Ape Coin (APE) is the latest venture of the NFT startup Yuga Labs which is also linked to the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) collection of 10 000 unique apes. APE is an ERC-20 standard token launched on March 17th, 2022, and is the utility token of the ApeCoin DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization). APE will be part of a broader ecosystem of services involving Bored Ape NFT holders. In March 2022, Yuga Labs raised an additional 450 million US dollars, which makes it the most influential player in the current NFT landscape.
Authors: Valentin Kalinov, Christian Viehof
Navigating the NFT market could be challenging. We have seen tremendous growth in the past two years, with many artists, startups, and celebrities entering the space. BAYC is currently the best-known NFT collection. The collection of avatars was created in April 2021 by four pseudonymous founders and launched on the Ethereum network. Today, leaks have identified two of the founders’ names: Greg Solano and Wylie Arnow. Every Bored Ape is unique and has been created programmatically from a combination of more than 170 possible traits. Known celebrities like Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Justin Bieber, and Jimmy Fallon are among the owners. Owners of BAYC NFT tokens get several perks:
The list of perks will be expanding in the future. The average mint price of the BAYC NFTs in the first few days after launch was $313.07. In September 2021, Bored Ape #2087 was sold for 769 ETH, worth $2.3 million. In 2022 hackers launched several sophisticated attacks to steal BAYC NFTs from their owners. On April 1st, BAYC #3738 was stolen by a sophisticated phishing attack. In March 2022, Yuga Labs announced the launch of an ERC-20 token to expand the BAYC ecosystem. Yuga Labs also had a number of partnerships with companies like Adidas. The Adidas NFT mint had a number of issues where someone managed to mint 330 tokens in one transaction, avoiding the hard limit of two NFTs per Ethereum account. Recently Yuga Labs announced a $450 million round from Andreesen Horowitz at a reported $4B valuation and expects to reach revenue of $455 million by 2022. The main sources of revenue are the sale of NFTs, 2.5% royalty on future trades, and licensing deals with companies. Days prior, the team announced the acquisition of CrpytoPunks and Meebits NFT collection’s intellectual property from Larva Labs.
APE is an ERC-20 standard token that was launched on March 17th, 2022, and is the utility token of the ApeCoin DAO. The DAO is supported by a legal entity called the Ape Foundation, registered in the Cayman Islands. Even though Yuga Labs developed the BAYC NFTs, the associated APE coin is part of the Ape Foundation. Each APE token holder will have voting rights in the DAO. Concerning is the fact that 150 million of the total 1 billion APE supply was given to Yuga Labs, and 80 million tokens were given to the BAYC founders with a 12 month locking period. Ape Foundation allocated 150 million of the total APE token supply to BAYC/MAYC holders via an airdrop. The airdrop did not happen without problems. Since the airdrop was exclusive to the NFT holders, a hacker managed to cheat the system by taking a flash loan, borrowing a BAYC NFT, claiming the airdrop, and returning the NFT all in a single Ethereum transaction. The hacker managed to make a $600.000 profit.
A leaked pitch deck from Yuga laps reveals the company’s future plans. ApeCoin will be part of a broader roadmap around the Metaverse. The token will be used as in-game currency to buy items and give exclusive access to BAYC merchandise.
Economic Purpose (EEP): APE is listed as a settlement and governance token (EEP22TU03).
Industry Type (EIN): The issuer of APE is active in the field of entertainment, sports, and gaming (EIN08ES).
Technological Setup (TTS): APE is an Ethereum ERC-20 Standard Token (TTS42ET01). The Class “Ethereum ERC-20 Standard Token” captures every token that is implemented by means of the ERC-20 Standard.
Legal Clam (LLC): The APE token does not entitle its holder to any legal claim or rights against the issuing organization therefore it is listed as a No-Claim Token (LLC31).
Issuer Type (LIT): The dimension “Issuer Type” provides information on the nature of the issuer of the token. The Ape Coin ecosystem is built by Ape Foundation which is a Private Sector Legal Entity (LIT61PV).
Regulatory Framework (EU) (REU): The dimension “Regulatory Status EU” provides information on the potential classification of a token according to the European Commission’s proposal for a Regulation on Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA, Regulation Proposal COM/2020/593 final). The APE token qualifies as a Utility Token; Crypto Asset in the Scope of MiCA (REU51UT) according to the definition provided in Article 3 (5) of Regulation Proposal COM/2020/593 final.
The International Token Standardization Association (ITSA) e.V. is a not-for-profit association of German law that aims at promoting the development and implementation of comprehensive market standards for the identification, classification, and analysis of DLT- and blockchain-based cryptographic tokens. As an independent industry membership body, ITSA unites over 100 international associated founding members from various interest groups. In order to increase transparency and safety on global token markets, ITSA currently develops and implements the International Token Identification Number (ITIN) as a market standard for the identification of cryptographic tokens, the International Token Classification (ITC) as a standard framework for the classification of cryptographic tokens according to their inherent characteristics. ITSA then adds the identified and classified token to the world’s largest register for tokens in our Tokenbase.
This article was originally published by Kalinoff (source: blog.kalinoff.com).
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Valentin Kalinov is an Executive Director at International Token Standardization Association (ITSA) e.V., working to create the world’s largest token database, including a classification framework and unique token identifiers and locators. He has over five years of experience working at BlockchainHub Berlin in content creation and token analysis, as a project manager at the Research Institute for Cryptoeconomics at the Vienna University of Economics and token analyst at Token Kitchen. You can contact Valentin via valentin.kalinov@itsa.global and connect on Linkedin if you would like to further discuss ITSA e.V. or have any other open questions.
Christian Viehof is an Executive Director at the International Token Standardization Association (ITSA) e.V., working to create the world’s largest token database including a classification framework and unique token identifiers and locators. He completed his Bachelor in Economics at the University of Bonn, the Hong Kong University and the London School of Economics and Political Science with a focus on Behavioral Economics and Finance. Currently pursuing his Master of Finance at the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management, you can contact him via christian.viehof@itsa.global and connect with him on Linkedin, if you would like to further discuss ITSA e.V. or have any open questions.
