Ape
 Image: original illustration, memecoin.wiki | |
| part of speech | verb, also noun |
|---|---|
| scene | Crypto Twitter, Solana trenches |
To buy into a token impulsively and in size, without research, usually out of fear of missing a fast move.
Ape, or ape in, is crypto slang meaning to buy into a token impulsively and in size, without research, usually out of fear of missing a fast move. The past form is "aped," the activity "apeing" or "aping," and as a noun an ape is a trader who behaves this way. The word is largely self applied and worn with humor: announcing "aped" concedes that no due diligence occurred.
Usage
Apeing is the default entry style of the trenches, where tokens are minutes old and any research window is shorter than the opportunity. Traders "ape the metas," piling into whatever theme is running, and terminals advertise one click "ape" buttons; some tools have used the word as a product name. The behavior is inseparable from FOMO, and its predictable failure mode is buying a top and becoming exit liquidity or being caught in a rug pull. The community distinguishes a small "degen ape" (an amount one can lose) from "full porting" (committing the whole portfolio, see send it). Related slang includes "ape together strong," borrowed from meme culture to describe herd buying.
History
Know Your Meme and exchange glossaries date the term's crypto popularization to the DeFi summer of 2020, when unaudited tokens launched too quickly for research and traders joked about acting like apes. Proposed derivations include the phrase "going ape," meaning to act wildly, and self deprecating jokes about low intelligence herd behavior; the "apes together strong" meme, from the Planet of the Apes films, reinforced the identity, as did the ape branded NFT boom of 2021. Usage remains standard across crypto, and in the Solana trenches "ape" is among the most common verbs, defined in every major slang glossary.