Deterministic. Irreversible. Verifiable.
The burn engine represents the core value proposition of the marketplace. Its design prioritizes transparency, immutability, and verifiability. Every aspect of the burn mechanism is implemented on-chain with no administrative controls that could halt, redirect, or modify burn flows once activated. The system consists of three interconnected smart contracts that ensure deterministic, irreversible token destruction.
- No owner functions — zero admin controls of any kind
- No pause mechanism — cannot be stopped post-deployment
- No upgrade paths — completely immutable at deployment
- No withdrawal function — tokens cannot be recovered under any circumstances
- BurnExecuted(uint256 amount, uint256 timestamp) on every execution
- Running total tracked on-chain and publicly queryable
- Query zero address $APE balance directly on-chain — always increases
- Listen to BurnExecuted events from the ApeBurn contract address
- Cross-reference with MarketplaceCore trade events by transaction
- Public analytics dashboard aggregates all burns in real time
- Open API for third-party independent verification tools
- Full transaction history on ApeChain block explorer
Five contracts. Single responsibility each.
The system consists of five core contracts with clearly defined responsibilities and minimal inter-contract dependencies. Each contract is independently auditable and testable. Critical security patterns include reentrancy guards, overflow protection, access controls, and fail-safe mechanisms for edge cases. The architecture prioritizes security, gas efficiency, and maximum auditability.
Entry point for all user transactions. Executes all NFT trades and mints. Calculates total fees based on transaction value and action type. Routes fees to FeeRouter in the same transaction as NFT transfer — atomic by design.
- NFT listings with ERC-721 and ERC-1155 support
- Purchase flow with atomic settlement
- Creator royalty enforcement via EIP-2981
- Batch listing and purchase operations
- Reentrancy guards on all fund-handling functions
Receives all marketplace fees from MarketplaceCore. Applies predetermined split percentages — 50% burn / 50% treasury for trades; 25% burn / 75% treasury for mints. Deterministic routing with no admin discretion.
- Percentage split logic — immutable post-deployment
- Routes burn portion to ApeBurn contract
- Transfers treasury portion to protocol multisig
- Emits routing events for transparency
- Tests: zero amounts, rounding errors, failed transfers
Single-purpose contract with one function: irreversibly burn $APE. Transfers received $APE to zero address (0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000). No owner functions, no pause mechanisms, no upgrade paths — completely immutable.
- Transfer to zero address — permanent, cryptographic finality
- BurnExecuted(uint256 amount, uint256 timestamp) event
- Running burn total tracked on-chain
- Verified: no pause, no upgrade, no recovery
Factory pattern for creator-deployed mint contracts. Standardized ERC-721 and ERC-1155 deployment templates. Gas-efficient collection creation. Automatic fee routing integration — mints automatically pay 0.5% fee with 25% burn.
- Configurable: supply caps, per-wallet limits, mint prices
- Optional allowlist/whitelist for phased launches
- Creator receives 99.5% of mint revenue minus burned portion
- IPFS metadata integration built-in
Manages full competition lifecycle from activity tracking through scoring to NFT reward distribution. Activity tracking for buys, sells, and mints. Scoring algorithm balances volume and participation metrics. Competition period management with start/end tracking. Leaderboard calculation and on-chain NFT reward distribution with no manual intervention.
- Track user activity: buys, sells, mints on-chain
- Scoring: volume + frequency metrics balanced
- Competition period management and status tracking
- Leaderboard calculation and ranking system
- Receive NFT rewards in escrow for distribution
- On-chain distribution to top-ranked wallets
On-chain. Immutable. Publicly verifiable.
Fee rates and allocation ratios are set at contract deployment and cannot be modified post-deployment by any admin. At 0.5% — 80% lower than incumbents — the fee structure maximizes volume throughput while maintaining economic sustainability. All fee routing is deterministic: MarketplaceCore → FeeRouter → (ApeBurn + Treasury Multisig) in a single atomic transaction.
| Action | Total Fee | Burn Rate | Effective Burn | Treasury Rate | Effective Treasury |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NFT Purchase / Sale | 0.5% | 50% | 0.25% of sale | 50% | 0.25% of sale |
| NFT Mint | 0.5% | 25% | 0.125% of mint | 75% | 0.375% of mint |
Trading represents mature market liquidity and speculation. Higher burn allocation maximizes deflationary impact from high-volume activity. The 50/50 split balances burn commitment with operational sustainability — treasury portion funds infrastructure and competition rewards.
