DAO Vote Decides ApeCoin Will Remain on Ethereum

More than 7.1 million APE tokens held by over 800 DAO members voted on AIP-41. 

ApeCoin Community Chooses Ethereum

ApeCoin will stay on Ethereum—for the time being. 

The AIP-41 snapshot vote closed early Thursday morning, with most voting power opting to keep ApeCoin within the Ethereum ecosystem. 53.62% of the vote—or 3.8 million APE tokens—voted against migrating ApeCoin to a Layer 1 or sidechain not secured by Ethereum.

While the vote ended in favor of an Ethereum-based ApeCoin, it swung wildly during the six-day voting period. Initially, more than 90% of votes backed keeping APE on Ethereum. However, three days in, several large token holders entered the vote, swinging it in favor of moving ApeCoin to a rival Layer 1 blockchain.

While the ApeCoin community has since made it clear they want APE to stay within the Ethereum ecosystem, the vote is not entirely definitive. DAO members can submit new proposals concerning the future of the token within a three-month grace period. 

The vote to keep ApeCoin on Ethereum was sparked by a series of tweets from the Bored Ape Yacht Club creator Yuga Labs. Last month, Yuga suggested migrating APE to a Layer 1 blockchain with higher transaction throughput and more inexpensive fees following its Otherside land NFT mint. The Otherside drop used a first-come, first-served model to distribute the land NFTs, which, combined with its unoptimized smart contract code, led to gas wars that cost minters millions in ETH. Yuga argued that migrating APE to another blockchain would allow the project to “properly scale,” deferring blame for its botched mint sale on the network’s poor performance.

While moving APE to a rival Layer 1 appears to be off the table, migrating it to an Ethereum Layer 2 chain is still a possibility. Blockchain onboarding platform Immutable X has suggested ApeCoin move to its StarkEx-powered Layer 2 to benefit from higher transaction throughput and lower fees. While Immutable’s proposal has received positive feedback on the ApeCoin DAO forum, it will need more support from the community before it can go to an official vote. 

Disclosure: At the time of writing this piece, the author owned ETH and several other cryptocurrencies.