Yuga Labs has taken a giant step in building a broader media empire revolving around the Bored Ape Yacht Club non-fungible token (NFT).
The step involves an announcement of a digital currency, ApeCoin, to be assumed as the “primary token for all new products and services” from the firm.
The company has additionally launched a new play-to-earn blockchain game that it plans to release later this year in collaboration with the developer nWay.
‘ApeCoin,’ the world’s first cryptocurrency for apes, will be available in-game starting May 15. It will initially serve as a game currency, but it is being marketed as something that may be utilized outside of Yuga Labs’ games.
It’ll be available in Benji Bananas, a game from Animoca Brands, which also owns nWay. Starting tomorrow, it will be supported in the game.
In the medium term, there is a lot of optimism that it could be adopted in even more games or even utilized as a broader-purpose digital currency.
In order to execute it, Yuga Labs has independently set up ApeCoin. The token will be governed by the ApeCoin DAO, a community-controlled organization.
The DAO (short for decentralized autonomous organization) will be financed by the sale of ApeCoin, which will be created in the billions of coins, and it will be governed by members. Each token is entitled to one vote.
The DAO’s corporate parent, the Ape Foundation, has been established to implement decisions on behalf of the organization.
The board of directors for the Satoshi Nakamoto Institute includes Alexis Ohanian, a co-founder of Animoca Brands, and others.
The DAO plans to use a portion of the cash it raises to develop an ecosystem around the coin.
Marketing and sales activities, as well as game development, events, and product creation are all included in this category. A decentralized NFT market is also mentioned on the roadmap.
However, Yuga Labs will not be entirely eliminated from the DAO; rather, it will have a significant voting portion.
The founders of BAYC will receive another 8% of all ApeCoins minted, and the firm will keep around 15% for itself. In addition, the DAO’s creators will receive another 14% of the tokens.
Last, 15% of tokens will be offered to holders of Bored Ape NFTs first, leaving just under half of the total supply for everyone else who may want to purchase in.
Bored Ape Yacht Club, which launched last April, has quickly established itself as the most prominent name in the NFT sector with multi-million-dollar purchases and a growing list of celebrity owners.
Last week, the Japanese fintech firm Yuga Labs announced discussions for a multi-million dollar investment and acquired two of the other major NFTs in the market — CryptoPunks and Meebits — to further diversify its portfolio.
The firm appears to be focusing more on games and other media in the future, even if it is primarily focused on the cryptocurrency world. While it may not dominate ApeCoin, the debut of the token could put Bored Ape Yacht Club in a position to serve as the center of a larger blockchain gaming universe.