What is ApeCoin

ApeCoin (APE) is a utility token based on the ERC-20 standard performing various APE ecosystem functions. The original Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) collection was developed by Yuga Labs, a Web3 company founded in February 2021, whose three collections – BAYC, Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) and Bored Ape Kennel Club (BAKC) have become some of the most successful on the market.

Nicole Muniz serves as CEO of Yuga Labs, having previously been a partner in the advertising company B-Reel and founder of her own boutique consulting agency.

The ApeCoin Improvement Proposal-1 (AIP-1), which created ApeDAO, was submitted by the co-founder of Cartan Group LLC, a Cayman Islands-based consulting firm. The APE token was launched under ApeDAO’s leadership in March 2022 and distributed to NFT holders, ApeDAO’s treasury, and other stakeholders such as Yuga Labs, Cartan Group, and the APE Foundation and its board members.

Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, Yat Xiu of developer and venture capital group Animoca Brands, and FTX investor Amy Wu is among the foundation’s board members. Meanwhile, although BAYC founder Yuga Labs does not control ApeCoin, its founders have received a significant portion of APE’s total offering. The company is listed as a participant in the project.

The DAO structure of ApeCoin

Anyone who purchases the APE cryptocurrency is eligible to become a member of the decentralized autonomous organization, which will manage the treasury and vote on proposals for future projects related to the coin. Although ApeCoin is affiliated with BAYC and Yuga Labs, the ApeCoin DAO technically controls it, and Yuga Labs claims no ownership of the ApeCoin DAO.

Rather than a centralized control structure, a five-member “board” of top-tier crypto-investors will oversee certain proposals related to the ApeCoin DAO, and each member is given a six-month term, after which members of the ApeCoin DAO community can vote on who will be the future board.

How does ApeCoin work?

Those who owned Bored Ape NFTs could receive 10,094 APE tokens when the initiative launched, while Mutant Apes holders could receive significantly less – a total of 2,042 APEs.

Aetherium-based APE tokens are interchangeable, allowing some flexibility in their use, both as a token for network management and as a currency in projects that incorporate it into their projects. The main goals for ApeCoin, according to the project developers, are:

• Holders can participate in ApeDAO by making decisions about the direction of community development and future involvement in new ventures.
• Developers of new blockchain projects such as games or metaverse can incorporate APE into their projects and participate in the Bored Ape ecosystem.
• Owning an APE can provide users with opportunities (such as additional airdrops or exclusive real-world events) as part of the community.
• APE can be used as a decentralized currency powered by the Aetherium blockchain.

ApeCoin Tokenomics

The total number of APE tokens will only be 1 billion as they will be distributed as follows:

• Community: 62% of the tokens will go to the decentralized autonomous organization community. Of these, 15% will go to BAYC and MAYC holders, and the rest will be released as part of the DAO’s “ecosystem fund.”
• Yuga Labs: 16% of the tokens will go directly to Yuga Labs, which has designated a portion of the funds for primatologist Jane Goodall’s charitable foundation.
• Initial sponsors: 14% of the tokens will go to “launch sponsors,” defined as “the companies and people who helped make this project a reality,” but details on who exactly these sponsors are are scarce.
• Founders: 8% of the tokens will go directly to the four founders of Yuga Labs and BAYC.