Morning Minute | ApeCoin Soars as Bored Apes' ApeChain Goes Live

TylerD's Market Summary

🐵 ApeChain Goes Live, APE Soars

ApeChain has seen its share of FUD in the pre-launch days.

Some called it a "last gasp" for Yuga and its ApeCoin (APE) plans. Others said Yuga didn't want ApeCoin or ApeChain at all and felt burdened by it.

Well, after the opening weekend for ApeChain - it seems the FUD was ill-founded.

What Happened?

ApeCoin surged by over 120% as Yuga Labs launched ApeChain on Saturday at ApeFest in Lisbon.

The launch came with new staking rewards and interoperability features, new Apps, and some big memecoin action.

All of which contributed to the massive rise in APE, as anyone bridging over to the chain had to convert to APE.

The staking was a big highlight, where APE holders can now earn passive income by staking their tokens, with an automatic reinvestment feature that maximizes yield over time.

Then there was all of the ApeChain happenings:

• Top Trader launched its trading simulation game with a large $APE prize pool
• Ape Express provided airdrop rewards for anyone with a BAYC or MAYC at time of the token airdrop
• BattlePlan! went live with $50k in prizes
• Chimpers "Rise of the Undead" launched its game

Market Action

It all starts with APE.

The native coin of ApeChain soared from $0.75 to $1.75 over the weekend, a massive 125% jump and taking it to a $1.3B market cap.

The NFTs rallied as well, with BAYC up to 13.2 ETH (+20%), MAYC up to 2 ETH (+10%) and BAKC at 0.4 ETH (+13%).

Then there were the memes.

As the dust settles on Monday morning, the leaderboard looks like this:

• CURTIS at $17M
• BORED at $17M
• CIF at $2.4M
• GARY at $1.1M
• DOOKEY at $1M

Prices were higher Sunday morning, as early bridges and buyers were rewarded with big overnight gains.

What's Next?

So according to Ape Express, only 2.2% of APE has made the bridge over to ApeChain.

Given the strong incentives to do so with the native yield and other activities in the ecosystem, it's not a stretch to assume that the number gets much higher this week.

As it does, ecosystem assets (i.e. memes) should benefit.

More Apps and things to do will be key, but it was a very strong start on that front.

And the surge in APE has certainly drawn the headlines (and attention).

The Return of the Apes is upon us...

🚚 What else is happening in NFTs?

Here is the list of other notable headlines from the day in NFTs:

• Ethereum led NFT trading volume with $9.1M on the day; Bitcoin was next with $2.8M, and then Solana with $1.7M
• ETH NFT leaders mostly green following BAYC's rise; Punks even at 27 ETH, Pudgy +4% at 9.4, BAYC +1% at 13 (+18% on week); Azuki +3% to 5.23 
• Bastard Gan Punks (+60%) and Project AEON (+40%) led notable top movers
• BTC NFT leaders were mostly red; NodeMonkes -4% at 0.141 BTC, Puppets -1% at 0.16 BTC, OMB -3% at 0.184, Quantum Cats -2% at 0.241
• Based Angels was the biggest Ordinals mover +30% to 0.029 BTC
• The Runes leaders were mixed; DOG +1% at $530M mc, PUPS +11% at $140M, RSIC -1% at $84M mc, BDC -8% to $90M
• Solana NFT leaders were mostly red with Mad Lads -1% at 45 SOL, SMB +1% at 19, DeGods -4% at 15.5  and RCs +12% at 30
• ACK sold his 5 1/1s in the Piano Blossoms auction for a combined 107.63 ETH ($290,000)
• ripcache sold 64 editions in his "birds" collection for a total of 26.9 ETH, now holding at 0.56 ETH floor
• Doodles announced Haul of Horrors, where they'll give away the only Gold Boned Skelly in the collection

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

Here's a rundown of major token, protocol and airdrop news from the day:

🌎 Around Crypto and Web3

A few other Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:

• Crypto majors are green up 2-5% though Bitcoin has reversed its Sunday rally;  BTC even at $68,400; ETH +2% at $2,710, SOL +5% at $166; APE was a top alt mover up 25%
• Memecoin majors were mostly green; DOGE +2%, SHIBA -1%, PEPE +1%, WIF -2%, BONK +2%, POPCAT +8%, and MOG +46%; GIGA outperformed +26% to $580M, FWOG +40% to $218M
• AI coins dominated the weekend as GOAT hit ATH at $520M (then dipped to $160M and back to $400), GNON soared to $200M on over $200M volume, and others like ACT and SLOP saw over $100M in volume
• The SEC alleged that Solana is a security in an amended complaint in its suit against Binance
• The SEC approved spot Bitcoin ETF options trading for the CBOE
• The Minnesota Federal Reserve is apparently following the ECB's lead on planning restrictions and taxes against Bitcoin
• Stripe made a $1.1B acquisition of Bridge, a platform specializing in stablecoin transactions, marking the largest acquisition in the crypto industry to date
• Vitalik published part 3 of his Future of Ethereum blog titled "The Scourge," addressing the centralization risk in PoS systems and laying out 3 solution areas
• Solana did more trading volume than the entire ETH + ETH L2 ecosystem over the weekend

🚀 Memecoin Movers 

• $SLOP (+46,000% to $32M market cap, SOL)
• $FART (+90% to $29M market cap, SOL)
• $FWOG (+40% to $218M market cap, SOL)
• $GOAT (+40% to $380M market cap, SOL
• $GIGA (+26% to $600M market cap, SOL)

📈 NFT Floor Price Increase (ETH)

• Bastard Gan Puns (60%, 0.16 ETH Floor)
• ProjectPXN (40%, 0.02 ETH)
• Project AEON (39%, 1.6 ETH)
• L3E& Worlds (33%, 3.2 ETH)
• Mog Auras (22%, 0.33 ETH)

🗓 Upcoming Mints and Events

Today is a busier day of mints to start the week.

There are a few derivative mints on Bitcoin, then the highlight is the kickoff of mpkoz's bigger "Bokeh" sale on Art Blocks.

See the full list and dive in for more details with Swizzy's daily mint monitor. 

• GizmoPuppets (8:00 a.m. ET)
• Do You Moose - Baby Moose (9:00 a.m. ET)
• Memes by 6529 (11:00 a.m. ET)
• mpkoz x ArtBlocks - Bokeh (1:00 p.m. ET)
• LiveArt - Art Shards (1:00 p.m. ET)

Enjoy this write-up and/or want to sponsor the Morning Minute? Follow along with me on Twitter @tyler_did_it or reach out via email to tyler.d.warner@gmail.com.