What happened
Even when matched against the encouraging gains of fellow cryptocurrencies, ApeCoin (APE 1.52%) was a chest-pounding success this weekend; as of late Sunday afternoon, the token had gained over 10% in value across the preceding 24 hours. A music video debuting at an NFT conference was a big factor in that rise.
So what
These days, the power of celebrity is real, tangible, and enduring. The popularity of ApeCoin, which is (still somewhat vaguely) connected to the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT collection, is due in no small part to the famous people who've transacted through the club.
BAYC and its aesthetic remain trendy among the trendy, and on Friday two big musical stars burnished the Apeworld's renown.
On Friday at ApeFest, a gathering for devotees of BAYC and the related Mutant Ape Yacht Club, Snoop Dogg and Eminem dropped a video for their new duet, "From the D 2 the LBC" (for the curious, D stands for Detroit, where Eminem first came to prominence, and LBC is Long Beach, California, Snoop's native city). The video soon hit YouTube, and ApeCoin saw a sustained bounce in price afterwards.
The video is a mix of live-action footage and animation of the two hip-hop artists, who at various points "transform" into animated creatures. Although it's not stated explicitly, the alt-Eminem and alt-Snoop are unmistakably Bored Ape avatars.
Now what
Few investors living in this era need to be told or reminded that celebrity support has a lot of value for a financial asset that would otherwise be mundane and unexciting. That goes double if the said asset is currently in fashion -- even though cryptocurrencies have struggled of late, they still have armies of devoted and even passionate investors. It's even more of a factor if the celebrities in question are perceived to be cutting-edge artists of long standing, as in the case of both Eminem and Snoop.
Few, if any, tokens have ApeCoin's level of coolness and cachet. That new video only strengthens this advantage for the unique cryptocurrency.
