ApeCoin Launches for Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT Holders with Reddit & FTX on Board

Just days after BAYC parent firm Yuga Labs bought the CryptoPunks IP, the NFT collection is now getting its own coin and DAO.

Bored Ape Yacht Club, one of the leading NFT collections, has announced a much-anticipated token. The "ApeCoin" drop was announced on the project's official Twitter account yesterday. The board of directors of the new BAYC-inspired ApeCoin DAO includes Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian and FTX's Amy Wu.

ApeDAO's token launch was carefully distanced from the Bored Ape Yacht Club in an accompanying press release, probably for legal concerns. Club-style NFTs with incentives for long-term members may resemble investment contracts, which are regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the United States; NFTs are not, at least not yet.

Although Yuga Labs intends to "adopt ApeCoin as the primary token for all new products and services," press materials insist that ApeCoin is only the product of a new organizational unit called ApeCoin DAO.

Notably, Yuga Labs, the company behind BAYC, did not create the token. ApeCoin DAO created it in order to demonstrate decentralization.

ApeCoin DAO, a decentralized autonomous organization that grants token holders governance rights over the DAO's "Ecosystem Fund," will own and operate the token. According to the Twitter thread, the only requirement for DAO membership is the possession of ApeCoin.

According to the ApeCoin Twitter account, 62 percent of the total supply of the token will be allocated to the ApeCoin community, with the remaining 15 percent available for claim in an airdrop on March 17, according to a press release.

A trademark filing for the token indicates that the DAO intends to sell both physical and virtual goods, such as jewelry, books, clothing, and beverages.

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