ApeCoin Up 31% as Staking Nears, Bored Ape NFT Prices Rebound

ApeCoin (APE), the Ethereum-based token created for the growing Bored Ape Yacht Club ecosystem, is outperforming most major cryptocurrencies during the last week. It’s now up 31% over the past seven days, with the increase coming ahead of the launch of ApeCoin staking rewards.

The token is currently priced at $4.15, per data from CoinGecko, and has rebounded since hitting an all-time low price of $2.63 on November 14 amid the fallout from the collapse of crypto exchange FTX. ApeCoin is up nearly 58% since that low.

Over the last week, only three other coins or tokens in the top 100 (ranked by market cap) have posted larger gains—including leading meme coin Dogecoin.

On November 23, Horizen Labs announced updated launch details for ApeCoin staking, which will provide APE holders—as well as Bored Ape and Mutant Ape NFT owners—token rewards for staking their owned tokens. Horizen will launch the staking interface for users on December 5 ahead of rewards beginning on December 12.

Staking is a common process among crypto process that lets token owners earn rewards by locking up and holding their assets using a specialized smart contract. Smart contracts are essentially the software that powers decentralized apps and NFT projects.

The announcement raised controversy on social media, however, as Horizen revealed that several territories won’t be able to use its staking website due to regulatory concerns—including the United States. The Ape Foundation later suggested in a tweet thread via the official that potential workarounds can be used in those regions.

“We want to remind the community that one of the benefits of decentralized finance is that anybody can interact with a smart contract,” the Foundation tweeted, “or develop clients and interfaces that allow users to interact with smart contracts.”

Investors may be accumulating APE ahead of the launch with the hopes of maximizing staking emissions, which are typically highest at the beginning. Even after the rise over the past week, ApeCoin’s price is still down considerably—nearly 85% since a late April peak ahead of the release of NFT land plots for the upcoming Otherside metaverse game.

As ApeCoin rises, so too are prices for Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs. The “blue chip” collectibles have lost considerable value over the past several months, like many other NFT projects in an ever-chillier crypto winter.

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The Bored Ape floor price—or price of the cheapest listed asset on a marketplace—has crashed from a peak of $429,000 (152 ETH) on April 29, falling below $60,000 worth of ETH on two occasions in November per data from NFT Price Floor.

That price has ticked back upward over the last week, rising from about $63,600 (57.5 ETH) on November 22 to a current price of about $82,300 (68 ETH). In the process, the Bored Ape Yacht Club has re-flipped the floor price of CryptoPunks—also owned by Yuga Labs—which currently sits at $79,800 (about 66 ETH).

Both Bored Apes and Mutant Apes have seen an approximate 34% rise in USD floor value over the last week, per NFT Price Floor. Mutant Ape Yacht Club NFTs are up to a current price of nearly $16,000 (13.2 ETH).

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Much of the positive price momentum for both ApeCoin and Bored Ape NFTs has also come since last Wednesday’s launch of an official ApeCoin community NFT marketplace. The platform was developed by startup Snag Solutions following a vote by APE token holders, with the firm’s proposal beating pitches from major marketplaces like Magic Eden and Rarible.