On March 16, 2022, Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) surprised the NFT community and its members with their token announcement. The entire NFT community has been eagerly waiting for ApeCoin since Q4 2021.

This was a spectacular launch of an ERC-20 token. It was immediately available on most dexes like Coinbase, FTX, BinanceUS, Voyager and Kraken. Moreover, every partnership announcement was done almost synchronously after the token announcement on Twitter, which showed their coordination and level of preparation.

What is Bored Ape Yacht Club?

BAYC is a collection of 10,000 Bored Ape NFTs—unique digital collectibles living on the Ethereum blockchain. Yuga Labs is the creator of the Bored Ape Yacht Club. At its beginning, Yuga Labs was made up of four people, all of whom used aliases. There are two co-founders, Gordon Goner and Gargamel, as well as two pals who assisted with development, No Sass and Emperor Tomato Ketchup.

What makes BAYC special ?

It's difficult to say what makes BAYC or any other NFT collection valuable. In general, it's a combination of a few factors:

• Celebrity or influencer involvement can spike up the demand. These NFTs got a lot of attention when Jimmy Fallon and Paris Hilton showed their BAYC NFTs on The Tonight Show. Justin Bieber, Serena Williams, Travis Barker, Eminem, Steph Curry and Gunna have also jumped on the BAYC NFT bandwagon.
• The kind of member incentives the NFT community offers can also be a factor. Meetups for the Bored Ape Yacht Club have taken place in New York and California, as well as Hong Kong and the United Kingdom. In November 2021, BAYC NFT owners were treated to a weekend of festivities in New York and exclusive access to a yacht party and concert.
• The strength of the community can influence value too. Are owners just flipping NFTs or are they holding NFTs because they believe in the community roadmap? Art in any form is only worth what people are willing to pay for it. People who believe they are holding a token into a community are less likely to list their assets.

What are MAYC and BAKC ?

The Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) is a collection of up to 20,000 Mutant Apes that can only be created by exposing an existing Bored Ape to a vial of Mutant Serum or by minting a Mutant Ape in the public sale. This allows newcomers into the BAYC ecosystem at a lower tier of membership. At 4 p.m. ET on August 28, a snapshot of all Bored Ape token holders was obtained, and all mutant serums that will be available were airdropped to associated wallets in a random distribution. Serum vials are burned after usage, and a Bored Ape can only take one sort of serum at a time.

Bored Ape Kennel Club (BAKC) is a collection of 10,000 total Bored Ape Kennel Club NFTs. BAYC members were allowed to adopt one club dog per BAYC NFT with just the gas fees.

Let’s dive into “The APE Foundation”

The APE Foundation's mission is to ensure that the APE ecosystem grows and develops in a fair and inclusive manner. It pays its expenses as ordered by the ApeCoin DAO using the Ecosystem Fund, which is held by a multisig wallet and provides an environment for ApeCoin holders to engage through open and permissionless governance processes.

The APE foundation is stacked with expertise from web3, VC and gaming industry.

• Alexis Ohanian (co-founder of Reddit; general partner and founder of Seven Seven Six)
• Amy Wu (head of ventures and gaming at FTX)
• Maaria Bajwa (principal at Sound Ventures)
• Yat Siu (co-founder and chairman of Animoca Brands)
• Dean Steinbeck (co-founder and chairman of Animoca Brands)

These members serve for 6 months.

ApeCoin Tokenomics:

The total supply of ApeCoin is permanently fixed at 1 billion tokens. There is no minting or burning of these tokens, so the total supply remains the same.

$APE Tokens claimed by NFT Holders

ROI on ~$260 Investment in BAYC NFT

The original mint price for BAYC was at 0.8ETH (~$260). A single BAYC NFT would have fetched approximately half a million dollars today.

1 BAYC NFT = 97 ETH ($280,718).

1 MAYC NFT = 22 ETH ($63,668)

1 BAKC NFT = 7 ETH ($20,258)

Total value of NFT in USD = $364,644

This would allow the holder to claim ApeCoin tokens.

Ape token claim for 1 BAYC + BAKC NFT= 10,950 ($153,300)

Ape token claim for 1 MAYC NFT= 2,042 ($28,588)

Total value of ApeCoin token claim in USD = $181,888

BAKC (Bored Ape Kennel Club) NFTs are companion NFTs to BAYC and MAYC, meaning they only have utility when paired with a BAYC or MAYC. So ApeCoin tokens cannot be claimed for BAKC alone, it has to be paired with BAYC or MAYC.

Spending $260 on minting a BAYC NFT would fetch the holder a total of $546,532 today. That is the best return on investment anyone can get within a year.

Note: Floor price at the time of article for BAYC = 97 ETH , MAYC = 22 ETH, BAKC = 7 ETH and 1 ETH = $2894

Price Prediction for ApeCoin

Any new tokens announced are highly volatile in the crypto market. Expect to see a lot of selling pressure in the initial few days. Initial investors might cash out some tokens for profit, which might bring down the token price. That said, the price fluctuation has to normalize. The price movement of ApeCoin also depends on the floor price fluctuation of MAYC, BAYC and BAKC.

Depending on the current floor price of these NFTs and token distribution, the average price for the ApeCoin might be less than the average price of these 3 NFTs which is ~$27. If ApeCoin goes over $27 then the user can buy the NFT instead. That doesn't mean the price of ApeCoin will not shoot up. The initial trading started at $39 and dropped to $8, so it’s highly volatile.

