APE has wild debut

All investments and trading are risky and may result in the loss of capital. Cryptoassets are largely unregulated and are therefore not subject to protection.

Bitcoin is slightly down over 24 hours as of 8:55 a.m. (EST) but still remains above $40K and is in positive territory over the past seven volatile days.

Looking at the Big Ten, despite global market upheaval with no sign of let-up, the weekly charts are pretty green.

Over seven days, Ethereum has gained 7% to $2,800. XRP gained 6% in that span. Solana (SOL) and Cardano (ADA), meanwhile, each gained 2%.

One big-coin exception this week is Terra's LUNA which lost 17.5% since last Friday.

Yesterday, a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) associated with the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), a non-fungible token (NFT) collection, air-dropped a new token, ApeCoin (APE), to Bored Ape NFT holders. Quite an episode ensued. Boring it was not.

After a couple of big exchanges listed APE, the Ethereum-run token wildly spiked, and then plummeted. APE shot up as high as $39.40 and fell to as low as $6.48, according to CoinDesk.

A check of CoinGecko at 8:15 a.m. (EST) reveals APE trading at about $16, giving it a market capitalization of roughly $2 billion, making it the 58th-largest digital asset.

"APE's wild ride is just beginning, but it's a bumpy start," said Vice, pointing to Twitter-amped backlash complaining about the distribution model, subsequent volatility and, not entirely unexpectedly, scammers trying to cash in on the hype.

(As mentioned, the genuine APE is Ethereum-based; imitations, seizing on hype, were launched on the Binance Smart Chain.)

In extreme cases, some “whales” earned millions of dollars after selling their APEs, Fortune said.

Billy Markus, one of the creators of DOGE, took to Twitter to criticize BAYC's decision to launch a token, saying it hurts the NFT space.

Yuga Labs, the creators of the BAYC collection, announced ApeCoin on Wednesday, emphasizing that the ApeCoin DAO would manage the asset, which is described as a governing token for the ecosystem.

Continuing its pivot into crypto, GameStop said it would launch an NFT marketplace sometime within the next three months (Decrypt).

Last month, the video game retailer announced a partnership with ImmutableX to assist with its NFT launch. A layer-2 built on top of Ethereum, ImmutableX was designed specifically for NFT-based projects and is said to be able to handle a larger volume of transactions, at lower costs, relative to Ethereum (but while tying into the security of the ETH mainnet). Plus, the ImmutableX alliance was said to involve the seeding of a $100 million "incentives" fund for game makers.

In 2020, GameStop, alongside AMC Theaters, became synonymous with the Reddit community/trading app "meme stock" mania that captivated/confounded veteran traders and greenhorns alike.

AMC has attempted its own crypto pivot with a move last year to start accepting Dogecoin for movie tickets and concessions. Earlier this week, AMC, in a daring balance sheet maneuver no one saw coming, announced it would take a 22% stake in a gold mining company.

Meanwhile, AMC is reportedly in discussions to start selling its own line of microwave popcorn.