Nexo announced on Tuesday that investors can earn yields on the newly launched Bored Ape Yacht Club-inspired ApeCoin (APE) — billing itself as the first cryptocurrency platform to do so. 

Users can earn up to a 12% annual percentage rate (APR) for holding ApeCoin with the company, and may use APE as collateral for loans.

Nexo’s exchange is also offering a 0.5% cashback incentive on APE purchases.

The announcement closely follows Yuga Labs capital raise of $450 million —- bringing the Bored Ape Yacht Club creator to $4 billion valuation.

APE is an Ethereum utility token, its creators say, which is to be governed by a decentralized autonomous organization — the ApeCoin DAO.

There are currently five active proposals for voting — called AIP for ApeCoin Improvement Proposals. One proposal — AIP-2 — governs the voting process itself.

Holding a token is the only requirement for DAO membership, but the Cayman Islands-based ApeCoin Foundation has the final say on implementation. Each AIP states that “implementation may be immaterially or materially altered to optimise for security, usability, to protect APE holders, and otherwise to effect the intent of the AIP.”

APE will serve as a decentralized protocol layer for new services that “drive culture forward into the metaverse,” according to ApeCoin’s website. 

“The token will provide access to exclusive merchandise, games and events happening in the ecosystem itself,” crypto exchange Binance, which listed APE, said in a statement.

The token, which after its initial price discovery has traded between about $9.60 and $15.35, currently has a market cap of about $2.4 billion, according to CoinGecko. 

“With APE as a currency that allows you to own land and resources and create assets in an interoperable gaming metaverse, Yuga [Labs is] going full metaverse, not just a viral NFT collection,” Antoni Trenchev, co-founder of Nexo, said in a statement to Blockworks.

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