Is ApeCoin a Good Investment?

Recently, the well-known fashion brand Gucci announced that its customers could purchase products with ApeCoin at select stores in North America. ApeCoin (APE) is one of the 12 cryptocurrencies the luxury brand accepts as a payment method. And with this move of Gucci, the cryptocurrency will have a significant new utility. 

The Gucci news caused a surge in the price of APE, and thus its market cap increased. At the time of writing this article, ApeCoin is the 34th cryptocurrency by market capitalization, which is approx. $2.25B. 

But what exactly is ApeCoin?

Bored Ape Yacht Club Collection and Its Community

APE was launched in March 2022, and it is the brainchild of the same team that created the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) project. BAYC started as a profile picture NFT collection and quickly became a huge success. It has maintained its popularity and exclusivity in the NFT culture since then and has one of the strongest communities in the crypto circles.  

In order to appreciate APE’s value, it’s essential to understand this culture and community aspect of crypto and web3 space. BAYC plays a major role in this new cultural movement, and APE is the primary native currency of its ecosystem. As the BAYC community grows, the value of APE will also increase since community growth unlocks new utility potentials, for example, in merchandising and exclusive events. 

The APE DAO

We should also consider APE to be more than just a cryptocurrency, rather a comprehensive ecosystem. For this, the token’s creators built a foundation to oversee the decisions of the ApeCoin DAO. This infrastructure will work to enable the community’s ideas to become a reality. 

In this regard, APE’s primary use case is that of a governance token; DAO members holding it are able to make decisions concerning the future of the APE ecosystem.

Other Utilities of APE

In addition to being a governance token, APE can be used as a payment method. It’s an ERC-20 token and can be accepted as a means of payment by any merchant. As mentioned at the beginning of the article, Gucci is one of the pioneers in this field. 

APE holders also gain access to exclusive parts of the ecosystem, such as special events, games, and merchandise.

Other use cases exist as well. The founders of ApeCoin allow third-party developers to incorporate it into their own projects. For instance, the play-to-earn game Benji Bananas from Animoca Brands announced that APE will have various utilities within the game and will also be distributed as rewards to players. 

But APE’s use cases don’t stop here. It will also be the native currency of a highly anticipated, exciting new metaverse project from the same team. 

About the Otherside Metaverse Project

The APE will act as a decentralized protocol layer transporting the cultural success of the BAYC collection to its metaverse, known as the Otherside. The future of ApeCoin is heavily reliant on the success of the Otherside because its entire economy will run on it. 

Similar to BAYC and ApeCoin, the Otherside project is also being developed by Yuga Labs. For this project, Yuga Labs is also partnering with the prominent blockchain venture capital company Animoca Brands. 

The initial NFT sales of the Otherside sparked a lot of excitement among BAYC fans; as a result, the price of ApeCoin skyrocketed to its all-time high. These NFTs are called Otherdeeds, and their owners will be able to claim land plots once the metaverse launches. The total number of land plots is 200,000. 

The Otherside is expected to be a constantly evolving virtual environment hosting massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG). Furthermore, the founders’ vision is to create an interoperable infrastructure allowing seamless transactions of digital assets across multiple metaverses. 

The Otherside will be a world-building platform where not only the Yuga Labs will publish interactive experiences, but also the land owners and select third-party developers will be able to contribute to the metaverse’s structure.

ApeCoin will act as the primary utility and governance token among all these developments. 

Tokenomics of Ape

ApeCoin has a total supply of 1 billion tokens. This supply is permanent because the cryptocurrency’s smart contract prohibits minting more tokens; hence there’ll be no more tokens in the future. The total supply will not decrease either because there’ll be no burning mechanism. 

Apecoin’s total supply of 1 billion is allocated as follows. 62% is reserved as Ecosystem Fund. Out of this, 150,000,000 tokens were distributed to BAYC NFT owners. The remaining will be allocated over a 48-month period for DAO treasury and resources. 15% of APE will be given to Yuga Labs, and 1% will be donated to the Jane Goodall Legacy Foundation. 14% will be distributed to launch contributors, and 8% is set aside for the four founders of the BAYC and Yuga Labs. 

Conclusion

The company behind ApeCoin, Yuga Labs, is one of the strongest players in the NFT and metaverse landscape. The cryptocurrency is being integrated into the entire BAYC and the Otherside ecosystems and will act as the governance and the primary utility token across all products and services. 

The developments surrounding the Otherside metaverse project and the dynamic BAYC community are the primary drivers of the APE’s price increase. APE will likely be widely adopted by crypto art and culture enthusiasts in the future. 

ApeCoin has other components that support its future price increase. More physical stores will integrate it as a payment method. With the advancements of the Otherside project and the Ecosystem Fund dedicated to supporting third-party integrations, we can also anticipate that other NFT, crypto, and P2E project partnerships are in sight. 

If you’re a long-term investor in the metaverse and NFT space, you can consider adding APE to your portfolio.