Key Takeaway:
- ApeCoin (APE) is an ERC-20 utility and governance token for the BAYC ecosystem.
- The ApeCoin network layer is open source, while the APE coin is a standard ERC-20 token for governance and utility purposes.
- ApeCoin has been listed on FTX, Gemini, Coinbase, and Crypto.com.
Bored Apes Yacht Club continues to create a self-fulfilling prophecy. The NFT phenomenon was built from the ground up as a fictional future world in which NFT investors hang around the swamp club as idling NFT millionaires.
Thanks to this optimistic vision, quality artwork, and generous Kennel/Mutant airdrops to BAYC holders, the 10k NFT collection ranks 3rd with all-time sales, at $1.5 billion across 9,874 buyers.
Source: Omnimint
Presently, the average BAYC floor price sits at $29.7k, while the most expensive Bored Ape ever sold is #8817 at Sotheby’s for $3.4 million.
Bolstered by this stellar success, Yuga Labs continues with its ambitious and innovative roadmap. After launching the Kennel Ape Yacht Club and Mutant Serum, which spiced up the BAYC metaverse, ApeCoin is filling the headlines as the most significant milestone.
POPULAR TOPIC: NFT Gaming: Complete Overview And Its Future
What Is ApeCoin?
ApeCoin (APE) is an ERC-20 utility and governance token for the BAYC ecosystem. Just like Axie Infinity has its AXS or Decentraland has MANA, APE will serve as the backbone for the BAYC metaverse moving forward.
“It will serve as a decentralized protocol layer for community-led initiatives that drive culture forward into the metaverse.”
Presently, BAYC is neither a blockchain game like Axie Infinity nor a metaverse platform like Decentraland. However, neither is Illuvium (ILV), an upcoming open-world fantasy game hosted on Ethereum.
Yet, that didn’t stop Illuvium from accruing a $366 million market cap in anticipation. The same holds true for ApeCoin as well.
Presently, BAYC is a static NFT collection with a number of perks that spill over to the physical world via exclusive access to events and social networking.
Therefore, APE will be Yuga Labs’ main funding vehicle moving forward, managed by the APE Foundation, which already confirmed that a BAYC P2E game is in the works, alongside other web3 projects.
This yet-to-be fully revealed game will be developed in partnership with nWayPlay, a blockchain gaming studio already responsible for a number of games hosted on the Flow blockchain.
As far as ApeCoin’s organizational structure goes, ApeCoin DAO will serve as the project’s treasury, distributing APE and issuing APE Improvement Proposals. This is similar to how Ethereum upgrades its features with EIP (Ethereum Improvement Proposal).
Likewise, APE holders will be able to vote on these proposals, depending on the amount of tokens they hold.
By the same APE token, they will have their sway in deciding who serves on the APE Foundation board. Presently, it consists of six DAO administrators who will serve for six months:
- Alexis Ohanian, Co-founder of Reddit; General Partner & Founder of Seven Seven Six
- Amy Wu, Head of Ventures & Gaming at FTX
- Maaria Bajwa, Principal at Sound Ventures
- Yat Siu, Co-founder & Chairman of Animoca Brands
- Dean Steinbeck, President & General Counsel at Horizen Labs
After six months, DAO members will get a chance to vote for new members on an annual basis. As you can see, these are big industry players, spanning from social media and venture capitalism to big cryptocurrency exchanges.
Lastly, we will have an opportunity to see the role ApeCoin will play in Yuga Labs’ next big project — Otherside. This is a metaverse MMORPG platform for which Yuga Labs already raised $450 million in funding, unrelated to the ApeCoin release.
As a brand-new IP, Otherside will not be limited to BAYC/MAYC/KAYC NFT members. Instead, Otherside is an open metaverse allowing for other NFT projects to stake a hold.
