LBank AMA Recap with APENFT

Theme: Unravels The Stories Behind APENFT(NFT)

Live time: June 7th 19:00 (UTC+8)

Guest: Justin Sun, Founder of TRON and BitTorrent CEO

I. Introduction

Host: Tonight we’re focusing on the popular NFT project APENFT. We are pleased to have Justin Sun, Founder of TRON and BitTorrent CEO with us tonight. As the most influential figure in the blockchain industry, Justin Sun has been investing heavily in NFT since earlier this year and even established a dedicated fund named JUSTNFT. Later, a blackhorse, APENFT, emerged in the race and drew industry-wide attention. Justin Sun spoke highly of this project and donated artworks by famous artists like Picasso, Andy Warhol, which he purchased at ¥200 million, to APENFT. What makes APENFT win Justin Sun’s favor? What’s TRON’s strategic effort in the NFT space? What’s the future like for NFT? Next up, Justin Sun will answer each and every of these questions.

Self-introduction:

Hi everyone this is Justin Sun, founder of TRON, CEO of BitTorrrent. I assume most of you already know me, you can also follow me twitter.com/justinsuntron to learn the recent updates on TRON.

Of course very impressive. At that time, I should be at the end of the line, and it is very likely that I will create the largest liquidation record in history.

An important reason for the market’s sharp adjustment is that there is a sudden lack of clear signal. For various reasons, most people in the world are not willing to play this role. I can take on this responsibility. It is also our duty in this industry.

II. AMA PART

1. Would you please briefly introduce APENFT ?

APENFT was born with the mission to register world-class artworks as NFTs on blockchain. APENFT aim to build a bridge between top-notch artists and blockchain, and to support the growth of native crypto NFT artists.

As you are all aware that I have donated my purchases like Picasso and other artworks to APENFT. I personally hold high hope for this project.

Compared with the trending “animal” tokens in the market, NFT is undoubtedly a brighter rising star. Its technical strength and resources will quickly drive investors’ attention back from skam tokens, celebrities’ influence and imitation of large investors to business models, technology and ecosystems.

After rounds of strict selections, APENFT (NFT) managed to be the first partner of Huobi Prime, who only picks projects that perform well with endorsement by a trustworthy team. APENFT tops the chart in technology and use cases. Plus, it has entered into partnerships with Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Nifty Gateway auction houses and the well-known NFT artist Beeple, making it a dark horse to both insiders and outsiders.

2. It confused many people that you donated such valuable works to APENFT. Why？What’s your connection, or TRON’s connection, with APENFT?

Yes, I did donate Picasso and others’ artworks to APENFT. I get why you guys are so surprised. But we are more than just competitors. Being in the same industry, we should work together to promote the growth of non-fungible tokens.

You know every team is different in its strengths and preferences. I did go on a shopping spree and bought a lot of pricey artworks, but when I saw APENFT and got to know Steve Z. Liu’s ambition, I found that they had plans for the long run as well as the short run, and they are keen on NFT’s uses cases in areas other than art alone. My principle is to have professionals work on their area of expertise, so after long and careful thought, I decided to go all-in on APENFT to unleash the potential of non-fungible token at a faster pace.

For now, TRON is a close partner to APENFT, and we provide them with underlying technology, including TRON public chain, the decentralized storage system BFTS and our self-developed TRC-721 protocol.

I believe that TRON and APENFT can work together to take NFT to a new level and make TRON a better ecosystem.

3. What do you think has turned APENFT into a superstar in such a short time among NFT projects?

The growing market economy has pushed up people’s demand for artworks and many of them are already collecting artworks. However, the intrinsic drawbacks with the traditional trading market remain unresolved and have thus caused great difficulty for the masses who wish to trade artworks.

First and foremost, ordinary people cannot afford to purchase artworks. Yet, the extreme scarcity of premium artworks has driven up the prices at auctions to record highs. Most people are therefore left discouraged by the staggering amount of money, and deprived of opportunities of enjoying the value appreciation of the artwork market.

Second, experts find it difficult to tell real artworks from counterfeits. Besides, transactions in the art market are private and ambiguous in nature, making the authentication of artworks even harder.

Last, transactions are not transparent. In the traditional art market where transactions are invisible, neither the buyer or seller can get accurate information, which is only available through third-party agencies. This makes both sides passive throughout the transaction.

The rise of NFT is a perfect example of the “blockchain + arts” innovation and has drawn unprecedented attention from the mainstream. It is against this backdrop that APENFT was founded. Their mission is to register world-class artworks as NFTs on the blockchain and they aim to be the ARK Funds in the NFT space. APENFT aims to build a bridge between top-notch artists and blockchain and support the growth of native crypto NFT artists. And these have contributed to APENFT’s success.

