8
Phases
5
Core Contracts
95%+
Test Coverage
3rd Party
Security Audit
Timeline Overview
| Phase | Focus Area | Status / Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Phase 0 | Pre-Development Preparation | Architecture, specs, multisig, wireframes — Completed / In Progress |
| Phase 1 | Smart Contract Development | All 5 contracts, 95%+ test coverage, testnet deployment — Milestone 1 |
| Phase 2 | Frontend & Infrastructure | Web app, wallet integration, event indexer, analytics dashboard |
| Phase 3 | Security Review & Public Audit | Third-party audit + 10–14 day public review window — Milestone 2 |
| Phase 4 | Mainnet Launch | Deploy all audited contracts, smoke tests, public announcement |
| Phase 5 | Stabilization Period | 30 days organic observation, baseline metrics, no competitions yet |
| Phase 6 | Competition Launch | 90–120 day first competition, BAYC/MAYC/Otherside rewards — Milestone 3 |
| Phase 7 | Review & Expansion Planning | Performance report, winner distribution, governance transition |
Phase 0
Pre-Development Preparation — Status: Completed / In Progress
Foundation & Architecture
Establishes all foundational design decisions, operational infrastructure, and planning documentation required to execute efficiently once development begins. Work completed during this phase significantly reduces time-to-market and ensures the team can hit the ground running. Covers four areas: protocol design finalization, technical specification development, operational infrastructure setup, and UI/UX design foundation.
1. Protocol Design Finalization
- Validate 0.5% total fee remains competitive with current market conditions
- Confirm 50% burn allocation on trades, 25% on mints
- Model revenue projections at $500K, $1M, and $5M monthly volume scenarios
- Document fee routing logic and calculations for contract implementation
- Define exact event schema for BurnExecuted emissions
- Specify zero address (0x000...000) as canonical burn destination
- Design deterministic burn flow with zero administrative controls
- Plan public verification mechanisms and analytics integration
- Define initial competition duration (90–120 days) and eligible metrics
- Establish reward tiers and NFT collection eligibility criteria
- Design scoring algorithms balancing volume, frequency, and participation
- Plan anti-gaming safeguards and detection mechanisms
2. Technical Specification Development
- Create detailed specs for all 5 contracts: MarketplaceCore, FeeRouter, ApeBurn, MintFactory, CompetitionManager
- Define all public functions, state variables, events, and modifiers
- Map inter-contract dependencies and interaction patterns
- Document upgrade strategies if proxy patterns are used
- Design listing data structures: price, seller, NFT details, expiration
- Plan efficient storage patterns for competition scoring
- Optimize gas costs through storage layout and access patterns
3. Operational Infrastructure Setup
- Deploy Gnosis Safe multisig on ApeChain testnet
- Configure 3-of-5 or 4-of-7 signer threshold
- Onboard initial signers and document key management procedures
- Test multisig transaction flows and approval processes
- Create dedicated deployment wallet for contract deployments
- Establish treasury wallet for protocol revenue collection
- Set up operational wallet for gas fees and testing
- Document wallet hierarchy and fund flow diagrams
4. UI/UX Design Foundation
- Wireframes for homepage, collection pages, NFT detail views
- Design wallet connection flows and transaction confirmation screens
- Map user journeys for listing, purchasing, and minting
- Design burn dashboard and analytics visualization
- Select UI framework: React + Tailwind CSS
- Plan reusable component architecture: buttons, cards, modals, forms
- Define color palette and typography
- Public GitHub repository with project structure and initial documentation
Success Criteria
- Complete technical specification document covering all contracts, data models, and architecture
- Finalized fee and burn parameter documentation with economic modeling at multiple volume scenarios
- Operational wallet infrastructure: multisig deployed and tested on testnet with all signers confirmed
- Initial UI wireframes covering all major user flows validated through feedback
- Public GitHub repository initialized — team ready to begin development immediately
Phase 1
Core Smart Contract Development — Milestone 1
All Five Smart Contracts
Focuses exclusively on smart contract development, testing, and testnet deployment. All core marketplace functionality, burn mechanics, and minting infrastructure is implemented and validated through comprehensive testing suites. Development follows a test-first methodology — 95%+ coverage is required before testnet deployment is considered complete.
