Bored Ape Founder Depth Interview: We have huge ambitions to defeat Metaverse giants

On the evening of February 4 this year, 33-year-old Greg Solano and 35-year-old Wylie Aronow learned that BuzzFeed News would reveal their true identities, which they had been carefully hiding.

Solano recalled: "We only received a 20-minute warning." They immediately called to discuss the next steps. Aronow said: "To be frank, we have very real security concerns." Bad actors might try to hack into their accounts or even show up at their homes. Both of them said: "We don't know what will happen."

They started deleting personal information from the internet. Aronow deactivated his Instagram, fearing it might contain clues about his family's location, and then warned his family about what was about to happen, so they wouldn't become targets as well.

Although Aronow's immediate family fully understands why the upcoming article has generated such attention, Solano had to explain the specifics to his father. He and Aronow are the creators of the Bored Ape Yacht Club, which is the hottest NFT project on the internet. They launched the Bored Ape Yacht Club through Yuga Labs in April 2021, and the company is currently valued at $4 billion.

Bored Apes are a collection of 10,000 unique digital head-and-shoulders drawings of apes, each with a unique combination of features, from the common "bored" mouth ( to the ultra-rare "pure gold" fur ). Last October, a rare ape was sold at an auction for a staggering $3.4 million. In the same month, veteran artist manager Guy Oseary became a business partner of BAYC.

Today, Bored Apes are ubiquitous in popular culture, from T-shirts sold by certain brands to VMA-nominated music videos featuring Snoop Dogg and Eminem. Celebrities like Steph Curry, Justin Bieber, Gwyneth Paltrow, Post Malone, and Seth Green all own Bored Apes. Other high-profile holders include Jimmy Fallon and Paris Hilton, who had a controversial discussion about their apes on a talk show earlier this January. ( Solano and Aronow said they were not aware of that statement in advance, and they found it "very surreal" to discuss it on the show. )

Despite the crash of the cryptocurrency and NFT markets this year, Bored Apes are still considered a "blue chip" investment in the field. Currently, the floor price of a single ape is around $140,000, down from a high of about $434,000 in April. Yuga Labs earns a 2.5% royalty fee on every secondary sale of a Bored Ape NFT.

Solano's father knew that his son was working on a project in the NFT and cryptocurrency space, but he only learned the details on that night in February when he received a call from his son. Solano explained: "I didn't tell my father because he would tell everyone. He would tell the woman at the coffee shop--'My son is the mastermind behind it!' Who else wants to know, who else wants to know?"

This was originally a problem because before that article was published, most people only knew the usernames they used online—Solano used Gargamel, taken from the villainous wizard in "The Smurfs", and Aronow was Gordon Goner, a punk-inspired name, along with their respective ape avatars.

The other two co-founders of BAYC are also responsible for the technical aspects. 32-year-old Zeshan Ali, known as No Sass, later abbreviated to Sass(, wrote in his profile on the BAYC website "Here for the gorillas, not for Sass"), and 31-year-old Kerem Atalay, also known as Emperor Tomato Ketchup(, whose name comes from an album of an independent pop band).

Moreover, all four of them want to maintain this state. In their view, Solano and Aronow have been poached. ( The identities of Ali and Atalay are not disclosed in the article. )

While devising an action plan over the phone, Solano and Aronow decided it would be best to post their photos on social media first to "humanize themselves." Solano exclaimed, "Aronow quickly found his good photo." They did not rush to reveal themselves before the report, but instead disclosed their true identities to the internet within an hour after the report was published.

Four days later, Ali and Atalay followed suit by posting their names and photos on social media. Atalay said: "We want to have more control over the narrative and make it something more worthy of celebration than Greg and Wylie."

A few months later, Solano and Aronow are trying to regain control over their own narrative. Therefore, this meeting, accompanied by their public relations personnel, finally tells their story in full for the first time and publicly addresses the major controversy that has troubled them for more than a year.

"Evil Troll"

Solano and Aronow became very solemn when talking about a certain critic, using carefully chosen words. The accusation is a sensitive topic that is understandable. On the next day during their photo shoot, Aronow noticed that there was a badge on the sleeve of his green military jacket that looked German. He kept repeating, "This is not my jacket." The photography team promised to edit out this detail (.

The founder said that the critic was a "malicious troll" skilled at "sleight of hand," making them look bad in front of those who were unaware of the situation. They proposed a factional narrative, stating that Aronow and Oseary are Jewish, while the other three Yuga founders are children of immigrants.

Oseary said: "In the early days, I was really offended. I even reached out to that critic. I thought by talking to him, he would know that I would never associate myself with something like that. You know, I am Israeli, I am Jewish."

