Everything you need to know

The call is finally here. The much-anticipated next step in Yuga Labs’ months-long interactive NFT coin mechanic is sure to spark the Web3 community. Thousands of Sewer Pass holders are getting ready to burn their tokens in exchange for a power source, the item needed to advance to the next stage of the mint and reveal a previously unknown new set of NFTs.

The rest of the NFT world waits with bated breath; both supporters and critics of the Bored Ape Yacht Club brand are waiting to see what comes next for the project and how the effects will spread outward to the rest of the industry.

But how did the company behind one of the biggest NFT names manage the next phase of BAYC’s development with a play-to-earn (P2E) strategy at its heart? And now that The Summoning is here, what does that mean for Sewer Pass holders and the future of the BAYC ecosystem? Here’s what you need to know.

Jimmy the Monkey + Dookey Dash

In December 2022, Yuga Labs teased where it would take the BAYC narrative with the release of a short film called The Trial of Jimmy the Monkey. The film’s story centered around a key, a coffin, time-travelling monkeys and…toilets. The irreverent story set the stage for a game that BAYC and MAYC holders would be able to play as part of Yuga’s upcoming narrative-infused coin mechanic.

The game, Yuga later detailed, would allow holders to participate in The Summoning, a process that allows them to “summon” a unique and ambiguous power source via a burning mechanic. In January, the company revealed that holders of NFTs in these two collections were eligible to claim the sewer passes needed to access the game for free.

The fact that members of the BAYC universe were led down a path to a gamified coin came as no small surprise to the community. Yuga Labs has been betting hard on the growth and success of the P2E industry for some time now. In the fall of 2022, the company announced that it would bring on Spencer Tucker as its Chief Gaming Officer to help it through this transition.

Any doubt that it took that industry seriously was erased when Yuga revealed that Activision Blizzard’s president, Daniel Alegre, would replace Nicole Muniz as CEO. Both Tucker and Alegre would bring some serious experience and knowledge of the gaming industry into Yuga’s fold.

Yuga’s gamble paid off in a big way. January 18, the game, titled Dookey Dash, went directly. Sewer Pass holders had two weeks to participate in the endless runner game, shooting through the sewers of the BAYC universe while avoiding obstacles and collecting valuable items – all while competing for the ultimate prize: the key.

When those two weeks were over, Sewer Passes had 37,000 ETH ($62 million) in trading on the secondary market. Holders had also racked up some serious hours with the game, with 25,525 Sewer Pass holders coming together for 7.5 million Dookey Dash runs (almost 80 years of playtime).

On February 16 Yuga Labs Revealed who had taken first place on the Dookey Dash leaderboard. Kyle Jackson, a Fortnite player known as “Mongraal” in the eSports world, achieved a high score of 928,522 points, earning him the mysterious and coveted key. Jackson went on to list The Key for 2,222 ETH on OpenSea, and it eventually did bought for 1000 ETH by Adam WeitsmanCEO of a scrap metal shredding company with locations throughout New York and Pennsylvania.

Dookey Dash not only proved that Yuga could provide a gamified experience for its holders, it also expanded the BAYC universe. While speaking with nft now in February, Tucker noted that Dookey Dash helped grow the ecosystem by 40 percent.

But the Dookey Dash sewers would open one more time before closing permanently. On February 22, Yuga Labs reopened the game for a week to allow Sewer Pass holders to play the game’s “Toad Mode”. This was a special version of the game that allowed users to collect toads to unlock a companion for their power source. Toad Mode gave Sewer Pass holders with either an “N/A” rating or a score of zero the chance to enter the game and log a valid rating on the Sewer Pass leaderboard.

The summons

Starting today, March 15, sewer pass holders can turn their passes into a source of electricity. Dookey Dash scores will play a role in this: higher scores result in different types of power sources (presumably those with rarer properties), and users can claim one of eight possible power sources.

These power sources are rumored to be a crucial part of a “mechanical type” NFT. On January 19, Yuga tweeted a picture showing sketch drawings of various mech-like robots, saying: “Gary the Dog Prophet licked a toad, stumbled into the swamp and came back with this sketch he had made. No idea what that means. He says it’s “The Future.”

There has been much speculation in the BAYC community about the role the mechs will play in future mints, with some noting that various plots in Otherside (an MMORPG connected to the BAYC ecosystem) contains items called “mecha pieces.”

Yuga has made it clear that these power-ups will be used in future minigames to reach the “Evo 2 stage and beyond,” making it clear that the gamification strategy it used for Dookey Dash was far from a one-off.

Furthermore, at the launch of the call, Yuga noted that approximately 3,500 sewer passes were never claimed, and 789 were claimed but are not eligible for the call. These unclaimed passes will be available to the BAYC community in the future, but for now they will be held in a Yuga wallet until the next the minigame is ready to start.

For now, those with a qualified sewer pass can visit MDvMM.xyz/summoning to claim a power source. And to the delight of holders, Yuga says the claim will be open indefinitely, with more information about the intersection of power sources and mechanisms.

What’s next for Bored Ape Yacht Club?

In particular, The Summoning is just one of several stages of BAYC development that Yuga has been laying out for some time. According to MDvMM.xyz – a website Yuga Labs created to help people keep track of the ongoing expansion – the post-The Summoning stage will arrive sometime in late March and involve the reveal of the holders’ “mech types,” which refers to science fiction traditions with giant robots piloted by humans.

Even beyond what’s going on now with the Jimmy the Monkey saga, Yuga has reignited the flame of hype surrounding the aforementioned Otherside MMORPG. On March 8, the company announced that “2nd Trip” — the sequel to the mass metaverse event that helped launch Otherside — would launch on March 25. The event will be available to those holding Otherdeeds and will provide an opportunity to collect a “FIRST TURN Obelisk” NFT.

Between The Summoning, the mecha reveal, and the second ride, BAYC holders and general fans of Yuga projects certainly have a lot to look forward to. And with the second quarter of 2023 almost here, there will undoubtedly be more cause for excitement as the MDvMM.xyz roadmap rolls on.