It was announced earlier this week that members of the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection will be receiving their own cryptocurrency, ApeCoin.
It is deliberate to use the passive voice. ApeCoin has been explicitly linked to the non-fungible tokens that are so expensive. It is also closely associated with Yuga Labs which is responsible for stewarding the intellectual properties behind the Bored Apes. ApeCoin has been disassociated from all other corporations through a coordinated marketing campaign.
ApeCoin is a product and service of ApeCoin, a new organization unit governed exclusively by token holders. APE membership makes you a member DAO. This is a decentralized autonomous organization that focuses on crypto. You don’t even have to own a Bored Ape NFT in order to join.
ApeCoin’s official website describes the token as “a decentralized protocols layer for community-led initiatives which drive culture forward into a metaverse.”
What is ApeCoin exactly?
ApeCoin, an ERC-20 token is a special flavor of build it yourself cryptocurrency on Ethereum blockchain. This framework is used to build most of the Ethereum-based social tokens (think FWB for Friends with Benefits and WRITE for Mirror’s Web 3 crowdfunding platform).
They are not NFTs and should be “fungible” like bitcoin (BTC). ApeCoins can be bought and sold freely on what is called a decentralized Exchange, which is a type of digital trading platform for cryptocurrency.
The token was listed on almost every major centralized cryptocurrency exchange within minutes of its launch. This feat was remarkable, considering the finicky nature major players such as Coinbase. ApeCoin’s market capitalization was almost $2B after just one day of trading. One APE is worth approximately $14, and there is a cap on the supply of tokens at 1 billion (not all of which are currently in circulation).
Who are the people behind ApeCoin
ApeCoin DAO is the new governing body of which all APE holders are members, according to the ApeCoin website. It is intended to receive proposals from the community and token holders can vote on them.
Similar voting structures have been attempted by other NFT projects. You can purchase an NFT from “Nouns”, an investment group that has amassed $62 million in treasury. Nouns owners have the ability to decide together on a page for proposals what they would like to do with their money. One example proposal is “What if we created an NFT comic book?”
The Ape Foundation is a separate organization that will manage the day-to-day administration of DAOs, proposal management, and other tasks necessary to ensure that the DAO community’s ideas are supported. It also provides legal backing for ApeCoin DAO.
ApeCoin DAO will have a subcommittee that will serve as the Ape Foundation “board”. This will oversee specific proposals. Five prominent crypto investors make up the initial board: Alexis Ohanian, Reddit founder; Amy Wu, who heads the venture arm of crypto exchange FTX; Maaria Bajwa of Sound Ventures; Yat Siu of Animoca Brands; and Dean Steinbeck from Horizen Labs. Each member of the board gets a six month term. The ApeCoin website promises that DAO members will have the ability to vote for future members.
The company is located in the middle of this chaos is Cartan Group, a Cayman Islands-based consultancy company. It is receiving $150,000 per monthly for a six month contract. All five active AIPs (or “Ape Improvement Proposals”) were posted by Brian Tang.
