"My mom cried when I got the job equally valet at the Bored Ape Yacht Club, one of the preeminent social clubs for apes. She hooted and grunted and peeled open i of our finest bananas. "Jenkins," she said, "y'all're going to rub shoulders with some of the finest apes from around the globe." I rolled my eyes. She had a knack for embellishment, and I was only going to be a valet, after all."

Jenkins the Valet is a broad-eyed, brown-furred service ape rather ordinary in appearance, just in the attire of his piece of work belong and Irish boho hat, widely regarded as a diligent professional, true apotheosis of discretion and peradventure i of the almost ho-hum apes in the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) universe.

While originating equally some other token in the BAYC, Jenkins has since evolved into a project and story, in and of itself. Jenkins is voiced across diverse platforms past an anonymous private who studied creative writing at college and spent the last six years working as a production manager for a large consumer technology company. Jenkins partner, Safa, is a self-described serial entrepreneur, and has a full-stack marketing groundwork and runs his own creative agency.

Half dozen months ago, Jenkins revealed his amalgamation for storytelling, and in doing then, his intentions to reveal unfathomable secrets, first-hand accounts, and quite possibly, suspicious criminal activity within the Bored Ape Yacht Club.

In the words of Jenkins himself, "Hell, I fifty-fifty killed a man."

The Writer'southward Room NFT Collection. Source: Jenkins the Valet

Jenkins the Valet: The Writer's Room is a drove of 6,942 nonfungible tokens (NFT'due south) that serve as virtual compasses to the creative direction of Jenkins metaverse tales, the first of which volition be a full-length fictional novel, supported past global talent agency Creative Artists Agency, and written past New York Times best-selling author, Neil Strauss.

Categorized into four tiers, Writer's Room NFT's ascend in voting power from the lowest-value Valet Ticket with five votes, to the Yacht Key and Valet Stand up, which hold 10 and 50 votes, respectively, through to the premium WAGMI yacht, which grants 215 votes.

These owners are designated exclusive chairs at the table in Jenkins' illustrious Writers' Room, a phrase synonymous within the filmmaking industry, but here in Web iii.0, represents a digital portal to facilitate questions and proposals posed by Strauss and fellow community members on the genre, plot, characters and general concept of the narrative.

Character participation within the novel will range from a simple acquittance to a master character feature, depending on their asset's level.

Once the book is published, licensors volition be entitled to 50% of cyberspace profits from all forms of distribution, including the NFT book's primary sale, commissions from the secondary market and royalties from concrete sales every bit well as film and boob tube adaptions of the work.

Overseen by metaverse firm Tally Labs, the project is supported by a 6-team advisory lath that includes Fractional founder Andy Chorlian, Redbeard Ventures founder Drew Austin and investor Gmoney.

Throughout Cointelegraph'southward conversation with Jenkins and Safa, information technology was articulate that the pair view this project as a propitious intersection of their respective interests, skillsets and career backgrounds, and as such, signifies the pinnacle of their creative endeavours until this point.

This Zoom interview has been slightly adjusted for clarity, and condensed to suit reading constraints.

Cointelegraph: Jenkins, Safa, cheers for joining us today. First of all, tin can you tell us your current roles inside the Jenkins projection, and what does that entail day-to-twenty-four hour period?

Safa: We both wear a ton of hats, just mostly annihilation tech-related goes to Jenkins. This is as well every bit writing, the vocalism of the character that you meet on socials and Town Halls, and the overseeing of our entire development team.

I do a lot of the marketing, social media strategy, finance and operations. We both do community management. Honestly, aside from tech, nosotros both overlap quite a flake.

Jenkins: At that place's ane other thing that I would say that you lot exercise (Safa) that I remember is really important. You gave me credit for the Jenkins vocalization, but you accept built the Jenkins brand, and yous spend a lot of fourth dimension thinking about the way the project is perceived by others. I recollect that's something our community, and the community at large actually admires about our projection.

Jenkins cites the physical valet stand displayed at NFT NYC terminal month as a prime example of how Safa's branding experience enabled them to converge their social audition to a physical monument, and how that was appreciated past the community.

S: From running an agency, I have a lot of experience working with clients and designers overseeing visual and make identities, and so we've tried to treat Jenkins that way. Not but visually, only in our messaging, how we look, feel, the pillars that nosotros're built on, and what the customs tin can expect. Information technology'south all been very intentional on our stop.

CT: Let'due south talk nigh Creative Artists Agency. How exercise you look them to support the project's vision and propel the Jenkins brand to a wider audience?

Southward: It's nearly impossible to put into words. Their chore as an agency is to represent storytellers. As a business, they have grown through many different eras of creation and distribution, and this is something that they view equally the next frontier.

They encounter the states in the same way equally their directors, artists, actors and people who are telling great stories, but they likewise recognize how different a world we're playing in, and they trust us to operate in that way.

Principles that hold for traditional entertainment and distribution don't concord hither. Everything that happens in the NFT and the Web three.0 space is community showtime. We don't have customers, we accept partners, collaborators and community members.

Creative Artists Bureau volition be our liaison into every corner of the traditional earth in terms of movies, film, Tv set, podcast, animation. And it's already started. Every bit focused as we are on making book 1, projects two and three and their own forms of media are already underway.

