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Chilled Kongs: Cardano’s Own “Bored Apes”?
What is the Deal with APE NFTs?
Even if reading this piece is your first exposure into the world of NFTs, you may have already seen the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) phenomenon all over social media the past year. Celebrities such as Stephen Curry, Justin Bieber, and Mark Cuban are all members of the Bored Ape NFT club.
These images of apes looking disinterested (hence the name “Bored Apes”) turned NFTs is a status symbol — a “flex” in the social media world. At the time of writing, the floor price of BAYC sits at 74 ETH on Opensea, the world’s biggest NFT marketplace. That means the cheapest BAYC NFT would cost you just under $200,000 USD!
These astronomical prices obviously bar entry to the club for the majority of the crypto-curious. As a result, just like Ethereum had its Layer-1 blockchain competitors, similar ape projects — sometimes downright copied and pasted images — started to pop up on pretty much every other chain.
*Keep in mind: This is NFA (not financial advice)! Always DYOR (do your own research)!
Cardano's Biggest APE Project
Not only are ape-like NFTs found on every other Ethereum competitor chain/ecosystem, there can be numerous “ape-inspired” projects on a single chain. It can be difficult to sift through all of them, but we’re here to help! Out of the crowd that make up the ape projects on the Cardano NFT (CNFT) ecosystem, the clear winner in the race is Chilled Kongs.
There are 8,888 Chilled Kongs in total — and the collection is currently sold out — leaving secondhand CNFT marketplaces such as JPG.Store and CNFT.io as the primary sources to obtain them.
Similar to Bored Apes, Chilled Kongs conveys the aesthetic of a relaxed, mellow ape. In the case of Chilled Kongs, it’s specifically a gorilla. The chill, mellow vibes really seemed to resonate with the NFT community as it poses a contrast to the madness that can be the “real world” sometimes.
The Details
Chilled Kongs was founded by Deckard and Occy, supported by a team of five other people with varying responsibilities. Seven is a sizable number for an NFT project. While a large team does not necessarily guarantee success, this particular team is very involved in their community and is well-known for supporting all Chilled Kong holders.
Chilled Kongs are randomly generated profile picture-style (PFP) NFTs on Cardano with over 170 traits in the collection. That pretty much guarantees that each Kong has a unique combination of traits.
A look at their roadmap shows that they are putting a heavy focus on community building which is a must for any NFT project. 3D renderings of Kongs appear on the road map, and virtual metaverse spaces for holders and real life meetups are also clearly suggested by the plans on their website.
At the time of writing, Chilled Kongs has accumulated a total trading volume of over 5 million ADA which is extremely impressive. Currently, they are sitting at a 558 ADA (roughly $500 USD with current ADA prices) floor on JPG.Store. It’s still an expensive buy-in for the average ADA holder, but that’s peanuts compared to the insane BAYC prices.
Long-term Outlook & Look Ahead
Despite being a project that launched in December 2021, Chilled Kongs is starting to be considered by many to be a “blue chip” CNFT. “Blue chip” NFTs are considered to have relatively safe “floors” and are likely to appreciate in value.
In addition, Chilled Kongs have an excellent community led by active moderators and other team members on their Discord and Twitter accounts. It’s a welcoming community full of “chill” vibes, and they have a fairly healthy transaction on secondhand marketplaces. They have “ape follow ape” hashtags that emerge from time to time to grow the Twitter following of holders.
Overall, Chilled Kongs is a well-known and established NFT project on Cardano. They have a competent and involved team. If you like the art style and have the ADA to spare, it might be worth joining the Chilled Kongs community!
