ApeCoin Drops 8% After Bored Ape Yacht Club Discord Suffers Phishing Scam

ApeCoin, the governance token behind the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT collection, has plummeted over 8% in the the past 24 hours. 

APE has fallen from roughly $14 yesterday evening down to $12.8, according to data pulled from CoinMarketCap. 

Airdropped to Bored Ape and Mutant Ape NFT holders on March 16, APE will serve as a governance token for the project’s newly-launched ApeCoin decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). The token will allow holders to vote on the project’s roadmap and upcoming proposals. 

Since the token’s launch, price action has been volatile, with APE swinging from $39.4 to $1 before finding a range roughly between $14 and $16. 

Today’s events have, however, added still more volatility to the mix. 

The 8% drop was accelerated by reports that BAYC’s Discord channel had been comprised by a phishing attack in the early hours of Friday morning. 

The project’s Twitter account told users to “not mint anything from any Discord right now. A webhook in our Discord was briefly compromised.”  

The attacker was able to access the official Discord, where they announced in official channels that there would be a new collection available to mint for Mutant Ape and Bored Ape NFT holders. 

According to several reports, clicking the accompanying link would result in losing the holders' respective NFTs. Security firm Peckshield has confirmed that at least one Mutant APE NFT has been lost due to this specific phishing scam.