Further Detail: Marketplace-as-a-Service (MaaS)

The Problem that we see:

Centralized NFT marketplaces play an important role, but they create risks by inserting themselves into the Project<>Community relationship.

The Project loses control over the user experience which leads to security and technology risks while providing an asymmetrical cost/value ratio back to the Community.

As an example: Just the Yuga Labs Bored Ape Yacht Club, Mutant Ape Yacht Club and Bored Ape Kennel Club collections cost users $2.3million USD equivalent in fees on a weekly basis to transact.

What we will do about it:

Marketplace-as-a-Service (MaaS) integrates the X Marketplace smart contracts into the Project’s frontend to create a personalized marketplace.

This gives control back to the Project and further reinforces the Project<>Community dynamic through a differentiated value proposition that benefits both parties.

How this solves the problem:

The problem is solved by the control the Project has by owning the front end and partnering with X Marketplace. This provides benefit to the Project and Community in 7 core areas:

1. Security against fake collections: The Project determines what NFTs appear on their marketplace. Based on the address of the Project’s NFT (or collection of NFTs), the marketplace is ring-fenced to only the Project. This guarantees only authentic Project NFTs will appear. When the Project reinforces the call-to-action back to their marketplace it protects the community from fake/malicious collections. This is especially important for new projects with high volume immediately post mint.

2. Savings for the community: The Project can change the marketplace fees and therefore provide a materially lower fee compared to the competition. This provides an economic benefit, and incentive, for users to list and support.

3. Frontend failover/redundancy: Listings using MaaS are on-chain, providing an extra layer of security through decentralization. This means that all listings on the Project’s marketplace will also appear on X marketplace at x.xyz. If the Project’s front end goes down, users can migrate to X Marketplace. If X Marketplace also goes down then the user can hit the X smart contract directly.

Fees are assessed on where the NFT is listed which ensures the user who listed on the Project’s marketplace will be assessed the correct marketplace fee even if the user purchased through the x.xyz website.

4. Improved UX with marketplace integration: Integrating a marketplace directly into a Project’s website strengthens it as a focal point for the community. Depending on the Project, users can participate in governance, update their lore, mint NFTs, learn about updates, etc… and now with MaaS, buy/sell the Project’s NFTs without leaving the Project’s website.

5. Optional incremental revenue for the Project: If it chooses to do so, the Project can set a nominal marketplace fee and earn their own direct revenue stream. This can be done while also providing a fee that’s still materially cheaper than competing marketplaces. Communities are more likely to support fees that directly support the projects in which they are engaged.

6. Future-proofing: Enhancements on X Marketplace extend to the Project’s marketplace features. For example, after the earlier integration of $APE as a form or payment and integration with Genie.xyz, those features would extend to MaaS partners. As X Marketplace grows, the value prop expands for everyone

7. Extra X-posure: Listings on the Project’s marketplace also appear on X Marketplace. While our B2C strategy is out of scope for this post, we recognise centralized marketplaces do play a role in providing liquidity and discoverability. With MaaS, a single listing will appear on 2 marketplaces simultaneously increasing the exposure to potential buyers.

What we are doing next

We have already created a demo site showing the MaaS user experience if integrated for Apecoin.com, the DAO governing the $APE token

The demo site can be viewed here: apecoin.x.xyz. This is a live fully functional marketplace, please only transact if you intend to do so!

Tactically, the next steps for X Marketplace will be to continue through the proposal and voting process with the ApeCoin DAO, and if successful, integration of the demo site into Apecoin.com.

Additionally a comprehensive white paper is being written which brings our B2B (MaaS) and B2C (x.xyz) strategies together.

More broadly speaking, next steps will be to further refine the process to ensure scalability and to work with an additional small group of beta partners. If you’re interested in being a beta partner please reach out to any of the team members or moderators in the X Marketplace Discord.