens. Growth and Tokenomics A 15,000 collection of CyberKongz VX was created to promote the ecosystem further to be deployed on metaverse platforms like Sandbox. This will mark a new era in the ecosystem, making the Kongz utility NFTs. CyberKongz floor price hovers around $38k to $15.1k from January to April, with a market cap of $168M in January to $60M in April 2022. Disclaimer This report is meant for informational purposes only and not to serve as financial or investment advice. Conduct your research, and consult an independent financial, tax, or legal advisor before making investment decisions. The past performance of any asset is not indicative of future results. I do not guarantee the sequence, accuracy, completeness, or timeliness of any information provided in this report. Found this research useful, or do you have a question? Kindly drop a comment or connect with me.

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