ApeCoin is rewarding Bored Ape insiders with billions of dollars

The Bored Ape Yacht Club is one of the most prominent collections of nonfungible tokens (NFTs) in the world. The series of 10,000 blockchain-based cartoon primates, worth roughly $3 billion at today’s prices, has become ubiquitous in internet culture. One particularly sad-looking ape with a party hat and a stud earring recently received a $276,000 bid at auction on the online marketplace OpenSea (though that likely won’t be enough to win).

On March 16, people associated with the Bored Ape Yacht Club launched a cryptocurrency called ApeCoin. The pitch to investors was vague: support projects related to the Bored Apes and “community-led initiatives that drive culture forward into the metaverse.” ApeCoin debuted on major exchanges like Binance and Coinbase and, after spiking as high as $40 during its first day, the price of the coin has since settled between $7 and $17 (ApeCoin is worth about $12 per coin as of March 23).

Insiders behind the Bored Apes could be getting very, very wealthy on the deal. Before retail investors could buy ApeCoins on exchanges, the organizations in charge of the coin doled out about $380 million in ApeCoins to founders, executives, and earliest investors in Yuga Labs. This includes Bored Ape co-founders Greg Solano and Wylie Aronow; executives at Yuga Labs, the parent company of Bored Ape Yacht Club; and investors at the venture capital firm Andreesen Horowitz, Yuga Labs’ lead investor.

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