gm NFTs March 18: ApeCoin ($APE) Pushes Toward $15 Billion Market Cap (Fully Diluted)
In what will certainly go down as a historic day in the NFT and crypto markets, the highly anticipated ApeCoin ($APE) dropped and did not disappoint. Yuga NFT owners have some new-found wealth, and it seems it may have already started trickling into the rest of the NFT market (including the first P2E $APE game).
Below is the top NFT news for Mar. 18:
ApeCoin ($APE) Reaches $14.7 Billion Fully Diluted Market Cap
It was certainly a volatile few hours in the morning for ApeCoin, as $APE was available to claim starting at 8:30 a.m. ET. Other markets and exchanges began opening up almost immediately (starting with FTX and Uniswap), and then most other major crypto exchanges had the coin listed by mid-day.
The token price started out as high as $160 before quickly settling in the $7 to $9 range for most of the first eight hours of trading (the peak low was around $5). Then, $APE started marching as the evening began, apparently hit some short squeezes, and it currently sits at $14.67 as of the time of this article.
Here are a few coin metrics and stats to put those numbers in perspective:
- The current market cap is $1.85b using circulating supply (smashing a prior airdrop launch high from Uniswap, which was around $1b).
- The fully diluted market cap is $14.7b, which would make $APE a top 15 coin at full circulation (between Doge and Shiba).
- Trading volume in the first 24 hours is at $4.94b. The BAYC/MAYC/BAKC all-time NFT volume is ~$2.8b over the past nine months.
It seems as if the NFT world likes the $APE coin.
ApeCoin's ($APE) Impact on the NFT Market
Many wondered if $APE would suck all the liquidity from NFTs and potentially cripple the markets in the near term, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
Overall OpenSea did $132 million in NFT trading volume on Thursday, its highest day in weeks. That was led by the BAYC ecosystem, which combined for ~22,500 ETH across BAYC/MAYC/BAKC. But other projects benefitted as well, and nine of the top 20 pfp (profile picture) projects saw their floors increase on the day.
Here are a few notable winners:
- Azuki jumps 31 percent on 2500 ETH volume to a 12.5 ETH floor.
- CyberBrokers jumps 38 percent on 460 ETH volume to a 2.75 ETH floor.
- Doodles and CloneX both jump 8 to 10 percent to 13 ETH floors.
- PhantaBears bounce back, up 80 percent to a 1.69 ETH floor.
While the BAYC ecosystem floors did fall post-airdrop, they have held fairly strong after. The current floors are as follows:
- BAYC at 90 ETH
- MAYC at 18 ETH
- BAKC at 6.9 ETH
They bounced back to where they were pre-airdrop, another massive win for holders. And early indications are that this will be a big win for the entire NFT market as well.
Benji Bananas Announces ApeCoin ($APE) In-Game Utility
The first play-to-earn (P2E) game to announce its ApeCoin ($APE) tie in is the Benji Bananas game from Animoca Labs.
This action-adventure mobile game has been around for awhile, but just recently made the decision to tie in the $APE component.
They formalized the announcement with a mint pass NFT sale that launched yesterday evening at 9 p.m. ET with each pass serving as a membership to receive rewards from the game. They sold 5000 mint pass NFTs at 25 $APE (the first NFT to be sold in $APE) in just seconds, though unfortunately the drop was botted and some users ended up with 800+ NFTs.
The secondary market has been strong in the first 12 hours, doing 1,000 ETH in volume as the floor price has held steady in the 0.32 to 0.4 ETH range.
This should be the first of many P2E games to incorporate $APE, and the second game to use $APE is already announced from the ApeCoin twitter, from Arcadedotinc.
Overall it looks like we may be in store for a wild weekend in the NFT markets, truly some March Madness of our own. Enjoy your Friday and the weekend!
