ApeCoin Pumps—Then Dumps—on Musk’s Bored Ape Tease

Key Takeaways

ApeCoin surged today after Elon Musk changed his Twitter avatar to a collage of Bored Apes from the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection.
Musk quickly posted a follow-up tweet, hinting that he was trolling the community.
Despite recent speculation that Musk may have “aped into” the Bored Ape Yacht Club collection, ApeCoin has erased most of today’s gains.

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Roughly $1 billion flowed into ApeCoin after Elon Musk teased Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT owners. While prices stabilize, rumors have circulated that Musk may have “aped into” the popular collection.

Elon Musk Teases Bored Ape Yacht Club

ApeCoin spiked then dipped today due to Elon Musk causing a stir in the NFT community.

Twitter’s new owner showed that he still has a significant influence over the cryptocurrency market today by changing his Twitter avatar to a photo of several Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs, triggering a market frenzy across the Bored Ape Yacht Club ecosystem. ApeCoin was significantly impacted, rising 21.44% from $4.13 billion to $4.98 billion within minutes. Notably, Musk currently has around 90.8 million followers, and he’s still sporting the Bored Ape collage at press time.

Musk’s latest social media play quickly led to speculation that he may have “aped into” the Bored Ape Yacht Club collection. Still, the popular entrepreneur is yet to confirm any purchase. The latest development comes after Musk was pictured with members of MoonPay, the company that helped the likes of Post Malone and Paris Hilton acquire their own Bored Apes. A few days after the photo surfaced online, MoonPay purchased Bored Ape #1837, one of the rarest NFTs in the collection, for 569 Ethereum worth $1.5 million.

However, minutes after changing his Twitter avatar, Musk posted a tweet that appeared to poke fun at the Bored Ape community. “I dunno … seems kinda fungible,” he wrote, likely referencing the ease with which he saved a photo of the Bored Apes and used it as his avatar. “Fungible” means interchangeable, whereas assets like Bored Apes are described as “non-fungible” as they are unique with only one owner.

I dunno … seems kinda fungible

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 4, 2022

ApeCoin’s gains were quickly erased; APE is trading at around $4.45 billion at press time.

From a technical perspective, ApeCoin appears to have found support around the 200-hour moving average on its four-hour chart. Now, it needs to overcome the 100 and 50-hour moving average to be able to recover from the 50% correction it experienced over the past week. These crucial resistance levels sit at $17 and $18, respectively.

A sustained close above this supply barrier could push APE toward $20 or even $23.

It is worth noting that further selling could follow if ApeCoin loses the 200-hour moving average at $14.30 as support. Breaching this demand zone may encourage traders to exit their positions, increasing the downward pressure behind APE. Under such circumstances, without another Musk endorsement affecting prices, a downswing to $11.50 could follow.

Disclosure: At the time of writing, the author of this piece owned BTC and ETH.

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