Minting represents new creator activity and ecosystem expansion. Lower burn rate preserves more treasury for creator incentives, tooling, grants, and platform development. Encourages primary market launches while still contributing to deflation. Higher treasury allocation supports creator adoption at scale.
Supporting truth. Not replacing it.
The on-chain contracts are the source of truth. Off-chain infrastructure exists purely to index that truth and make it accessible — it never holds user funds or makes trust-critical decisions. Built using The Graph protocol or SubQuery for decentralized indexing. Open-source subgraph deployable by any community member.
- Real-time event processing
- Historical query support
- GraphQL + REST endpoints
- Burn charts: daily/weekly/monthly
- Volume and user metrics
- Collection leaderboards
- MetaMask, WalletConnect v2, Coinbase
- ethers.js or viem
- IPFS + Vercel dual hosting
- Multi-provider redundancy
- Automatic failover
- Transaction retry with backoff
- Contract event monitoring 24/7
- Sentry error tracking
- Incident response runbooks
- IPFS metadata pinning
- Creator asset upload flow
- Decentralized permanent storage
Defense-in-depth. No shortcuts.
Security is the highest priority for a marketplace handling user funds and NFT assets. Multiple layers of protection: third-party audits, public code review, formal verification where feasible, and operational security best practices. All fund-handling contracts undergo independent third-party review. No mainnet deployment until the full two-phase audit and public review process completes.
- Fee accounting correctness: verify fee calculations and percentage splits execute as specified
- Burn mechanism integrity: confirm burns are irreversible and tokens reach zero address
- Settlement safety: atomic NFT transfers and payment flows with no edge cases
- Fund flow verification: trace all payment paths from user to seller/treasury/burn
- Admin risk assessment: evaluate owner privileges and potential abuse vectors
- Upgrade path security: review proxy patterns and upgrade mechanisms if implemented
- Reentrancy and integer overflow analysis across all five contracts
- Complete source code published to GitHub with open license
- Audit report findings and resolutions publicly disclosed in full
- Community members can review code and submit security concerns
- Bug bounty program may be announced for critical findings
- Competition activation delayed until review window completes
- Any new issues discovered addressed before mainnet deployment
- Multi-signature treasury: 3-of-5 or 4-of-7 Gnosis Safe with distributed signers
- Timelock controls: critical admin functions require 24–48hr delay before execution
- Monitoring: automated alerts for unusual contract activity or failed transactions
- Incident response: documented procedures with communication protocols
- Gradual rollout: initial transaction limits increasing as platform proves reliability
- Reentrancy guards on all fund-handling functions
- Integer overflow protection throughout all contracts
- Access control modifiers on administrative functions
- Fail-safe mechanisms for edge cases
- ApeBurn.sol: completely immutable — no owner, no pause, no upgrade
- Input validation and signature verification on all user-facing functions
Founder-led initially. Community-owned over time.
The marketplace is designed to transition from founder-led development to community governance as the platform matures and demonstrates sustainable operations. Initial governance operates through a lightweight multisig model during the MVP phase and first 6–12 months.
- Treasury multisig: 3-of-5 or 4-of-7 Gnosis Safe controlling protocol treasury
- Signer composition: Founder + trusted community members + potential ApeCo representative
- Decision scope: competition prize budgets, treasury allocation, emergency actions
- All multisig transactions published publicly with rationale
- Potential: non-transferable governance NFTs distributed to active users and creators
- On-chain proposals for feature additions, fee adjustments, competition structures
- Community approval required for significant treasury expenditures
- Phased handoff ensures stability while increasing community control
- Any transition proposed transparently with sufficient lead time for feedback