After extensive research, BuzzFeed News reveals the real names of two of the founders of Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), the multi-million dollar NFT collection.
Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT, the true identity of its founders
According to a report on BuzzFeed News, Bored Ape Yacht Club’s (BAYC) celebrated million-dollar NFT collection now has two real names out of 4 of its anonymous founders. Here’s the tweet from Katie Notopoulus, author of the revealing article:
The Bored Ape Yacht Club is the biggest NFT group (the ones Paris Hilton and Gwyneth Paltrow own). Reported the company is raising money at a $5B valuation. But the founders are all pseudonymous. Which is, confusing. My story: https://t.co/fA61yOHHWL
— Katie Notopoulos (@katienotopoulos) February 5, 2022
“The Bored Ape Yacht Club is the biggest NFT group (the ones Paris Hilton and Gwyneth Paltrow own). Reported the company is raising money at a $5B valuation. But the founders are all pseudonymous. Which is, confusing. My story:”
So two of BAYC’s main founders are Greg Solano (pseudonym: “Gargamel”), a 32-year-old writer and editor, and Wylie Aronow (pseudonym: “Gordon Goner”), a 35-year-old Florida native.
Basically, Yuga Labs, the company that produces BAYC, and its CEO, Nicole Muniz, confirmed the identities of both men to the magazine, and so it’s finally possible to know the true identity of at least two founders of the most popular NFT collection of the moment.
The other two identities of BAYC’s co-founding engineers, under the pseudonyms “Emperor Tomato Ketchup” and “No Sass”, remain unknown.
The pseudonyms of Web3
Notopoulus herself in her article raises the question of how it could be possible that a 10,000 NFT collection of “bored monkeys”, which has become so expensive (the floor price to buy the cheapest BAYCs is now over $280,000), could have founders with identities made up of pseudonyms.
The data exposed speak that the collection currently has a market cap of about $2.8 billion, while Yuga Labs is reportedly in talks with venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz for an investment that would value it at $5 billion.
Staggering numbers that, in the traditional market, could not even be named without the first and last name, the identity, of the founders of the startup or project.
Apparently, however, pseudonyms are typical when it comes to Web3, of which blockchain technology is also a part. In this regard, Mark Cuban, billionaire entrepreneur and owner of two Bored Apes, responding to the question of whether or not blockchain heralds a new and better form of transparency, said:
“Yes, there can be accountability. The reason is that all transactions are based on smart contracts and written to the blockchain, which is the antithesis of traditional business. What other collectibles business publishes all their sales and business processes?”
The explosive success of BAYC’s NFT collection
As BuzzFeed News already points out, Paris Hilton claimed to own an NFT from Bored Ape Yacht Club purchased at a price of $300,000, while host Jimmy Fallon reportedly said he paid for his digital monkey around $216,000.
A few hours ago, the official Bored Ape Yacht Club channel retweeted the latest sale of Bored Ape #4523 for 129,129 ETH, the equivalent of over $400,000, at the time of writing.
Bored Ape #4523 was purchased for 129.129 ETH
https://t.co/1nEKXTZAy1— boredapebot (@boredapebot) February 7, 2022
During last summer, 101 of the Bored Ape Yacht Club tokens sold for $24.4 million in a Sotheby’s auction. A few weeks later, it was the turn of competitor Christie’s, which auctioned off four Bored Apes, for $12 million.
In September 2021, directly on the OpenSea platform, a mysterious user paid about $2.6 million for a character in the collection.
