Bored Ape Yacht Club, the NFT collection and community created by Yuga Labs, has launched BAYC P2P, a peer-to-peer (P2P) marketplace for buying physical goods with APE on ApeChain.
The marketplace is live on the BAYC website, which describes it as "Apes selling stuff to apes" for apparel, collectibles, art and "weird one-offs from the club." Buyers can pay with APE on ApeChain and no Bored Ape NFT is required to buy.
On the marketplace, Ape holders can list items with photos and an APE price. Buyers connect a wallet, enter a shipping address and pay into an on-chain escrow contract.
After payment, the contract holds the full amount until the trade is finished. The seller then has a deadline to ship the item and record the shipment on-chain. Until that happens, the buyer's funds stay locked in escrow.
That setup gives BAYC a more controlled way to support peer-to-peer sales inside its own ecosystem. Instead of sending APE directly to a seller and hoping the item arrives, buyers pay into a contract that waits for the trade process to move forward.
ApeChain activity remains far below launch peak
Launched in October 2024, ApeChain, an Arbitrum Orbit Layer 3, was built as dedicated infrastructure for the ApeCoin ecosystem, with APE used as the network's gas token. The chain was designed for apps tied to ApeCoin, BAYC, gaming, NFTs and lower-cost on-chain transactions.
But data from DefiLlama shows the network still has a pretty tiny DeFi base. The network has about $3.6 million in total value locked, which is far below its record high of $33.8 million in December 2024.
ApeChain fees have also stayed low in 2026. The data shows the chain generated $6,634 in fees in January, $3,695 in February and $4,143 in March, while April still came in below $15,000, likely helped by Ape Church, an ApeChain gaming app where players wager on-chain and liquidity providers take the other side as "the House."