Bored Ape Yacht Club's new ApeCoin token is already plunging in value

The value of ApeCoin (APE), the Bored Ape Yacht Club’s first-ever dedicated token, has dropped significantly in its value, just a day after its introduction on the blockchain. ApeCoin debuted at approximately $20.45, according to data from CoinMarketCap, and about an hour later it had plunged all the way down to a bottom of about $6.50.

In the day since, the price of ApeCoin has fluctuated with great volatility, as all cryptocurrency is wont to do. Its latest peak — at approximately 5 a.m. ET — hit about $17.75 before dropping again to its current value of about $13.

All in all, ApeCoin didn’t have the greatest opening — the Bored Ape NFTs themselves, on the other hand, were only bolstered by ApeCoin’s introduction, with resale prices jumping close to $300,000. BAYC’s already enormous ecosystem just keeps growing.

Here’s the spread — For members of BAYC, ApeCoin is basically a reward for holding one of the Club’s NFTs. For everyone else, buying and selling the tokens works very much like any other cryptocurrency, the hope being that buying some is an investment.

About 15 percent of the total ApeCoin supply was airdropped to Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT holders (sometimes simply called “Apes”) upon the token’s launch. Another 14 percent of the supply went to BAYC founders; 14 percent went to ApeCoin launch contributors; and 16 percent is distributed to Yuga Labs and the Jane Goodall Legacy Foundation. Eventually a billion ApeCoins will be in circulation; about 28 percent of that total is already in circulation.

New DAO, too — As part of the creation of ApeCoin, BAYC has also created a new DAO (decentralized autonomous organization) to govern how ApeCoin functions moving forward. DAO members can propose just about any changes to ApeCoin that they want, including things like fund allocations and partnerships.

Any ApeCoin holders can join the DAO, though only a few select members will function as the DAO’s Board. The Board has pulled in some high-profile figures like Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit, and Amy Wu, head of ventures and gaming at FTX.

Unstoppable momentum — Bored Ape Yacht Club is by far the most valuable NFT collective right now. Yuga Labs, the company behind the collective, is currently eyeing a $5 billion valuation, and BAYC regularly sells more than $100 million in NFTs in a single week. It’s making partnerships with plenty of big non-crypto companies, like Adidas.

Unlike other crypto collectives, BAYC sees itself as an actual club, with exclusive game drops and other goodies limited to club members. With ApeCoin, BAYC is showing that it still has plenty of room to grow in scope and value, despite its existing bulk.

That power has also made the collective particularly polarizing. BAYC is the subject of intense scrutiny across social media; the larger it becomes, the more vigilant the internet grows. Love it or hate it, BAYC is becoming impossible to ignore.