4. The launch of APENFT has already gained lots of attention in the industry, and now the foundation has decided to make the upcoming token NFT as its governance token. What do you think makes this decision significant?

I learned that the token NFT will be used mostly for governance. Its major use cases will be as follows:

Governance token: NFT holders will have the right to decide on the management of APENFT’s collections, the potential acquisition, on-chain distribution and exhibition of artworks, as well as the right to decide on the exhibits, way and duration of exhibitions in the cyberpunk online virtual museum;

DeFi mining: NFT token will be one of the major partners of JustSwap and JustLend. It will contribute to the growth of TRON’s DeFi ecosystem and also partner with Heco for joint DeFi mining;

Democratic voting: NFT holders will have the right to vote on the future direction of collections, including but not limited to the style, genre, age, artist and form of artworks, and to review the method and amount of support provided;

Online governance rewards: NFT will be used to reward holders of TRX, BTT, JUST, SUN and other tokens who participate in APENFT. The governance rewards will be distributed as appropriate to expand the coverage of the project and interact with other ecosystems.

This represents the core value of the decentralized blockchain to a great extent. We have seen such a vision back when the white paper of Bitcoin was released, but a project that actually works to turn this vision into reality is a rare sight. The intrinsic strength of the governance token NFT lies in its close association with art. I’ve mentioned that art is created by people and belongs to people. With its governance token, namely NFT, APENFT is able to truly “make artworks accessible to all”. This also explains why I’m optimistic about this project.

5. What does APENFT Foundation mean to the TRON ecosystem?

It is known that the TRON public chain was launched in 2017, and it is the only chain developed in China among the top three public chains across the globe. We have been devoted to building the infrastructure for the next-generation global finance and internet. TRON public chain boasts a diverse blockchain ecosystem covering the public chain, exchange, DApps and DeFi with over 33 million users on our MainNet and over 1.8 billion transactions in total.

The underlying technology of APENFT Foundation is also provided by TRON. TRON can use its strengths to help its partner APENFT to rapidly take up the NFT market. At the same time, it is also a good attempt for us to expand TRON’s scope of business. As the representative in the innovation of “blockchain + art”, NFT powers TRON to make another endeavour to “building the next generation of global financial infrastructure”. The cooperation also benefits TRON’s business, further enlarging the application value of TRON’s public chain.

6. What early preparations has TRON made to enter the NFT race?

TRON has decided to expand into the NFT market both because of the industry trends and our inherent advantages. We have made preparations from the following four aspects:

First, technical strength. We are backed by the underlying technology of top-notch blockchains Ethereum and TRON with support from the world’s largest distributed storage system BitTorrent and the newly-launched TRC-721 protocol to improve both security and the global artworks’ market efficiency.

Second, heavy investment. Focusing on only top-notch artists and artworks, APENFT ‘s first collections include Femme nue couchée au collier (Pablo Picasso), Three Self-Portrait (Andy Warhol), Ocean’s Front (crypto artist Beeple) and a whole NFT set (crypto artist Pak), with a total value of over ￥200 million.

Third, market cultivation. TRON now boasts over 33 million users and over 1.8 billion transaction count, leading the race on both fronts. Since its founding, APENFT has entered into partnerships with Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Nifty Gateway, the world’s top three NFT auction houses, further expanding its market influence.

Fourth and an obvious one, TRON partners with APENFT and provides it with the underlying technology (TRON blockchain) and the storage service (BTFS), further enhancing its own ecosystem.

7. Just now you mentioned TRON’s public chain and the TRC721 protocol. We’d like to know what preparations have been made to register artworks as NFTs?

We are able to mint unique TRC-721 tokens for all NFT artworks. The tokens will be stored in the ERC20/TRC20 smart contracts of NFT tokens, and the rights and interests of the underlying artworks belong to NFT holders. Corresponding information of the TRC-721 token and the records of the artwork will be permanently stored on the BTFS network (BitTorrent File System) while files will be permanently stored on the Internet.

8. Last but not least, how do you view the future of the entire NFT industry? What’s your prediction?

In 2020, the overall trading value of NFT tripled, reaching $250 million. In March 2021 alone, the total sales of NFT surpassed $220 million. We estimate that in the next decade, 50% of the world’s top 100 artists and artworks will be registered as NFTs. It’s a booming industry, with more miracles on the way. I believe our efforts will pay off.

APENFT’s team members come from world-renowned auction houses such as Christie’s and Sotheby’s who are also active in the NFT industry. Our members have rich experience in both traditional and digital arts. Their participation will enable us to keep discovering NFT artists around the world, better empower APENFT, and fuel APENFT’s rise in the crypto art world.

Registering artworks as NFTs ushers in a new era where traditional artworks are aligned with crypto technology. It is just the beginning of a splendid chapter with the founding of APENFT as the prelude. A great journey where “artworks are accessible for all” has now begun.

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