In the world of blockchain JPEGs, one major collection stands out above every other collection we have seen today. This collect is currently dominating the charts of top NFT sales in the last 24 hours and is currently the 5th overall in terms of transaction volume in the NFT space according to DappRadar.
The Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection is a collection of 10,000 unique Bored Ape NFTs, a unique digital collectible living on the Ethereum blockchain. The collection was created by Yuga Labs, founded by Wylie Aronow and Greg Solano in 2021. The collection is owned by notable celebrities like Eminem, Steph Curry, Jimmy Fallon and Mark Cuban.
Due to the success of the NFT project, the company is seen to be expanding its reach in the NFT space as it also recently purchased the Intellectual Property (IP) rights of the CryptoPunks and Meebits NFT collections from Larva Labs.
Now, the platform has launched its own token, the ApeCoin, going by the ticker APE, as yet another incentive for being part of the exclusive digital asset club. According to the announcement on Twitter, “Introducing ApeCoin ($APE), a token for culture, gaming, and commerce used to empower a decentralized community building at the forefront of web3.”
All you need to know about ApeCoin
- ApeCoin is an ERC-20 governance and utility token used within the APE ecosystem to empower decentralized community building at the forefront of web3.
- The token has a permanently fixed supply of 1 billion tokens. It is explained that no minting capability is exposed through the contract interface, thus the total supply will never increase. Similarly, the contract interface does not expose any token burning capability, so the total supply will never decrease.
- In line with the standard practice, a portion of the tokens for contributors to the project will be initially locked. Locked tokens will be unlocked over a period of 48 months, in accordance with the predetermined unlock schedule starting on March 17, 2022.
- Yuga Labs explained on Twitter that the ApeCoin would be used “as the primary token for the Bored Ape Yacht Club ecosystem as well as future Yuga products and services.” The new token will also be governed by the ApeCoin DAO.
- According to the ApeCoin website, “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 have what is described as a steward called the APE Foundation. According to the announcement, “The Foundation facilitates decentralized and community-led governance and is designed to become more decentralized over time. It is tasked with administering the decisions of the ApeCoin DAO, and is responsible for day-to-day administration, bookkeeping, project management, and other tasks that ensure the DAO community’s ideas have the support they need to become a reality.”
- Further into the ApeCoin DAO, according to the website, “ApeCoin DAO exists because decentralized governance is critical to building and managing a globally dispersed community—and therefore critical to the success of the APE ecosystem.”
- Overtime, the ApeCoin DAO members will be allowed to make decisions regarding Ecosystem Fund allocations, governance rules, projects, partnerships, and beyond. ApeCoin DAO membership is open to all ApeCoin holders.
- The ApeCoin DAO members form what the project calls, “The Board.” The members of this board include; Alexis Ohanian, Co-founder of Reddit and 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 and Dean Steinbeck, President & General Counsel at Horizen Labs.
- According to the website, the purpose of the Board is to administer DAO proposals and serve the vision of the community. The Board will meet to discuss proposals requiring administrative review under ApeCoin DAO rules.
- The initial Board serves a term of six months, after which DAO members will vote annually on board members.
- There is an airdrop for BAYC and MAYC members. Tokens will be allocated to BAYC/MAYC members via the claim page starting on March 17, 2022.
- To ensure a fair launch of ApeCoin to BAYC and MAYC NFT holders, the allocation is informed by the difference in floor price between each collection of NFTs, roughly the month prior to the token claim launch. Each Bored Ape or Mutant Ape NFT that has a companion Bored Ape Kennel Club NFT will be able to claim the amount of ApeCoin.
- The distribution is as follows; Bored Ape only 10,094 tokens, Mutant Ape only 2,042 tokens, Bored Ape + Kennel Club (token IDs do not need to match) 10,950 tokens, Mutant Ape + Kennel Club (token IDs do not need to match) 2,898 tokens.
Since launching in April last year, Bored Ape Yacht Club has grown to become on the highest-profile NFT collections and continues to add high-profile celebrities to its owners list. Asides from the listed above, we also have the likes of Paris Hilton and Justin Bieber owning the collection.
According to the ApeCoin DAO website, 62% of the total supply will be added to an ecosystem fund,14% will be given to “launch contributors,” 9.75% of tokens will be held by the creators of BAYC, Yuga Labs, 8% of the tokens will go directly to the founders of Yuga Labs and the remaining 6.25% is to be donated to the Jane Goodall Foundation, a charity dedicated to preserving the habitats of chimpanzees.
While the token itself remains technically separate from Yuga Labs, the firm is set to fully adopt ApeCoin as the “primary token for all new products and services” that emerge from Yuga Labs. According to Yuga Labs, this includes a yet-to-be-released play-to-earn (P2E) blockchain game that the team at Yuga Labs plans to release later this year with game developer nWay.
ApeCoin will also be used in the upcoming play-to-earn game Benji Bananas, a game from Hong Kong-based blockchain gaming company Animoca Brands, that also owns nWay.
ApeCoin started trading on the 17th of March and it traded as high as $39.40 on the day, after opening at $1 per token, representing a 3,840% rally. It however, closed on the day trading $8.52 per token, a 78.38% decline from the high created on that day. It is currently trading $11.48 as of the time of this writing, down 14%.
