APE want to become a gas token? ApeChain has caused a fierce competition between the two Layer 2s

Author: Sharon

On December 8th, Nina Rong (@nina_rong), Head of Ecosystem Development at the Arbitrum Foundation, published a proposal titled “ApeChain Developed with Arbitrum Technology and Led Growth by Horizen Labs” in the ApeCoin DAO community. At the moment, the proposal is still in preliminary discussions, but it is worth noting that it is labeled “High Importance” by Messari.

$APE do Gas? Arbitrum’s proposal is supported by the ApeCoin DAO community

It is reported that the proposed members include Nina Rong, head of ecosystem development at the Arbitrum Foundation, Robert Viglione, co-founder and CEO of Horizen Labs, Hervé Larren, senior advisor to Horizen Labs, Steven Goldfeder, co-founder and CEO of Offchain Labs, and A.J. Warner, chief strategy officer of Offchain Labs. In other words, the proposal was led by Arbitrum with the participation of Horizen Labs and Offchain Labs, the Arbitrum R&D team.

The proposal states that Arbitrum “has an incentive to build ApeChain as an Arbitrum Orbit chain developed using AnyTrust technology.” Most notably, the proposal argues that ApeChain will be an extension of the ApeCoin DAO community and will quickly become the cornerstone of the Ape brand: “It also means that ApeChain should leverage $APE as its native gas token.”

The proposal also points out that if the ApeCoin DAO uses Arbitrum technology to develop ApeChain, the advantages that can be obtained include: the ApeCoin DAO has the option to add transaction (tx) margin to generate revenue streams for the DAO; Low fees; enable customizability; Achieve self-enforcing governance.

In the comments section of the proposal, Nina Rong also mentioned that “the Arbitrum Foundation would be happy to provide funding if Arbitrum technology is adopted.” Some members of the ApeCoin DAO community expressed support for the proposal, while believing that using $APE as gas is a wise and reasonable choice.

Who is Horizen Labs?

Among the proponents of this proposal, Horizen Labs is worth noting. Horizen Labs was founded in 2019 and is primarily responsible for creating the ApeCoin DAO staking system. Prior to this, Horizen Labs helped launch several major initiatives for the ApeCoin DAO community, including ApeCoin, Otherside, and ApeStake within the Ape ecosystem.

In addition, Horizen Labs’ recent establishment of governance for Horizen EON, an EVM-powered platform, as a technology service provider that supports the Horizen DAO, further demonstrates Horizen Labs’ expertise in creating new ecosystems.

As a result, the proposal indicates that Horizen Labs is also committed to becoming a long-term holder and supporter of ApeCoin: “Horizen Labs will leverage its deep industry experience to provide advice and guidance to the ApeCoin DAO and community on the initial development of the ApeChain ecosystem.”

Specifically, Horizen Labs will provide support for the launch of $APE, a cross-chain that uses the Omnichain Fungible Token (OFT) standard on top of the LayerZero protocol; Establish connections between multiple foundations and other DAOs to continuously expand the ecosystem; Provide technical support for projects that issue tokens on ApeChain.

Arbitrum and Optimism compete for ApeChain?

Before Nina Rong led the proposal to use Arbitrum technology for ApeChain, Lumberg, a founding member of MetaCartel Ventures, also launched a proposal on the ApeCoin DAO website on November 22, pointing out that he hopes to deploy ApeChain on Optimism.

The proposal wants ApeChain to be part of the Optimism Superchain ecosystem and plans to become a core contributor to the Optimism Foundation, noting that “Optimism has pledged to support ApeChain through milestone-based token grants of up to 20 million OP.”

At the same time, the proposal also mentions that the costs associated with the deployment, management, and operation of ApeChain can be handled by launching the ApeChain (AC) token or otherwise requesting an ApeCoin grant. If the DAO chooses to launch ApeChain tokens, the ApeChain team will be responsible for raising funds to fund all operations, and AC tokens will be distributed to ApeCoin stakers as governance tokens.

At present, ApeChain is being contested by Arbitrum and Optimism before it was born, which also reflects the concern of both parties about the potential of ApeChain to a certain extent. And which chain’s technology will ApeChain choose to use as support in the future? BlockBeats will continue to pay attention.