ApeCoin Marks The Start of NFT Execution Season

Roadmap season has officially ended.

With the launch of the Bored Apes Yacht Club affiliated coin token, ApeCoin, we are officially moving into the next phase of our shared NFT journey. Trading on the meteoric success of their illustrated profile pictures of apes, Yuga Labs is looking to build out the business. With their recent acquisition of Larva Labs and the Cryptopunks franchise, they are clearly looking to become the Amazon of NFTs.

The ApeCoin will trade on all major crypto exchanges tomorrow, which marks the first mainstream NFT project to launch their own coin. Smaller projects and artists have launched social tokens before, but this is the most famous project in the space making a big bet.

Details around the utility of the coin are vague, but the creators and holding company have gone out of their way to emphasize a community centric distribution. Previous holders are rewarded with tokens. As is an independently formed DAO. As is a flow of profits going to the Jane Goodall foundation.

There are promises of utility and ability to spend and earn ApeCoins in an upcoming suite of currently in development games. On paper it seems roughly to be aping a similar model as trailblazing play-to-earn darling, Axie Infinity. What the Ape themed games are, remains to be seen as there have been no leaks at this time.

The launch of an entire financial ecosystem is a big play. It's the first tangible round of infrastructure utility from the NFT superstar. For a year now, Bored Apes have dominated headlines and become a poster child for the NFT space with outlandish sales prices and a continuous string of celebrities aping into the project. Holding a Bored Ape has become the ultimate status symbol of web3. It either denotes you were crazy early into the space and were able to mint them at around .08 ETH. Or it signifies that you can afford the seven digit asking prices. Either way, Bored Apes took the momentum of Cryptopunks and came out of nowhere to become the bluest of chip projects.

Now the metaverse will watch and partake of the token era of Bored Apes. No doubt there will be an immediate spike as the ApeCoin represents the first widespread entry point into the Ape-verse. The fate of the ApeCoin will be decided by the quality and breadth of the ecosystem Yuga Labs is able to build out. If the upcoming games prove to be on the level of adoption and financial appeal of an Axie Infinity, the ApeCoin will no doubt continue to see a value boost. Within the ecosystem they can also offer tangible benefits like being able to buy gated merchandise with only ApeCoins. Or having future Bored Apes booster NFTs or airdrops exclusively set aside for hoarders of the ApeCoin.

Other projects will be watching what Yuga Labs does here. Will NFT projects launching their own coins simply be a repeat of the ICO bubble of a few years ago? Will be become oversaturated with derivative token projects now? Of course it's possible that meaningful projects, with passionate communities will be able to support their own distinct coins. Imagine traditional companies eventually offering their own tokens that act as loyalty programs. Imagine Nike or Starbucks giving you tokens for every purchase and letting you spend those tokens on exclusive, gated products and benefits. It's like a mailing list and rewards program on steroids. Marketers are going to go wild for this. And if these programs and implemented so that actually value and desired access are set as the rewards, it will create a win-win for brands and their customers.

The power of the blockchain is that it is transparent and trackable. Brands will be able to reward exactly those who are most invested in their communities. No more blind mailers. No more wasted resources. If a wallet holds your project, you can reward that wallet. This maximizes the value for both sides.

So check those exchanges tomorrow and see how the ApeCoin fares on it's initial offering. Tomorrow it will be traded on hype and speculation. The future value of the ApeCoin will come down to the execution and value that Yuga Labs is able to build into their ecosystem. Will this be a novelty in the history of NFTs? Or is it an important inflection point that will determine which of these blue chip projects has the business model and demand to still be around and vital in ten years?