MarketplaceCore.sol
- Implement listing creation with ERC-721 and ERC-1155 support
- Build purchase flow with atomic settlement: NFT transfer + payment + fees in one tx
- Add listing cancellation and update functionality
- Implement creator royalty enforcement using EIP-2981 or on-chain metadata
- Add batch operations for multi-NFT listings
- Integrate reentrancy guards and access controls
- Unit tests for all public functions
- Integration tests: listing → purchase → fee routing flow
- Edge case tests: expired listings, insufficient balances, unauthorized access
- Gas optimization testing and benchmarking
FeeRouter.sol
- Build fee collection mechanism called by MarketplaceCore
- Implement percentage split: 50% burn / 50% treasury for trades
- Implement percentage split: 25% burn / 75% treasury for mints
- Add deterministic routing to ApeBurn contract and treasury address
- Emit routing events for transparency and analytics
- Test edge cases: zero amounts, rounding errors, failed transfers
- Verify immutability of routing addresses post-deployment
ApeBurn.sol
- Create single-purpose burn contract with zero owner functions
- Implement irreversible transfer to zero address (0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000)
- Add BurnExecuted(uint256 amount, uint256 timestamp) event emission
- Verify immutability: no pause, no upgrade, no recovery functions anywhere
- Track running on-chain burn total — publicly queryable
- Test with various $APE amounts and validate zero address balance increases
MintFactory.sol
- Build standardized ERC-721 template with configurable parameters
- Add ERC-1155 template for edition-based collections
- Implement deployment factory pattern for gas-efficient collection creation
- Integrate 0.5% mint fee with automatic routing to FeeRouter
- Add supply caps, per-wallet limits, and allowlist functionality
- Test all creator configuration options and mint flows
- Validate creator receives 99.5% of mint revenue minus burned portion
CompetitionManager.sol + Full System Integration
- Build activity tracking for buys, sells, mints on-chain
- Implement scoring algorithm: volume + participation metrics
- Add competition period management: start/end timestamps, status tracking
- Create leaderboard calculation and ranking system
- Implement NFT reward distribution mechanism
- Add admin functions for competition configuration and emergency controls
- Connect MarketplaceCore → FeeRouter → ApeBurn end-to-end
- Integrate MintFactory with FeeRouter for mint fee processing
- Link CompetitionManager to marketplace events for activity tracking
- Run comprehensive integration tests simulating real user flows
Testnet Deployment Process
- Deploy all contracts to ApeChain testnet in correct dependency order
- Verify contract source code on testnet block explorer
- Configure contract relationships and administrative permissions
- Document all deployed contract addresses and initialization parameters
End-to-End Validation
- Execute complete buy/sell flow: list NFT → purchase → verify burn
- Test mint flow: deploy collection → mint NFTs → verify fees and burn
- Validate BurnExecuted events emitted correctly and visible on-chain
- Confirm fee splits: 50%/50% for trades, 25%/75% for mints
- Test edge cases: batch operations, failed transactions, gas limits
Milestone 1 Acceptance Criteria
- All five core contracts deployed to ApeChain testnet with verified source code
- Complete buy/sell flow validated: user lists NFT, another user purchases, fees split correctly, burn executes successfully
- Mint flow validated: creator deploys collection, users mint, 0.5% fee with 25% burn confirmed on-chain
- Burn events visible on testnet explorer with verifiable zero address balance increases matching burn amounts
- Test coverage report showing greater than 95% coverage across all contracts
- Public GitHub repository available with README, documentation, and all contract addresses
Risk Mitigation
- Contract bugs during testing — Comprehensive test suite run continuously, peer code review process, buffer period built into timeline
- Gas optimization challenges — Gas profiling early in development, gas-efficient patterns, benchmarking against industry standards throughout
- Development complexity underestimated — Phase 0 planning reduces unknowns significantly, experienced Solidity developer leading implementation
Phase 2
Frontend & Infrastructure Development
Web Application, Wallet Integration & Indexer
Builds user-facing interfaces and all supporting off-chain infrastructure. By the end of this phase, users interact with the marketplace through a polished web application and all backend systems for indexing, analytics, and monitoring are operational. All development and testing occurs against testnet contracts.
