ApeCoin, the token linked to the popular Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT collection, had a rough debut. The token, which was airdropped to the Bored Ape NFT owners, saw its price tumble from a high of $39.40 (roughly Rs. 3,000) to a 24-hour low of $6.21 (roughly Rs. 473). Despite the popularity of the Bored Ape Yacht Club, a collection of 10,000 unique NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain, the ApeCoin price plunged. However, at the time of writing, the price of the BAYC project token recovered to around $16 (roughly Rs. 1,220).

The token, which Bored Ape and Mutant Ape Yacht Club NFT holders can claim for free, initially hit a peak of $39.40 (roughly Rs. 3,000) per token according to data from CoinMarketCap. However, it quickly sank and has been hovering below the $20 (roughly Rs. 1,525) mark since early Friday.

However, not every data source agrees that there was such a sizable top — and a massive drop to match. CoinGecko, for example, shows an all-time high of just $10.36 (roughly Rs. 790) for ApeCoin. In any case, data sources are more closely aligned now, with CoinGecko and CoinMarketCap both showing a current price of around $16 for the token.

Colin Wu, a Chinese journalist, reported that the withdrawal and transactions of ApeCoin triggered a spike in gas fees on the Ethereum network. The median transaction fees on the Ethereum network hit 340 Gwei, the smallest unit of Ether at one point, skyrocketing in response to the activity in ApeCoin.

ApeCoin will initially be used as an in-game token for Yuga Labs titles starting with action-adventure mobile game Benji Bananas. Going forward, ApeCoin sales will be used to fund various digital and physical projects. Each token awards a single vote allowing individual holders to have a say on future ventures.

According to Yuga Labs’ website dedicated to ApeCoin, only 1 billion ApeCoins will be minted in perpetuity, and 9.75 percent will be held by Yuga Labs, 14 percent will go to launch contributors, 8 percent to the Yuga Labs founders, and 6.25 percent will be donated to the Jane Goodall Legacy Foundation aimed at preserving chimpanzee habitats and inspiring the youth to care for wildlife and the planet.

Meanwhile, Chennai-based crypto platform Giottus became the first Indian exchange to list ApeCoin, joining the likes of Binance, FTX, Coinbase, KuCoin, and OKX, among other global exchanges, to list the new governance and utility token for the APE ecosystem.

As per CoinMarketcap data, the fully diluted market capitalisation of ApeCoin has already exceeded $15 billion (roughly Rs. 11,41,200 crore), placing it within the top 35 cryptocurrencies in terms of market cap rankings.