Gucci Goes APE: Luxury Brand Adds Bored Ape Yacht Club Token as Payment Option

Got a stash of ApeCoin (APE), the Ethereum-based token of the increasing Bored Ape Yacht Club ecosystem? Now you’ll be able to spend it at luxurious style model Gucci, which right now introduced that choose U.S. shops will settle for it as fee alongside different cash.

Gucci’s increasing crypto funds assist comes through a partnership with BitPay, which was revealed in May. Today, BitPay announced that it has added ApeCoin and Euro Coin (EUROC) to its platform, with Gucci the primary retailer to convey ApeCoin assist to sure U.S. boutiques.

It’s “yet one more step within the House’s exploration of Web3,” Gucci tweeted this morning. The model didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark from Decrypt about why it added ApeCoin, as effectively as how its crypto initiative has carried out thus far.

In May, Gucci revealed in an interview with Vogue Business that it could start accepting high cash like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, and Litecoin at choose shops. Payments are made by scanning a QR code with a crypto pockets through BitPay’s service.

The luxurious model has made different performs within the Web3 area this 12 months, as effectively. In January, Gucci partnered with vinyl toy maker Superplastic to launch collaborative NFTs, after which revealed a Gucci Vault location that will probably be a part of the Ethereum metaverse sport, The Sandbox. The model has collaborated with NFT art platform SuperRare on digital exhibitions, as effectively.

Gucci additionally worked with 10KTF, a pseudonymous “digital tailor” who creates attire designs that may be positioned atop in style profile image initiatives just like the Bored Ape Yacht Club, Cool Cats, World of Women, and CrypToadz.

ApeCoin launched in March as a digital token to energy metaverse functions constructed round Yuga Labs’ Bored Ape Yacht Club, such as its upcoming Otherside sport. Owners of Bored Ape and Mutant Ape NFTs obtained a free allotment of ApeCoin price tens of hundreds of {dollars} at launch, and it was rapidly adopted by crypto exchanges like Coinbase and Binance.

APE is up 3% right now to $6.87 as of this writing, in line with CoinGecko. It has been a extremely unstable asset: It’s up 52% during the last 30 days however nonetheless down 74% from its all-time excessive in April.

Gucci’s ApeCoin embrace comes two days after jewellery model Tiffany & Co. revealed an NFT challenge primarily based round one other Yuga Labs-owned challenge, CryptoPunks. In that case, present CryptoPunks house owners should buy one in all simply 250 Tiffany NFTs for 30 ETH (almost $50,000) to redeem it for a handcrafted bodily pendant of the pixelated avatar.