React Application Setup & Core Pages
- Initialize React project with TypeScript, Tailwind CSS, and Vite
- Configure Web3 libraries (ethers.js or viem) for blockchain interaction
- Set up React Router for multi-page navigation
- Implement global state management with React Context or Zustand
- Homepage with featured collections and trending NFTs
- Collection page with filterable and searchable NFT grid
- NFT detail page with listing and purchase interface
- User portfolio showing owned NFTs, active listings, and activity feed
- Create listing flow with price input and transaction confirmation
Wallet Integration
- WalletConnect v2 integration — mobile and hardware wallet support
- MetaMask direct connection — primary ApeChain wallet
- Coinbase Wallet support
- Network switching for ApeChain mainnet and testnet
- Transaction status tracking with pending, success, and failure states
- Detailed error messages with user-friendly explanations
- Gas estimation before transaction submission
Minting Interface
- Collection deployment wizard: ERC-721 / ERC-1155 selection
- Creator configuration: name, symbol, supply cap, mint price
- IPFS metadata upload interface with pinning
- Allowlist configuration and management
- Mint page UI showing collection details and mint button
- Real-time mint progress and success confirmation
- Collection search by name or contract address
- Price range filters and trait/attribute filtering
- Sort: price low/high, recently listed, rarity
Event Indexer & Analytics
- Deploy The Graph subgraph or SubQuery indexer on ApeChain
- Index all marketplace events: Listing, Purchase, Cancel, Mint
- Index BurnExecuted events from ApeBurn contract
- Index competition activity for scoring
- Set up GraphQL API for frontend queries
- Public dashboard: total $APE burned, daily/weekly/monthly burn charts
- Marketplace volume statistics and active user counts
- Collection leaderboards by volume
Hosting & Infrastructure
- Deploy frontend to Vercel or IPFS for decentralized hosting
- Configure RPC endpoints for ApeChain with failover
- Set up Sentry for error monitoring
- Configure CDN for image assets and NFT metadata
Testing & Polish
- Internal QA testing of all user flows end-to-end
- Beta testing with small group of ApeChain community members
- Mobile responsiveness testing across all screen sizes
- Browser compatibility: Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Brave
- Loading states and skeleton screens
- Accessibility improvements: ARIA labels, keyboard navigation
- Performance optimization: code splitting, lazy loading
Acceptance Criteria
- Users can connect wallet, browse NFTs, create listings, and execute purchases through web UI on testnet
- Creators can deploy NFT collections and configure all minting parameters without writing code
- All marketplace fees correctly route to burn and treasury as validated through transaction inspection
- Analytics dashboard displays accurate burn totals verified against on-chain data
- Application is mobile-responsive and works across Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Brave
Phase 3
Security Review & Public Audit — Milestone 2
Third-Party Audit + 10–14 Day Public Review
All smart contracts undergo professional third-party security review followed by a public community audit period. Any identified vulnerabilities are fully addressed before proceeding to production deployment. No mainnet activity begins until this phase is 100% complete. The two-phase approach — professional audit followed by community review — provides maximum confidence before handling significant user funds.
Third-Party Audit Scope
- Fee accounting correctness — verify calculations and percentage splits execute exactly 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, and burn
- Admin risk assessment — evaluate all owner privileges and potential abuse vectors
- Upgrade path security — review proxy patterns and upgrade mechanisms if implemented
- Reentrancy analysis across all fund-handling contracts
- Integer overflow protection verification
- Access control and permission model completeness
Public Review Window (10–14 Days)
- Complete source code published to GitHub with open license
- Full audit report findings and resolutions publicly disclosed — all severities
- Community members can review code and submit security concerns
- Bug bounty program may be announced with rewards for critical findings
- All recommended fixes implemented before mainnet deployment
- Competition activation delayed until review window fully completes
- Any new issues raised during community review addressed before launch
Milestone 2 Acceptance Criteria
- No critical or high-severity vulnerabilities outstanding — all addressed and verified
- Full audit report publicly disclosed with every finding documented regardless of severity
- All fixes applied and re-verified by auditing firm before mainnet deployment proceeds
- 10–14 day public review window completed with no unresolved critical issues raised
Risk Mitigation
- Critical vulnerabilities discovered — Additional audit time built into schedule buffer; competition timeline adjusts accordingly
- Audit firm availability — Firms contacted and scheduled during Phase 1 to avoid delays
Phase 4
Production Deployment
Mainnet Launch
All audited contracts deployed to ApeChain mainnet. Frontend configured to point to production contracts. Careful smoke testing with small $APE amounts before full public announcement to the ApeChain community.
