The startup behind Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), a series of NFT images that have become something of a posterity for the entire NFT movement, is now quietly participating in the launch A new cryptocurrency with a monkey theme.
Dubbed ApeCoin, the cryptocurrency will be overseen by a newly created entity, appropriately, the ApeCoin DAO. The organization’s leadership will include a panel of several faces closely connected to the BAYC Yuga Labs creators but not directly employed by the startup.
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This leadership board includes Reddit co-founders Alexis Ohanian, Amy Wu, the head of FTX Gaming we recently interviewedMaaria Bajwa of Sound Ventures, Yat Siu of Animoca, and Dean Steinbeck of Horizen Labs.
Despite what appears to be a significant behind-the-scenes influence, Yuga Labs’ only direct contribution to the project will be the “gift” of NFT 1/1 that will serve as the ApeCoin DAO symbol. The image can now be seen as a slow motion welcome sign on ApeCoin’s New Homepage.
Governance of Cryptocurrencies Will Be A Little Unusual: All Holders Ethereum-based currency will be allowed to vote on financial and management decisions. However, those decisions will still be made by the decision of the said board, a representative from the organization told TechCrunch.
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The initial distribution of ApeCoin will also be a bit unusual. A full outline of who will receive what percentage of the initial offering is being made public. According to the ApeCoin DAO, the breakdown will be as follows:
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8% of the 1 billion coins being minted will go to the individual founders of BAYC.
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14% will go to “startup contributors” or “Companies and people who helped make this project a reality.”
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16% will go to Yuga Labs, with 6.25% of that total being donated to the Jane Goodall Legacy Foundation charity.
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The remaining 62% will be made available to a combination of BAYC and Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) holders and the general public.
More specifically, 150 million tokens will be made available to BAYC and MAYC holders. The remaining 470 million will go to the public. Initially, however, there will only be 117.5 million of them. The rest will be unlocked via a drop of approximately 7.34 million tokens, once a month, for 48 months.
The same spokesperson told TechCrunch that ApeCoin will soon begin trading on “major exchanges,” including Coinbase, FTX, eToro, Kraken, OKX, Gemini, Binance, and Binance US.
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The real purpose of ApeCoin, aside from its usual purpose for trading cryptocurrencies, remains somewhat of a mystery. TechCrunch thinks it will be used as a form of in-game currency for one or more upcoming titles from Yuga Labs, but can’t confirm many specifics.
This would fit in with the play mechanics of FTX’s Amy Wu who seemed enthusiastic during our recent chat in which players could earn crypto tokens by recording time. game time and get achievements in the game. It remains to be seen if this mechanic can fix it the caution of some gamers has shown so far about all things blockchain related.
Much will become clearer in the coming days as ApeCoin trading begins.
