Since December 05, ApeCoin (APE) holders can now stage their tokens and receive rewards. However, some users have already encountered problems and seen their tokens disappear. We take a look at the situation.
ApeCoin (APE) staking available
Scheduled to go live this summer, the staking platform for ApeCoin (APE) holders has recently opened its doors. With the value of assets deposited exceeding $30 million in 48 hours, the platform is a success for Yuga Labs.
However, Horizen Labs, the structure chosen to develop ApeCoin staking, is facing some investors who lost all their ApeCoin deposited in one of the available staking pools. Before anything else, we can say that these losses are not the result of a hack.
To understand this phenomenon, let’s go back to the functioning of the staking developed by Horizen Labs:
The four staking pools for ApeCoin (APE) staking
Four staking pools are available depending on the assets held by investors:
- The 1st pool is only dedicated to ApeCoin holders;
- The 2nd pool is open to people holding NFT Bored Apes (BAYC) and ApeCoin;
- The 3rd is open to holders of an NFT Mutant Apes (MAYC) and ApeCoin;
- The last one is available for owners of an NFT Bored Ape Kennel (BAKC), as well as a Bored Apes or Mutant Apes, and ApeCoin tokens.
In the latter three pools, in return for a higher return, the committed ApeCoin is automatically linked to the deposited NFT. As a result, if the owner of the NFT changes, the owner of the tokens deposited in these staking pools also changes.
Ineffective warnings
On Twitter, an employee of the company Horizen Labs posted a message to remind the operation of the staking pools developed for ApeCoin:
Friendly reminder if you stake ApeCoin in one of the NFT pools and sell your NFT you will lose the staked ApeCoin
Marketplaces (@opensea, @blur_io, etc.) should include a warning message on their UI.
– Degentraland (@Degentraland) December 5, 2022
” Friendly reminder: if you stake ApeCoin in one of the NFT pools and sell your NFT, you will lose the staked ApeCoin “
Despite all this, less than 24 hours after the deployment of staking, several victims are to be deplored: by buying three different NFTs, an Ethereum address managed to recover more than 18,000 ApeCoin, equivalent to €71,280 at the current price.
The method used by the individual to achieve this was rather simple: he bought NFTs deposited in a staking pool, retrieved the ApeCoin from the pool associated with the NFTs, and then resold the NFTs. In this way, he generated nearly $20,000 in profit in the form of ETH and USDC.
What can we learn from this? As Web3 is still very young, caution should always be exercised before committing to any protocol or project. As a result, the adage “do your own research” should be remembered to keep your assets safe.