Deployment Steps
- Deploy all five audited contracts to ApeChain mainnet in correct dependency order
- Verify source code on mainnet block explorer — publicly accessible
- Configure contract relationships and administrative permissions for mainnet
- Fund multisig treasury wallet and configure signers for production
- Configure frontend to point to mainnet contracts
Launch Validation
- Execute smoke test transactions with real $APE — small amounts only
- Verify BurnExecuted events appear on mainnet explorer with correct amounts
- Confirm fee splits are correct at live values with real transactions
- Analytics dashboard configured and pulling accurate mainnet data
- Public marketplace live — announce to ApeChain community
Acceptance Criteria
- Successful mainnet transactions with verified BurnExecuted events visible on-chain
- Stable frontend with no critical transaction failures during smoke testing
- Real-time burn dashboard displaying accurate mainnet data from live events
Phase 5
Post-Launch Stabilization
30-Day Organic Observation Period
A deliberate 30-day period of organic usage observation. No competitions, no incentive programs, no campaigns. Real users interact with the protocol naturally — establishing baseline metrics and surfacing any edge cases that only appear at production scale. This ensures competitions launch into a stable, well-understood environment with genuine baseline user data.
- Monitor organic platform usage for 30 days — zero artificial incentives or campaigns
- Track burn totals, volume metrics, and user engagement continuously
- Identify and address any edge cases or bugs discovered in production environment
- Establish baseline metrics: monthly volume, active wallets, daily burn rate
- Baseline user behavior established — makes manipulation easier to detect when competitions begin
- Creator onboarding — first real collections launched on mainnet during this window
- User feedback collection and UX iteration based on real usage patterns
- Gas usage monitoring and optimization if needed at production load
Phase 6
Competition Program — Milestone 3
First 90–120 Day Competition
CompetitionManager.sol activated on mainnet. BAYC, MAYC, and Otherside NFTs purchased from protocol treasury for the reward pool. Public leaderboard and transparent scoring published from day one. The first 90–120 day competition officially begins — no retroactive rule changes permitted once launched.
Competition Activation
- Deploy CompetitionManager.sol to ApeChain mainnet
- Scoring algorithm published publicly before competition starts — community reviewed
- Competition rules, eligible activities, and scoring metrics announced
- Public real-time leaderboard live with score updates
- Monitor for manipulation attempts and adjust scoring detection if needed
- Winner criteria clear from day one — no retroactive changes permitted
Reward Pool ($5,000 Competition Treasury)
- Purchase BAYC/MAYC/Otherside NFTs on secondary markets using protocol treasury
- Reward allocation by tier announced publicly at competition launch
- NFT rewards held in on-chain escrow via CompetitionManager.sol — verifiable
- Distribution mechanism tested and verified before competition starts
- Each secondary market purchase generates creator royalties and floor support
Milestone 3 Acceptance Criteria
- Competition runs full 90–120 day duration with transparent real-time scoring throughout
- Rewards distributed on-chain to verified winners via CompetitionManager.sol
- No scoring disputes — algorithm applied correctly and consistently throughout the entire competition
Phase 7
Review & Expansion Planning — Post-Competition
Impact Report & Next Phase
Following the first competition cycle, a comprehensive public performance report is published covering all key metrics. Winners are calculated and NFT rewards distributed on-chain. Community governance transition initiated. Future expansion is proposed based solely on demonstrated data — all further development contingent on measured ecosystem impact.
- Calculate competition winners using final leaderboard — distribute NFT rewards on-chain
- Publish comprehensive public performance report covering burn totals, volume, user metrics, and competition outcomes
- Analyze ecosystem impact: total $APE burned, trading volume generated, creator collections launched
- Participant data from competition published — all data publicly verifiable on-chain
- Community governance transition initiated — move toward multisig expansion or DAO model
- Propose next-phase improvements based on user feedback and measured performance data
- Potential future expansions evaluated: auction mechanics, offers system, enhanced creator analytics suite
- Cross-chain aggregation and Otherside metaverse integrations assessed based on community demand
- All future expansion contingent on demonstrated success in core metrics — not roadmap promises
Long-Term Sustainability
Post-launch, the protocol transitions to full self-sustainability through marketplace fee revenue. Any future development requests will be contingent on demonstrated ecosystem impact and measurable $APE burn performance. At modest volume levels ($1–2M/month), the platform generates sufficient revenue to cover all operational costs, fund competitions, and continue burning significant $APE — entirely independent of external funding.
| Timeframe | Volume Target | Sustainability Indicator | Estimated Monthly Burn |
|---|---|---|---|
| Month 3 | ~$500K/month | Covers basic infrastructure costs — break-even on operations | ~$1,250 |
| Month 6 | $1–2M/month | Funds all ops + competitions — fully self-sustaining | $2,500–$5,000 |
| Month 12 | $5M+/month | Fully sustainable with surplus, premium rewards, expansion | $12,500+ |