Morgan Chittum

<div id="highlights-block_624303ca02aa1" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>The token has a current market cap of $2.4 billion and a fully-diluted valuation of $14.2 billion</li>
 <li>Yuga Labs announced a seed round of $450 million on March 22</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Nexo announced on Tuesday that investors can earn yields on the newly launched Bored Ape Yacht Club-inspired ApeCoin (APE) — billing itself as the first cryptocurrency platform to do so.&nbsp;



Users can earn up to a 12% annual percentage rate (APR) for holding <a href="http://0x4d224452801aced8b2f0aebe155379bb5d594381" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">ApeCoin</a> with the company, and may use APE as collateral for loans.



Nexo’s exchange is also offering a 0.5% cashback incentive on APE purchases.



The announcement closely follows Yuga Labs <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/bored-ape-yacht-club-creator-secures-whopping-450m-seed/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">capital raise</a> of $450 million —- bringing the Bored Ape Yacht Club creator to $4 billion valuation.



APE is an Ethereum utility token, its creators say, which is to be governed by a decentralized autonomous organization — the ApeCoin DAO.



There are currently five active proposals for voting — called AIP for ApeCoin Improvement Proposals. One proposal — <a href="https://forum.apecoin.com/t/aip-2-voting-process/41" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">AIP-2</a> — governs the voting process itself.



Holding a token is the only requirement for DAO membership, but the Cayman Islands-based ApeCoin Foundation has the final say on implementation. Each AIP states that “implementation may be immaterially or materially altered to optimise for security, usability, to protect APE holders, and otherwise to effect the intent of the AIP.”



APE will serve as a decentralized protocol layer for new services that “drive culture forward into the metaverse,” according to ApeCoin’s <a href="https://apecoin.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">website.&nbsp;</a>



“The token will provide access to exclusive merchandise, games and events happening in the ecosystem itself,” crypto exchange Binance, which listed APE, said in a statement.



The token, which after its initial price discovery has traded between about $9.60 and $15.35, currently has a market cap of about $2.4 billion, according to <a href="https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/apecoin" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">CoinGecko</a>.&nbsp;



“With APE as a currency that allows you to own land and resources and create assets in an interoperable gaming metaverse, Yuga [Labs is] going full metaverse, not just a viral NFT collection,” Antoni Trenchev, co-founder of Nexo, said in a statement to Blockworks.



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