The hottest topic in the cryptocurrency world is now full of one topic and that is ApeCoin (APE) and its new release. This token, based on the Bored Apes Yacht Club, one of the most popular NFT collections in the history of cryptoworld, is a newly introduced token that has brought several important news and is gaining a lot of attention. Thus, we have decided to dedicate an article on this topic where we will introduce ApeCoin, its team and overall structure as well as tokenomics and utility of the token.

Brief introduction to Bored Apes Yacht Club

Before we look more into the ApeCoin (APE) and its utility and news, let´s first explore a bit the Bored Apes Yacht Club. This unique NFT collection consists of 10,000 different pieces of digital pictures of Bored Apes and is probably the most famous representation of the NFT trend.

This NFT collection is so popular that it has recorded the overall sales volume of its pieces is recorded to be over 1 billion dollars. Moreover, with several famous celebrities such as Justin Bieber, Eminem, Paris Hilton, Snoop Dogg, andor Mark Cuban, buying Bored Apes, this NFT collection was always sure prone to have a lot of publicity attention and craze. However, the latest news surrounding this project is pushing this collection, as well as its new token, to far greater heights.  even more to the media.

Example of Bored Apes NFTs

What is ApeCoin (APE)?

On Wednesday this week, the new ApeCoin (APE) was introduced by the APE Foundation as well as the official social media of Bored Ape Yacht Club and Yuga Labs. APE is a new Ethereum (ERC-20) token that is supposed to help the Bored Ape Yacht Club grow its ecosystem and bring more features, products and services to the community behind this project.

The holders of the NFTs from this collection, as well as from the Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) and Kennel Club (in combination with any of the previous collections) were able to claim some portion of the newly released tokens (more on this later).. These will be more introduced in the tokenomics section; However, it seems that more than 93 million tokens, worth approximately 800 million dollars, have already been claimed by the owners of the NFTs or bought by new investors.

Tokens allocation for the NFT collectors and owners of BAYC/MAYC NFTs

Utility of APE

It's one thing to get the token as a holder of a NFT piece and having it as a reward for your trust in the project. It is another thing to actually buy a newly launched token, which in many cases can go drastically wrong in the cryptocurrency world. Why would anyone buy this token?

Well, mostly due to its utility. As per the main announcements and the website of ApeCoin, the token can be used for payments and transactions. Moreover, since it is a governance token, the owners obtain the right to vote and also propose different innovations known as AIP (APE Improvement Proposal).

These can range from proposals related to brand decisions, ecosystem fund allocation, informational and resubmission proposals and more. Thus, having the APE token means that you are a full member of the APE DAO community and have equal voting rights as other members of this community. The utility of APE does not end there, which is a reason why we will prepare a separate article just on this topic.

Team and structure of ApeCoin

When you start researching more about ApeCoin, you will find out that different entities are being mentioned regularly. These are Yuga Labs, ApeCoin DAO and its board and Ape Foundation to name the few most important. What is the purpose of each of them?

Let's start with Yuga Labs. The team behind Yuga Labs created the official collection of Bored Ape Yacht Club. While they are connected to the ApeCoin as well, it has been clearly communicated and stated that Yuga Labs is not the one behind the development and implementation of this token.

That was a job done by ApeCoin DAO, which is a new DAO (decentralized autonomous organization). This was created with the sole purpose of governing the token and its development, in combination with the roadmap or future of the token.

ApeCoin DAO consists also of a special board, which is full of super interesting and experienced people. Amongst others these include Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit, Amy Wu, Head of Ventures and Gaming at FTX, Yat Siu, co-founder and chairman of Animoca Brothers or Dean Steinback who is a president and general counsel at Horizen Labs.

This team clearly consists of experienced people, whose mission is to help develop the token and the community properly. After six months, the APE holders will be able to select the next members. After that the election process will occur on an annual basis.

Last but not least, there is an Ape Foundation, which has one main goal: and that is to support the ApeCoin DAO. It is more concerned with the day-to-day operations and acts as a legal steward over the project. As was described via this twitter thread, the Ape Foundation serves as an entity that will be responsible for “signing the checks.”

Tokenomics

One of the most important information about any newly created or minted coin and token is its tokenomics. This relates to the number of tokens that will ever be created, how they are created and divided amongst different groups and so on. ApeCoin will have an overall supply of one billion tokens, with protocol being set in a way, which forbids it to increase or decrease the number of tokens. The maximum and final supply will thus never change.

Distribution of tokens of ApeCoin (APE)

The biggest piece of this supply is allocated to DAO treasury and resources, which should receive around 47 % of the overall supply, with a 48- months release period of about 7 million tokens per month. At the beginning the DAO treasury received 117 million tokens. Additional 15 % of the supply was allocated to be claimed by the holders of NFTs, which can do so in the next 90 days. All of this was considered to be the “Ecosystem fund” part, which thus consists of 62 % of the 1 billion supply of APE.

Yuga Labs will receive 16 % of the supply, which they will be able to use to contribute to the development of the project. Moreover, a substantial part of this is also allocated to the Jane Goodall Legacy Foundation, which is helping animals in Africa. These digital Apes will thus also help real apes as well.

Symbol of Jane Goodall Legacy Foundation

Next chunk of the supply consists of around 14 % and is allocated to the launch contributors. This should in essence be given to the team behind the project that helped with the launch of ApeCoin. This part has also a pretty interesting lock-up schedule, which can be more examined here.

The remaining part of 8 % is going to go to BAYC Founders. These should be the four founders of the BAYC and Yuga Labs that created all of this in the first place. Tokens to the founders will be slowly released within the period of 36 months.

Conclusion

This project has clearly undoubtedly without any doubt gained a lot of hype attention within the cryptosphere all around the crypto space. There is no doubt we will be hearing much more about ApeCoin, since the underlying NFT collection of Bored Ape Yacht Club is already very popular and has one of the biggest and most loyal communities in the cryptoworld. However, just like with any other new project, everyone needs to be very careful about any investment decision they decide to make and it is always wise to do your own research (DYOR) before making any crypto investments.