ApeCoin

Yuga Labs launched Bored Ape Yacht Club in April 2021 and later built Otherside. ApeCoin followed on 2022-03-17 through a separate arrangement: Ape Foundation administered the token and a DAO, while Yuga remained the company behind the brands. The official site could call APE the ecosystem’s token without making the organizations identical.

That boundary decides the holder’s legal position. APE did not include a BAYC NFT, Yuga equity, Otherside land, intellectual-property rights or guaranteed product entry. Yuga’s 2023 Gucci KodaPendant sale did accept APE, but a product-specific payment method is evidence of use, not ownership of the product or issuer.

The verified Ethereum contract is unusually simple: its constructor minted exactly 1,000,000,000 APE and left no owner, proxy, second mint, pause, freeze or blacklist function. Distribution was less simple. The launch plan assigned 62% to the ecosystem, 16% to Yuga Labs and a charity donation, 14% to launch contributors and 8% to founders.

Those percentages did not all circulate on day one. BAYC and MAYC claims were unlocked at launch, while treasury, Yuga, charity, contributor and founder allocations followed schedules lasting up to 48 months. The official site displayed one billion total and one billion circulating on 2026-08-03. That current snapshot should not be confused with the concentration and unlock risk that shaped earlier years.

Under the original model, holders delegated APE voting weight while retaining custody. Ape Foundation administered the process, and a Special Council reviewed and oversaw administrative execution. Voting weight could choose proposals; it did not make each holder a director, contract signer or owner of treasury assets.

The system was already trying to change. AIP-582 proposed an on-chain governor, treasury split and a new Security Council, but its implementation page remained marked Pending. On 2025-05-18 Facilitator Note 25 halted the AIP pipeline while the transition was unresolved. A passed design therefore cannot be cited as a live contract or current council.

AIP-596 ran from 2025-06-13 to 2025-06-26. It received 46,591,000 APE for, 151,505.731 against and 5,172.036 abstaining: 99.66% of cast voting weight supported the sunset. The text dissolved the DAO, nullified prior governance except executed contracts, and ended tokenholder governance, asset rights, working groups, delegated authorities, elections and the forum.

Before transferring the remainder, it reserved about 11.25 million APE for the existing staking commitment and 10 million APE for legal, contractual and transition costs. Everything else—currencies, IP, contracts, domains and infrastructure held by the Foundation/DAO—was authorized to move to ApeCo, a new operating entity established by Yuga Labs. No pro-rata claim followed the assets; the proposal explicitly terminated that claim.

APE now has its clearest protocol job on ApeChain. The network is an Arbitrum Orbit optimistic L3 using AnyTrust data availability and settling through Arbitrum One to Ethereum; APE pays native gas. LayerZero OFT accounting moves APE by debit and credit across the published chain set rather than granting the Ethereum contract a new mint button.

The token’s simplicity does not make the surrounding system ownerless. ApeChain publishes admin-proxy and proxy-admin addresses, Ape Foundation operates interfaces under its terms, ApeCo directs the post-DAO organization, and Yuga controls its products and brands. A holder can transfer APE and pay supported fees. That holder receives no equity, dividend, redemption, treasury share, IP licence or automatic access in return.