Cody McGrath 
ApeCoin, the token that powers the ApeDAO, has seen a price increase in the last 24 hours as the community votes on many proposals.
According to CoinMarketCap data, ApeCoin is up more than 7% in the last 24 hours.
APE soared late last night, reaching nearly $27. Since then, the token has lost some of its gains and is now worth a little under $22.
The freshly launched coin powers the ApeCoin DAO, an unofficial decentralized autonomous organization associated with the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT collection.
The weekly chart depicts a similarly upbeat picture. ApeCoin has increased by 67 percent since last Friday.
Nonetheless, the token is still a long way from its all-time high of $39.40 reached in March.
What’s driving ApeCoin?
Because ApeCoin is a governance token, holders can create and vote on various ApeDAO proposals.
To engage in the Ape community, you must own some of its tokens.
According to the timing of ApeCoin’s recent price increase and multiple outstanding proposals, some investors are accumulating additional voting power.
Three Ape Improvement Proposals (AIP) are presently open and will close on May 4.
AIP-21 and AIP-22, for example, offer further changes to staking the ApeCoin token. Staking is the process of depositing cryptocurrency into a smart contract in exchange for further incentives.
AIP-7 is less technical, suggesting a modification in how conversations inside the DAO are formalized. In addition to these three active proposals, two additional AIPs are being discussed.
All past and present ideas can be found on the DAO voting platform Snapshot.