ApeCoin was launched in March 2022. A decentralized autonomous organization, or DAO, oversees ApeCoin as the native ERC-20 governance and utility token of the APE ecosystem.
Any person possessing the ApeCoin is qualified to vote on relevant governance issues. Recently, Apecoin launched its own staking contract, alongside its own frontend design, despite the delays caused by its bug bounty program.
Apecoin, which debuted in March of this year, has now begun to employ staking mechanisms to reward members of its DAO.
According to the specifics of the new project, there will be numerous reward pools for ApeCoin holders, some of which involve holding Yuga Labs NFTs. There will be pools specifically for owners of the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) in addition to the general ApeCoin pool.
Horizen Labs' open-source staking smart contract has already launched its testnet using the Goerli Faucet on Ethereum (ETH). The contract has also now begun its launch process on the Ethereum mainnet.
The infrastructure provider has also launched a website called ApeStake.io that will serve as the frontend interface for ApeCoin investors interested in staking their tokens. These investors can easily access the staking smart contracts via this interface.
According to an announcement by Horizen Labs, the pre-commitment phase of the APE staking process has begun on ApeStake.io. And so far, ApeCoin's staking protocol has enjoyed massive success.
At the time of writing, the ApeCoin staking protocol now contains more than $20.7 million as its Total Value Locked (TVL).
The announcement by Horizen Labs also mentions that the rewards from Staking will start accruing from 12 December.
To make staking ApeCoin easier, the ApeCoin Development team created four staking pools.
For APE holders who don't own NFTs, there is an "ApeCoin pool." This pool's maximum staking allotment is 30 million APE.
Holders of Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFTs have access to the "Bored Ape pool," in which each investor is allowed to stake a maximum of 10,094 APE for each BAYC they possess. The Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) NFT holders are permitted to invest 2,042 APE per MAYC in the "Mutant Ape pool."
For the NFT holders who own Bored Ape Kennel Pool (BAKC) art pieces, there is also a paired Bored Ape Kennel Pool. However, to benefit from staking in the Bored Ape Kennel Club's pool, investors must combine BAYC or MAYC with their BAKC NFT.
It is also important to note that regulatory concerns prevent staking in the countries like the US, North Korea, Syria, Iran, Cuba, Russia, Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk.
ApeCoin's price action over the last thirty days, leading up to the launch of the staking smart contracts, has been impressive.
According to data from CoinMarketCap, the cryptocurrency has more than doubled over the last 30 days since mid-November.
After rising from an average price around the $2.63 low, the cryptocurrency has soared and is now trading at a $4.2 high. This price level is only inches below its $6.23 90-day high.
On the charts, ApeCoin has been in a descending channel since 21 July. The staking protocol announcement pushed the price action of the cryptocurrency into a retest of the upper resistance of the channel, where its bears are likely opening short trades to push the price of the cryptocurrency lower.
This begs the question, "Is the Apecoin 30-day rally about to end?"
The answer may lie in "Buy the rumor, sell the news", an old idiom among crypto traders and investors.
The bears may succeed in shorting APE and pushing the price of the cryptocurrency further down into a retest of the channel's bottom around the $2.63 zone, considering how the cryptocurrency's general direction over the last few months has been bearish.
On the daily chart, the cryptocurrency's RSI has crossed over the neutral zone and is now trending up toward the oversold zone at 58.4.
The verdict on APE would be to wait for further price action and confirmation before opening any long trades.
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