There are a couple staking proposals which are discussed below. Once the staking is available to the public, then most of these tokens get locked, which increases the demand for the token for general utilities and in turn drives the ApeCoin price up. Too many factors contribute to the price fluctuation.

Yuga Labs has dropped a video of “Otherside” featuring not just Bored Apes, but CryptoPunks, World of Women, Meebits, Cool Cats, Nouns, Toadz, and music from The Doors. There might be a lot more announcements by the end of April 2022 which changes the market sentiment for ApeCoin.

It is impossible to provide an accurate price prediction given the volatility of the crypto market and the constantly uncertain macroeconomic conditions which influences it. ApeCoin's long-term success will be determined by the development of its ecosystem and utility.

Overall, looking at their partnerships and how well Yuga Labs executed token announcements and brought $APE to major dexes to trade on the same day of the announcement, there are bullish signals for ApeCoin price trajectory.

ApeCoin Staking

There are a couple of Ape Improvement Proposals (AIP) regarding staking for ApeCoin and the NFTs.

• AIP-4: Staking - Process
• AIP-5: Staking Pool Allocation - Ecosystem Fund Allocation

Key takeaways from these proposals:

AIP-4:

• Any amount of ApeCoin can be staked.
• Users can contribute any number of BAYC, MAYC, and/or BAKC NFTs to the staking incentive pool.
• More ApeCoins are accrued for staking your NFTs or ApeCoin itself. The earnings depend on the duration and amount of stake.
• Consider the NFT to be the key to unlocking the staking incentives. Even if the new owner did not make the original NFT commitment, they can make the claim if they bought an NFT committed to a stake.
• NFTs that are committed will have a notification on their UI reflecting how much they have earned from staking for a potential buyer.

AIP-5:

• A total of 17.5% of the total ApeCoin supply will be awarded over a three-year staking period.

Staking Pool Periods:

• 1st year : 100M ApeCoin tokens
• 2nd year : 50M ApeCoin tokens
• 3rd year: 25M ApeCoin tokens

4 different Staking Pool:

• ApeCoin Staking Pool
• BAYC Staking Pool
• MAYC Staking Pool
• BAKC Staking Pool (BAKC pool has to be paired with MAYC or BAYC)

1st year staking rewards:

• APE pool: 30M
• BAYC pool: 47.105M
• MAYC pool: 19.06M
• BAKC pool: 3.835M

Implementation time for AIP-4 is 4-5 months, which means members might be able to stake NFTs and ApeCoins starting mid 2022 if this proposal goes through.

ApeCoin as Governance and Utility Token

$APE can be used in four distinct ways as an ERC-20 token:

Governance: ApeCoin is the ApeCoin DAO's governance token, allowing token holders to vote on the DAO's governance decisions.

Unification of Spend: ApeCoin is the APE ecosystem's utility token, which can be used to buy goods and services.

Access: ApeCoin will also serve as a gate token, allowing users to gain access to particular areas of the ecosystem, such as events and unique games.

Incentivization: ApeCoin is a platform that allows third-party developers to join the ecosystem by integrating APE into their services, games, and other projects.

Mergers, partnership, and $APE adoption

• Yuga Labs acquired the IP of the CryptoPunks and Meebits NFT collections from Larva Labs. They now own the brands, copyrights, and IP rights for both collections. Yuga Labs is working with their legal team to grant CryptoPunks and Meebits holders commercial rights similar to BAYC and MAYC owners.
• Benji Bananas by Animoca brands launched their gaming membership pass, which can be bought using ApeCoin.
• Time magazine announced that they will be accepting ApeCoin for their digital subscription.
• nWayPlay, a marketplace for gamers, announced a P2E (Play to Earn) game, which they are developing with BAYC and will adopt ApeCoin for purchases.
• 11 Captain’s Club announced they will accept ApeCoin to buy residential condo units in Miami.

What’s next for Yuga Labs?

There was a 90-page leaked document which exposed multiple interesting endeavors by Yuga Labs. This might be an old document or subject to multiple changes, but here are a few interesting topics which Yuga Labs aims to achieve.

The Metaverse:  They want to create a metaverse, which is decentralized and interoperable. Any NFT or  character can be added in this metaverse.

Marketplace: Yuga Labs is developing games as well as a marketplace, all of which are powered by ApeCoin. Developers can create a mini game or required tools for the game. Artists will be able to create in-game accessories and clothes in this interoperable decentralized metaverse. Yuga Labs is aiming to become the platform for building, creating, earning, and playing in the metaverse which is all powered by ApeCoin, similar to Apple's App Store or Google Play.

SDKs: Yuga Labs is creating Software Development Kits (SDKs) that allow anyone to develop their own NFT or a whole new collection, allowing any NFT or character to enter their metaverse.

See you on the Otherside: They released a video teaser showing Koda, a winged creature carrying the ape. This is a teaser for something new from Yuga Labs. They also have a KYC page for SomethingIsBrewing, which might be an access to metaverse or a gaming site.

ApeCoin has Life-Changing Potential

Overall, it was an early year-end bonus check for many NFT holders, totaling not in the hundreds of dollars, but in the thousands and, for some, even the millions of dollars. On March 17, Twitter was exploding with people sending thank you messages to Yuga Labs explaining how the airdrop changed their life financially. Those vested in this community are eagerly waiting for the next announcements. Many might also be securing their precious NFTs for staking in future or using their Apes in the metaverse. Only time will tell how well the token gets utilized and adopted.

Disclaimer: The content of this webpage is not investment advice and does not constitute any offer or solicitation to offer or recommendation of any investment product. It is for general purposes only.