• The ApeCoin ((APE-USD) decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) and Foundation has a very impressive initial board
• The board is meant to administer DAO proposals and serve the vision of the community
• Investors should wait to see what the board does

The Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) launched ApeCoin (APE-USD) on March 16 in a special “airdrop” of one billion tokens of the new cryptocurrency to certain parties, including those who own Bored Ape NFT’s (non-fungible tokens).

Despite the digital token only launching two weeks ago, it’s already got a market capitalization of close to $4 billion.

While there’s very little about this digital token to get me interested in buying some, the relationship to BAYC and Yuga Labs — a startup valued between $4 billion and $5 billion based on venture capital investments — suggests ApeCoin might be worth looking into.

I do know that the five names on the initial board of the ApeCoin DAO (decentralized autonomous organization) and Foundation are an impressive list. 

Will they do much before the end of their six-month term? That’s hard to know, but it certainly makes APE-USD a more intriguing investment opportunity. 

Here’s why.   

APE-USD

ApeCoin

$13.86

What’s ApeCoin All About?

As my InvestorPlace colleague, Josh Enomoto, recently stated, “ApeCoin is a digital token that undergirds the APE Ecosystem, a decentralized community that purportedly stands at the ‘forefront of Web 3.0.’ Driving this ecosystem is the distributed nature of power and decision-making inherent in decentralized autonomous organizations or DAOs,” Josh wrote on March 29. Oh, my, Web 3.0. Where do I sign up?

The ApeCoin website states the following about the ApeCoin DAO: 

“ApeCoin DAO exists because decentralized governance is critical to building and managing a globally dispersed community — and therefore critical to the success of the APE ecosystem.”

“The APE Improvement Proposal Process (see Governance) will allow ApeCoin DAO members to make decisions regarding Ecosystem Fund allocations, governance rules, projects, partnerships, and beyond. ApeCoin DAO membership is open to all ApeCoin holders.” 

It states that the DAO’s purpose is to “administer DAO proposals and serve the vision of the community.” It all sounds very loosey-goosey. 

The only thing about ApeCoin that doesn’t sound right out of left field is the five people on the DAO’s initial board. They’re some reasonably well-known names. 

While I wouldn’t touch the 45th-largest cryptocurrency according to CoinMarketCap.com at this time, the names on the initial board (six-month term) ought to give you some hope if you’re thinking of taking a flyer on one of the newest digital tokens.

The Five Person Board

As the ApeCoin website states, the initial board serves for six months. Then a new slate is voted on by DAO members, who serve for a year. After that, a new slate is voted on every year after that.

The five board members are:

1) Alexis Ohanian, a co-founder of Reddit;

2) Amy Wu, the Head of Ventures and Gaming at FTX, a large crypto exchange;

3) Maaria Bajwa, a Principal at Sound Ventures, a venture capital firm co-founded by Ashton Kutcher;

4) Yat Siu, Co-founder and Chairman of Animoca Brands, a leading digital entertainment and blockchain company; and

5) Dean Steinbeck, the President of Horizon Labs, a developer of blockchains.

Unless you spend all of your time underground, you’ve got to admit that these are five reasonably successful business people who see the potential of NFTs, Web3, Blockchain, etc.

I haven’t a clue what this can do for the ApeCoin ecosystem. That’s because they’re merely administering proposals from the DAO members themselves. If it were them alone, I’d be more excited about it. 

Josh Enomoto pointed out in his commentary that the biggest problem with DAOs is that “decentralized authority can be utterly chaotic.”

So, even with the best intentions, the board’s hands are mostly tied, preventing them from making a greater contribution.

ApeCoin Is 1 of 19,000

As my colleague points out, ApeCoin is one of almost 19,000 cryptocurrencies. So over the long haul, it probably doesn’t have the stuff to differentiate itself from all the other wannabes. 

However, if the folks from Yuga Labs and BAYC deliver Otherside — the Metaverse powered by ApeCoin — in April, as is the speculation, a short-term bet might not be a bad one. 

Ultimately, Ethereum (ETH-USD) founder Vitalik Buterin has the right idea about the entire NFT business, as stated in a recent interview with Time:

“[U]ltimately the goal of crypto is not to play games with million-dollar pictures of monkeys, it’s to do things that accomplish meaningful effects in the real world,” Buterin told Time.

That might be a shot at ApeCoin. Govern yourself accordingly.

On the date of publication, Will Ashworth did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.