APECOIN, the cryptocurrency behind the APE ecosystem, is looking to move blockchains after the disastrous Otherside metaverse launch cost investors over $100 million in Ethereum transaction fees.
ApeCoin is currently hosted on Ethereum but the decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) board behind the coin are looking to migrate it to Avalanche or Flow according to executives at both companies.
Yuga Labs, the company behind ApeCoin first alluded to a potential blockchain move on April 30 in a tweet when they encouraged the DAO for APE holders to consider it as a possibility.
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The discussion behind the potential move comes after Yuga Labs’ launch of Otherdeed NFTs – the virtual land for the Otherside metaverse.
On the day of the launch, $320 million worth of NFTs were sold, but due to the high volume of traffic on the Ethereum blockchain, transaction fees skyrocketed to $2,000.
In total investors paid more than $100 million in fees.
Although the ApeCoin DAO board isn’t “actively shopping” for a new blockchain, a source said the DAO will implement the wishes of its holders if it was voted through in a proposal.
Members of the ApeCoin board include Reddit co-founder Alex Ohanian, FTX’s head of gaming Amy Wu and Animoca Brands chairman Yat Siu.
Since the DAO’s creation in March 2022, 11 different proposals have been voted on.
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Avalanche is one option because Yuga Labs ecosystem would be able to coexist on its own subnet.
This would mean each transaction would be isolated, so regardless of the number of people using the network, it wouldn’t get clogged up.
Talks between Avalanche and Ape Coin’s DAO remain preliminary but Ava Labs CEO Kevin Sekniqi said: “We’ve had some early discussions with ApeCoin DAO about subnets, and we’ve certainly got our pitch ready to go.
“We all saw it with the land sale, NFT ecosystems of that size need to exist in a scalable environment.”
Flow’s blockchain has also proven it can handle large volumes of transactions.
NBA TopShot is hosted on Flow and it handles over $300,000 worth of transactions daily.
Dapper Labs, the company behind Flow, created the blockchain after the CryptoKitties disaster which also saw the Ethereum network clog up and transactions soar.
Mik Naayem, the chief business officer at DapperLabs, said: “We’ve had some conversations with folks that are board members of ApeCoin DAO, and I think it’s going to come down to a vote.
“CryptoKitties faced similar challenges, and I think that Flow would be a great home for ApeCoin, that being said there’s still a lot of assets on Ethereum and things to consider.”
The benefits of moving to its own ecosystem are obvious for Yuga Labs – cheaper transaction costs, a faster network and the ability to pay transaction fees in APE.
However, Axie Infinity will be seen as a cautionary tale against migrating after it suffered a $625 million hack on its Ronin network.
The decision on whether Yuga Labs migrates will come down to members of the ApeCoin DAO.