ApeCoin Protocol and Allocation Details
The APE Foundation picked Ethereum as its base of operations. Therefore, the ApeCoin network layer is open source, while the APE coin is a standard ERC-20 token for governance and utility purposes. Expanding upon BAYC NFTs, APE coin will provide exclusive access to:
- games
- events
- services
- merch
As with other tokens, Apecoin’s main purpose is to fund projects. This means that the APE Foundation has to distribute it accordingly and set a fixed supply. In turn, this will affect the token’s appreciation and the level of community engagement. The total number of APE coins is 1 billion, distributed thusly:
As is tradition with Yuga Labs, current owners have an advantage. In numbers, 150 million Apecoins go to Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) holders and Mutant Bored Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) NFTs. Per NFT, Apecoin allocation depends on the combination of NFTs people hold:
- BAYC only – 10,094 APE
- MAYC only – 2,042 APE
- BAYC + MAYC – 10,950 APE
- MAYC + KAYC – 2,8989 APE
The rest will fill the DAO treasury at 470 million APE coins. For itself, Yuga Labs will have 150 million tokens at disposal, with a lock-up period of one year, while 4.16 million tokens are to be unlocked on a monthly basis for a period of three years.
What Is ApeCoin’s Price Movement?
Having only launched a week ago, on March 17, 2022, there are 30.25% in circulation. This percentage will keep increasing over the next four years on a monthly basis until it reaches 100%, at a total of 1 billion APE coins.
A day after the launch, ApeCoin saw the largest trading volume, followed by an all-time-high (ATH) of $17.17. The initial surge soon subsided by 30%, leaving the token at a present price of $12. The APE’s current circulating supply of 170 million tokens grew its market cap to $2 billion.
Within the first few minutes of launch on Binance, the largest exchange, ApeCoin achieved an impressive $42 million trading volume.
Likewise, if we go by Binance data, its ATH price was $28. It is common to see such price discrepancies during discovery periods of newly listed tokens.
This is further exacerbated because APE is an ERC-20 token. Meaning, it first has to be transferred from Ethereum-based wallets to centralized exchanges (CEXes) to be sold, causing a delay.
If one were to buy APE tokens on a decentralized exchange like Uniswap, a minimal gas fee of $8.5 has to be accounted for.
Alongside the gas fee, DEXs also tend to have lower liquidity than CEXs, so this also results in trading volume delays.
ApeCoin Reception and Availability
Next to the aforementioned exchanges, ApeCoin has been listed on FTX, Gemini, Coinbase, and Crypto.com. Needless to say, all DEXs that are compatible with the ERC-20 standard have ApeCoin on offer, from Uniswap to SushiSwap.
By calling the APE launch an airdrop, Yuga Labs was counting on its marketing FOMO — fear of missing out. This is a common marketing tactic heavily employed in the blockchain world.
However, as noted by Chainalysis’ economist Ethan McMahon, the initial hype doesn’t have the stamina to keep going.
This appears to be the case with the ApeCoin launch. Furthermore, given the fact that ApeCoin had to release an official scammer warning, it’s safe to say that fraudsters are doing overtime. This does not bode well for the security of the launch, nor for the people who got burned.
To make matters worse, some DEXs were under flash loan attack during the ApeCoin airdrop, causing millions of dollars in damages.
Interestingly, it was Yuga Labs that created this smart contract vulnerability because it did not employ the snapshot feature.
Traditionally, blockchain airdrop scans a user’s account to determine how long they held an NFT before claiming the tokens. For some reason, Yuga Labs avoided a snapshot mechanism so that Ape NFT owners could claim the airdrop in real-time.
Overall, the ApeCoin launch could have been executed more smoothly. Now that its price is 30% lower than its ATH, it will all depend on Yuga Labs’ next projects.
After all, the current appeal of APE is in its potential to be used in highly popular games or web3 platforms.
Judging by some omissions during the airdrop, such projects will require a higher degree of planning and technical expertise. Only time will tell if Yuga Labs will adapt accordingly.
POPULAR TOPIC: NFT Gaming: Complete Overview And Its Future
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