"This should always be an interesting, rebellious club. It should never transcend any form of criticism."

The founder added that the critic has been deliberately trying to provoke them into suing him. In June ), Yuga Labs filed a lawsuit against him in a U.S. court, claiming that he "deceived consumers into purchasing counterfeit NFTs by abusing Yuga Labs' trademark" and "flooded the NFT market with counterfeit NFT collections using original Bored Ape Yacht Club images, thereby devaluing Bored Ape NFTs." (

While discussing the controversy with Solano and Aronow at the hotel, I suggested features like the sushi chef headband. Solano said: "This was supposed to be an interesting, unrestrained club. It should never transcend any form of criticism."

Aronow added: "It's hard not to offend everyone in the world."

![Exclusive Interview with BAYC Bored Ape Founder: We have huge ambitions to defeat some Metaverse giants])images/KMsdSo4jG4.gif(

Enter the Metaverse

Three days after meeting Solano and Aronow, I stood in an all-white room surrounded by a group of what seemed to be stone-made robots. About 4,500 of us ), including the four founders (, gathered together as the giant ape Curtis ), dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and captain's hat, explained the journey we were about to embark on together. Beside him was a short, stout alien creature named Koda. This person was named Blue.

Curtis announced at the first public demonstration of Yuga Labs' new Metaverse: "Welcome, travelers, to another world. Or rather, to an infinite space, somewhat like a hall of other worlds."

After some guidance on how to make our avatars dance, we opened a hole below. We were all sucked into a swirling rainbow tunnel that spat us out onto a lush little island. Curtis joked, "Wow, nerds, it's raining!".

For the next hour or so, we nerds completed a series of tasks under the guidance of Curtis and Blue. We searched for a "new pair of glasses" for someone who broke their glasses at a recent NFT conference and teamed up to incapacitate the dangerous, drunk Koda ( we were told about, Otherside's "first boss battle" ). At the end of the presentation, everyone struck a pose for a "selfie."

In the cryptocurrency social circle, people's reaction to this presentation was enthusiastic. A few days later, Solano, Aronow, and I chatted online about the presentation. Aronow said: "To be honest, this is one of our best launches." They pointed out that while there are tasks to complete in Otherside, and bad actors to deal with, the focus of the game is not that it is a game. It is a virtual leisure space where players can simply hang out with their ape brothers, purchase assets in the world with ApeCoin, and own them in the form of NFTs.

They explained that this is an "interoperable Metaverse" because people can take their NFTs in and out of Otherside and use them elsewhere on Web3. For example, a popular game makes money by players purchasing assets in the game, such as skins for their avatars; its publisher made over $9 billion from the game in 2018 and 2019. Aronow said: "All this value is entering the Metaverse, and none will come out again."

This is also a collaborative Metaverse. Traveler ( purchases land in the Metaverse using Otherdeed tokens, which they can use at will ) according to the Otherside documents: "Under the guidance of an informed community" (. Navigators can also provide feedback through community servers, which is likely to influence the shape of the Otherside. Aronow explains: "They've come this far, each step is an iterative input into what this will become."

"The ambition and scale of the task we are trying to accomplish here is enormous."

He continued to say that this will help Yuga compete with internet giants in the race towards the ultimate Metaverse. He said: "The ambition and scale of the task we are here to accomplish is enormous."

Solano and Aronow believe they are the right candidates for the job. Aronow said: "In the wrong hands, ) has the potential to be a bad actor. ( The Metaverse could be a utopian, terrifying place. They envision their Metaverse as lush, beautiful, filled with very strange characters. ) Although it may be as someone said in the group chat during the Otherside demo, crowded with "a lot of men" (."

They say that Otherside will take years to develop. But when it's ready, one has to wonder, who will care? The cryptocurrency world is evolving rapidly, and by then, won't the craze for apes have already passed? Additionally, the cryptocurrency and NFT markets have been declining recently.

When I mentioned the ongoing cryptocurrency winter at the hotel, Solano told me: "It's only the losers who pay attention to the bear market." Moreover, they are not worried. They have plenty of money.

Aronow added: "Our profits are particularly high. We have a very substantial competition fund here to ensure that we can survive, and not just survive, but build during any multi-year bear market. Just keep building, building, and building."

This is a huge challenge, as the founders were just a pair of completely anonymous partners, discussing blueprints for a little brother on the hypothetical bathroom wall, and they could never have imagined this. Aronow said: "We may be the largest company in the NFT space right now, but when it comes to building the Metaverse, we are still far from being the largest company. We have to beat some giants."

![Interview with BAYC Bored Ape Founder: We have ambitious goals to surpass some Metaverse giants])