ApeDAO's members are voting to sell 81 Bored Ape NFTs to reimburse token holders

A DAO looks set to die, according to a vote that's in progress.

The DAO in question is ApeDAO, which was founded by the pseudonymous NFT collector KyloRen and is the third-largest holder of Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs. It looks after a huge treasury of NFT assets, including 81 Bored Apes, 81 Mutant Apes, CryptoPunks, Fidenza, and Cool Cats.

Assuming the vote passes, which looks likely, the DAO will liquidate all of its assets and return them to token holders.

Why is this happening?

According to a Twitter thread by Sprise co-founder Montana Wong, discontent among some members of the DAO has led to a vote on whether the community should liquidate its NFT assets.

The discontent is reportedly linked to the fact that the DAO’s governance token has failed to keep up pace with the value of the treasury’s holdings. “Given the current gap between $APED price and net asset value of DAO holdings, liquidating the DAO would generate substantial returns for $APED Holders,” the proposal stated.

According to data from crypto portfolio aggregator Zapper, ApeDAO’s treasury is worth about $32.6 million, or 13,000 ETH. This conservative estimation takes in only the floor price of the various NFT collections in the entire treasury. As such, the actual value of the ApeDAO treasury holdings could be much higher.

Based on only this conservative treasury valuation, the implied APED token price should be above $16. Yet the token has largely traded around the $8 mark. That's despite a community fundraise held last Summer where tokens were valued at $10 each.

According to the proposal, liquidating the DAO’s NFTs could deliver as much as 8 ETH ($20,000) per 1,000 APED tokens.

Voting is underway

As of the time of writing, the proposal to liquidate the DAO’s assets seems to be popular with the community. Currently, 86.5% of the vote is in favor of the move. The vote ends on February 3.

Tweeting in response to the situation, KyloRen said the DAO’s multisig custodians “will act on the basis of the vote.”

Meanwhile, Wong’s tweet stated that the vote has come as something of a surprise to KyloRen who formed the DAO with his own extensive NFT holdings.

Activity regarding the vote also seems to have triggered an upward swing in the APED token price action as the token is up 10% in the last 24 hours and briefly peaked at $12.38 on Sunday.

BAYC has been on a tear in terms of NFT sales recently with the collection’s floor price soaring to over 116 ETH. The popular collection has also attracted interest from celebrities, such as Eminem, and public figures.