Stephanie Douse 
The price of ApeCoin (APE) has defied crypto market correction up about 7% in the last 24 hours. Top ETH whales’ continuous accumulation over the last few days boosted the price to a new high of $19.44 today.
ApeCoin, the Bored Ape Yacht Club’s (BAYC) governance token, has surpassed prominent metaverse tokens like Decentraland’s MANA, The SandBox’s SAND, and Axie Infinity’s AXS. In fact, the buzz around BAYC’s metaverse project “Otherside” and film trilogy appears to be the cause of the APE price increase.
Price of ApeCoin (APE) expects Rally Above $20
The recent hack of BAYC’s official Instagram account that led to the theft of $2.4 million Bored Ape NFTs and the general bearish sentiment in the crypto market over the last two weeks had little effect on the ApeCoin (APE) prices. The top metaverse token has grown more than 50% in the last two weeks due to strong demand. This led to the total number of unique addresses that possess APE to exceed 54k.
According to data from WhaleStats, top Ethereum whales have been accumulating APE tokens in the last 24 hours. In fact, ApeCoin (APE) is one of the top ten tokens purchased by ETH whales in the last 24 hours, as well as the most used smart contract by top ETH whales.
Furthermore, a number of notable ETH whales purchased a considerable amount of APE tokens in the last 24 hours. “Bonobo,” an ETH whale, purchased 99,999 APE for $1,778,999, while “BlueWhale0097” purchased 250,000 APE worth $4,410,000.
In addition, recent reports indicate that the floor price of Bored Ape NFTs has risen. From a low of 105 ETH to a high of 140 ETH, the floor price has risen immensely. Thus, as the popularity of Bored Apes NFTs grows, so does the price of APEs.
The APE community has recently pushed for the introduction of staking for the APE token, which has been accepted by the special council and will be decided on in a formal vote on April 28.
Therefore, a surge above $20 appears likely. In fact, the bullish momentum could quickly increase ApeCoin’s (APE) price to $25 in no time.
Demand for Metaverse Tokens is increasing
ETH whales are not only amassing APE, the largest metaverse token but other metaverse tokens also. The top ETH whales have bought and held MANA and SAND tokens in the last 24 hours. The two metaverse tokens are also in the list of top ten most acquired tokens among Ethereum whales, according to data from WhaleStats.