It’s all gas, no brakes for the Bored Ape NFT community, and ApeCoin is here to bring some fungibility to this virtual yacht party.
Yuga Labs, the creator behind breakout NFT project Bored Ape Yacht Club, announced that BAYC is launching its own cryptocurrency token called ApeCoin ($APE). The new token could be used for transactions across all BAYC products and services, including an upcoming play-to-earn game developed by nWay.
Benji Bananas, a game developed by Animoca Brands, now accepts ApeCoin for in-game purchases.
“The possibilities for blockchain’s impact on culture are so endless that they can’t possibly all be predicted yet,” ApeCoin’s website stated. “APE is a token made to support what’s next, controlled and built on by the community. It will serve as a decentralized protocol layer for community-led initiatives that drive culture forward into the metaverse.”
ApeCoin will be owned and operated by a decentralized autonomous organization called the ApeCoin DAO (decentralized autonomous community), which is supported by a legal steward organization called the Ape Foundation. Think of the foundation as the DAO’s corporate parent in charge of writing the checks.
This means ApeCoin won’t be governed by Yuga Labs and will operate separately from the company altogether.
“The goal of the Ape Foundation is to steward the growth and development of the APE ecosystem in a fair and inclusive way,” ApeCoin’s website states. “It utilizes the Ecosystem Fund, which is controlled by a multisig wallet, to pay its expenses as directed by the ApeCoin DAO and provides an infrastructure for ApeCoin holders to collaborate through open and permissionless governance processes.”
The Ape Foundation has a board of five inaugural members, all of which are Bored Ape holders. The initial board will serve a six-month term, and after that, DAO members will vote annually on board members. The inaugural Ape Foundation board includes:
- Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit and founder of Seven Seven Six
- Amy Wu, head of ventures and gaming at FTX
- Dean Steinbeck, president and general counsel at Horizen Labs
- Maaria Bajwa, principal at Sound Ventures
- Yat Siu, co-founder and chairman of Animoca Brands
The ApeCoin buzz has been going off since Yuga Labs announced this move. The new crypto’s Twitter account has already attracted more than 100,000 followers and counting.
The only way to gain membership into the ApeCoin DAO is by getting your hands on some ApeCoin. ApeCoin’s total supply is fixed at 1 billion tokens, which will be distributed among four main groups: the ApeCoin community (62%), the BAYC founders (8%), Yuga Labs, and charity (16%), and the launch contributors (14%). As of 8:30 am this morning, 15% of the ApeCoin community supply became available to Bored Ape and Mutant Ape NFT holders.
Those fortunate enough to secure some ApeCoin today had to do so via airdrop claims. Blockchain-based projects and companies often use crypto airdrops to release free tokens to their community members as part of a broader marketing plan to raise awareness about new offerings. CoinDesk compares airdrops to finding free discount cards in the mail that encourage you to visit a new store — the difference with crypto airdrops is that companies aren’t usually asking people to spend money.
ApeCoin is expected to begin trading on major crypto exchanges soon. For now, keep a close watch on the token’s Twitter for significant announcements.
ApeCoin isn’t the only news coming from BAYC this week. The NFT giant gave Andy Nguyen the right to use its IP for a pop-up restaurant called Bored & Hungry coming to Southern California on April 9.