The Sock Stays ON. Part ONE

Every now and then, something so gloriously unhinged drops on-chain that you can’t help but laugh... and then instantly ape in. Enter DONG SOCKS, the sock-slinging, culture-jamming, DONG-flying NFT project that’s taken ApeChain by storm with equal parts absurdist humor and high-effort creativity.

This isn’t just a meme project, it’s the meme project. A full-on vibe. And at the center of it all is a founder who’s as talented as he is unfiltered.

The Origin of the Sock

“The original idea came years ago,” the founder shares. “A good friend of mine and I were joking about an easy way to let people know you’re ready to mingle. It started off as ‘letting your freak flag fly’ literally. The first concept was a hand-crocheted sock with a flagpole and a little waving flag.”

It was a wild, hilarious idea that sat dormant, until ApeChain entered the chat.

“Once I knew that ApeChain was coming, I started preparing the art to be ready to drop it early,” he says. “I knew it was time to go full send.”

A Degenerate with a Chisel

Let’s get one thing straight: This founder isn’t just memeing for the hell of it. Dude has serious artistic chops.

“I’ve always been a creative type,” he explains. “Pencil sketching, painting, wood carving, those are all forms I play with. I even made custom oak carvings for apes last cycle. Each one had its own stain, all hand-made.”

And he’s no stranger to web3 either. Before Dong Socks, there was a Pepe-only collection on ETH, and a generative drop on ApeChain that’s flying under the radar (👀).

This is the kind of artist who’ll carve your PFP out of hardwood one day and drop a fully-degen coin the next. That’s range.

The Sock Drop

So what goes into designing a sock that wraps a… well… you get it?

“I wanted to make sure there were a few flagpole gags in there, for sure,” he says. “But really, any time a funny idea popped into my head, I’d add it. I wanted traits that were both new and genuinely funny.”

When asked for a personal favorite, he doesn’t hesitate:“The chaps with no belt and suspenders. That combo absolutely cracks me up. Like… why?”

You’d think this was a one-off joke, but it evolved fast.

There are now three main parts to the Dong Socks ecosystem:

• The $SOCKS coin (on ape.express)

• A full-blown NFT collection on ApeChain

• Another collection on Abstract

“I thought about releasing a new collection on most big chains,” he says, “and playing off the lore of each one with new traits.”

Everything has been free to mint so far. “And I’ll continue to do that for anything else I do,” he adds.

Of course, the $SOCKS coin went bonkers almost instantly:“It blew up the first day to over $300k or something,” he recalls. “Gordo tweeted about it a few times, and a lot of the Yuga leads thought it was funny and picked up bags. I wasn’t prepared for it to move that quickly… but it felt great that it was received well.”

Comedy > Floor Prices

In a space where people refresh floor prices more than they brush their teeth, Dong Socks is refreshingly unbothered.

“I think it’s important to not get too caught up in FP,” he says. “That can’t drive your actions as a founder. Just make cool shit and keep vibes up. If you do that, and people vibe with you, everything else takes care of itself.”

This is pure on-chain comedy with craftsmanship, a project that refuses to take itself seriously, while still taking the work seriously.

PART TWO COMING SOON: We’ll dive deeper into the community, plans for the socks across chains, more on $SOCKS token utility (if any), and what the future holds for ApeChain’s resident degenerate genius.

THE SOCK STAYS ON. 🧦

Stay Bored.