J: I don't think we see book ane as beingness the kickoff in a series in the way the outset Harry Potter book ends with his beginning yr at Hogwarts, and then the 2d book is his second year.

We have ii thoughts on how this book can impact future media. First, if the volume tin can stand-lonely equally a really great work, so nosotros could make straight derivates in other formats like film or animation.

The other is that this book will introduce people to Jenkins in a larger format than nosotros've already done (shorter stories on Twitter). Only by having a piece of work past Jenkins out in the world, we recollect that it will guide u.s.a. into other forms of content that wouldn't necessarily be sequential in plot but would utilize the make.

This is a bit of a funny illustration, but I call back something similar Scooby Doo where the characters and theme may be like, but what happened last fourth dimension doesn't necessarily matter for what happens next time, except for the fact that you know a little more about who the characters are.

Online voting portal. Source: Jenkins the Valet

CT: Moving onto Neil Strauss. What was his initial receptiveness to the Jenkins project, and has he provided whatever insights into what's intrigued him, stories which take stood out in his inquiry, or possible questions for the customs portal?

S: Neil is native to the space, then immediately understood it, which was super absurd.

On gaining balls that they've made the right decision in choosing Strauss, Safa tells the story of when someone asked Neil how he feels about writing fiction, to which he responded: "I'm not writing fiction, I'one thousand writing a memoir on Jenkins the Valet."

J: Right now, Neil is just trying to wrap his head effectually the space, our community and who Jenkins the character is. Once we begin licensing characters and he is provided new context, information technology volition give him more infinite to inquire new questions to the group.

Simply Neil doesn't need every grapheme to outset writing groundwork, setting and things like that. The idea is that Neil would write a bit, and and then people would get to read what he's written, which in turn could trigger new proposals or votes.

CT: In terms of submitting proposals, does that toll one of your voting rights?

J: No. The voting power is applied to every single proposal. If yous have a ticket, y'all tin can apply five votes to every unmarried option. So, you don't lose votes, and submitting proposals doesn't cost you anything.

CT: Would you lot ever consider the idea of granting additional voting rights to people whose proposal submissions are successful?

Due south: We've played with the idea of — and this wouldn't be the official term — "reputation scores" where we're able to evaluate how many times people have voted, not necessarily correctly, but on the side of the winning selection. Nosotros hadn't thought to integrate proposals being successful, which is an interesting one.

CT: What are your expectations for the customs portal?

South: Had we decided to do something mode less ambitious, we'd have probably launched already and started writing. We've seen a few other projects happening on Discord, only we felt that we needed a actually integrated portal to house this project, which would yield the best experience.

The portal is going to be industry leader, the best in form. I don't think we've seen annihilation similar it in the space, then we're excited to share it with the world. We're definitely going to open-source our licensing agreement, and we might even open-source the portal down the line.

CT: How will the licensing model operate, and how volition this impact the process of writing?

J: When you licence an avatar to the book and sign the licensing agreement, an optional form pops upwards that allows you to requite u.s. a name and backstory of your character. After a couple of weeks, we're going to accept a map of licensed avatars, their names and backstories.

Nosotros tin can so query the database and peradventure run across that there are half dozen astronauts, some mutants with similar traits, three people who are part of the ape mafia. Once you have all that, information technology becomes much easier to imagine what the story could become.

CT: Looking alee to the Jenkins Roadmap two.0. How are you envisioning that experience for Jenkins NFT holders?

S: Roadmap 2.0 volition be kicked off by the book i NFT sale. Nosotros believe that by and so, Writers' Room NFT's will have increased in value and volume one will represent a lower entry point for more people entering the ecosystem, similar to what Mutants did for BAYC.

J: Nosotros've said publicly that Roadmap 2.0 volition have a bit of game theory. Books will exist able to be burned or held, which will kick off a series of options for holders with different utility, depending on which management you lot take it.

Sorry that it's ambiguous, but this has been an incredibly well thought-out and strategic projection. We've been deliberate well-nigh dropping Easter eggs for a very long time, and so in that location are a lot of disparate things that nosotros've put out that will come together to explain different aspects of Roadmap ii.0.

Honestly, we're really proud of that and excited for people to kickoff making connections and discovering the clues. We've had a few conversations with community members where someone has said I saw this and this and this, and I think they're going to come together in this mode. And the ii are united states of america are like damn, they're on it!

Depiction of valet stand. Source: Jenkins the Valet

CT: Wen DAO?

S: I don't know that everyone will have the fourth dimension to be deliberate in edifice DAOs [decentralized autonomous organizations] in a structurally compliant way, but that's what we're doing. We're surveying multiple height blockchain law firms that accept worked with some of the biggest crypto native companies, and planning out the vision with them.

We'll be pursuing that route then nosotros can bring our customs with us as we abound. That's a core thesis of the Writer's Room and nosotros think DAOs are a good style to reach that.

CT: And finally, what does the future of Jenkins the Valet look like?

J: Our ambition is to create a decentralized Spider web 3.0 content visitor where the lines are blurred betwixt what information technology means to be a consumer and a contributor.

We believe that nosotros are building an infrastructure, make and graphic symbol where our customs are also creators and participators in a content company that the two of us, at least, retrieve that we're going to work on for decades.