When you buy a “governance token,” what exactly are you buying?$APE This experience over more than a year is the most direct case of that question.

On June 26, 2025, the AIP-596 proposal passed with a 99.66% approval rate. The content was to dissolve the ApeCoin DAO and transfer the APE treasury of roughly $168 million to a corporate entity called ApeCo.

It’s worth pausing on the figure 99.66%: this wasn’t a contentious passage—it was nearly unanimous agreement to hand over governance power.

Then less than a year later, on May 29, 2026, ApeCo’s head Cam stepped down. The role of independent chair was abolished, and ApeChain’s core technology and BD teams were directly folded into Yuga Labs, with the transition completed before June 5. Going further back, on April 17, 2026, Yuga Labs had just made another management reshuffle: Greg Solano became Chairman of the Board and Michael Figge became CEO.

So the path is as follows: DAO dissolution → assets transferred to a corporate entity → the independent managing officer role of that corporate entity is abolished → the team is folded into the parent company. During this process, token holders no longer have governance power.

This doesn’t mean the project is dead. ApeCoin itself is still active: its staking program ran from December 2022 through the end of 2025, releasing a total of 175 million APE over three years. ApeChain launched on October 2024 as an Arbitrum Orbit L3, using APE as gas. Starting in 2026, all gas on ApeChain will be burned, and the team will then repurchase and burn an equal amount.

Back to the starting point. APE was listed by Binance on March 17, 2022, and at the time it opened three trading pairs. According to Binance Academy, APE was donated by Yuga Labs, had no VC private sale, no team allocation/vesting, and all of it went into the DAO treasury. This design was one of its biggest selling points back then.

Total supply is 1 billion, with no additional issuance. It’s now close to fully circulating. Market cap is about $158.4 million, ranking 221. The price is down about 99% from its all-time high of $26.70 on April 28, 2022.

Binance only gave it the single label “NFT” — no Seed, and no watchlist label.

Today it’s up 8.9%, with volume 23.4 times the 24-hour average. It still has 94.2% to go before reaching its all-time high.

One more data trap to mention: in Binance’s metadata API, the listing time for APE and DASH both return 00:00 on January 1, 2023. That’s a placeholder value — the same batch is shared by 199 trading pairs. The real date should be taken from the original text of the announcement.

This article compiles publicly available information and personal viewpoints, and does not constitute any investment advice. The data comes from exchange announcements, Binance Academy materials, and public reports—please verify independently.