The APE Foundation is the steward of ApeCoin. It is not an overseer, but the base layer on which ApeCoin holders in the ApeCoin DAO can build. The Foundation facilitates decentralized and community-led governance and is designed to become more decentralized over time. It is tasked with administering the decisions of the ApeCoin DAO, and is responsible for day-to-day administration, bookkeeping, project management, and other tasks that ensure the DAO community’s ideas have the support they need to become a reality.

The goal of the APE Foundation is to steward the growth and development of the APE ecosystem in a fair and inclusive way. It utilizes the Ecosystem Fund, which is controlled by a multisig wallet, to pay its expenses as directed by the ApeCoin DAO and provides an infrastructure for ApeCoin holders to collaborate through open and permissionless governance processes.

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.

ApeCoin is an ERC-20 governance and utility token used within the APE ecosystem to empower a decentralized community building at the forefront of web3. As the open-source protocol layer of the ecosystem, ApeCoin serves several purposes: