Bored Ape Founder Interview: We Have 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 shocking news in their respective homes. They were about to be exposed by BuzzFeed News regarding 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 honest, we have very real security concerns." Bad actors might try to hack into their accounts or even show up at their homes. They all said: "We don't know what will happen."

They started removing personal information from the internet. Aronow recalled that he disabled his Instagram, fearing it might leak the location of his home, and then they warned their family about what was going to happen, to prevent them from becoming targets as well.

Although Aronow's immediate family fully understands that the upcoming report will attract 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 consist of 10,000 unique digital avatars, each with a distinct combination of features, ranging from the ordinary "bored" mouth ( to the ultra-rare "pure gold" fur ). Last October, a rare ape sold for $3.4 million at a Sotheby’s auction. In the same month, veteran manager Guy Oseary, who represents Madonna and U2, became a business partner of BAYC.

Nowadays, Bored Apes are everywhere in popular culture, from T-shirts sold by Old Navy to the 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 discussed their apes on The Tonight Show in January of this year. ( Solano and Aronow said they were not aware of Fallon's comments beforehand, and they thought it was "very surreal" to be on the show discussing it.

Despite the collapse of the cryptocurrency and NFT market this year, Bored Apes are still considered a "blue-chip" investment in the field. Currently, the floor price for one ape is around $140,000, down from a high of about $434,000 in April. With each secondary sale of a Bored Ape NFT, Yuga Labs earns a 2.5% royalty.

Solano's father knew that his son was working on a project in the NFT and cryptocurrency space, but it wasn't until that night in February when he received a phone call that he learned the details. 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 behind-the-scenes founder!' Who else wants to know, who else wants to know?"

This was originally a problem, because before the BuzzFeed article was published, most people only knew the account names 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 monkey avatars.

The other two co-founders of BAYC are also responsible for technology. 32-year-old Zeshan Ali's nickname is No Sass, later shortened to Sass). His profile on the BAYC website states, "Here for the gorillas, not for Sass"(, and 31-year-old Kerem Atalay, also known as Emperor Tomato Ketchup(, derives his name from an album by the indie pop band Stereolab.

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. (

Four days later, Ali and Atalay posted their names and photos on Twitter. 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 from today, Solano and Aronow are trying to regain control over their own narrative. Therefore, at this meeting, accompanied by their public relations personnel, they finally told their story in full for the first time and publicly addressed the significant controversy that has troubled them for more than a year.

During our time together, Solano and Aronow emanated a brotherly yet wary atmosphere. Solano said, "We are the most superstitious people in the world." He wore a brown T-shirt for the interview because Aronow thought he needed "yellow energy."

Aronow was wearing an amber bracelet that he considered "positive" and was hardly eating his cheeseburger. At one point, Solano teasingly made fun of his friend's eating habits. He said, "Wylie only eats things like cheeseburgers and chicken wraps. We jokingly say he has a 'baby mouth.'"

I later learned that this was caused by a debilitating illness, which kept Aronow bedridden for most of the decade since he was in his twenties. He is now able to manage his condition, but it remains unstable, and even salad is a threat to him, which could lead to his illness ) he wouldn't say what it is ( to flare up again.

Pressure is just like that. As the public face of Yuga now, it seems to be a headache. The company is growing: in March, it purchased two of the most popular NFT series, CryptoPunks and Meebits, from creator Larva Labs. Shortly after, Yuga launched essentially its own cryptocurrency, ApeCoin.

In the days since we started talking, Yuga will host a large-scale demonstration of Otherside, an immersive game developed in collaboration with the UK studio Improbable. However, this is not just a game - it marks the beginning of the Web3 Metaverse, open to the public beyond the Bored Ape community. Yuga will be competing directly with major companies like Meta.

![Exclusive Interview with BAYC Bored Ape Founders: We Have Great Ambitions to Compete with Some Metaverse Giants])https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-fa582c72bd99eded80e99432b39c6fbc.webp(

However, the greater pressure comes from the lawsuit. In June, Yuga sued conceptual artist Ryder Ripps for trademark infringement, along with other allegations, because he created an NFT series in May that was the same as the Bored Ape series. The project reportedly made an estimated profit of $1.8 million. ) The mainstream NFT marketplace OpenSea removed this series.

But Ripps' counterfeit project (, referred to as RR/BAYC), is only part of the problem. Since the end of last year, Ripps has been very openly accusing BAYC of being filled with symbols of racism and neo-Nazism. The founders of BAYC have denied these claims, stating that they are all part of a plan to incite interest in Ripps' counterfeit apes.

Solano said: "For anyone who understands our history, it is extremely obvious how ridiculous this is. That said, the trolls' obsession, malice, and frankly, how evil the whole thing is, is hard to comprehend."

A serious expression flickered across Aronow's face as he described the impact of online hatred they faced due to these accusations. He said, "It's like this every day."

Aronow said: "In terms of background, we are really a quirky pair of partners." He was referring to his friendship with Solano. This is obvious. The first thing you notice is the huge height difference between the two business partners: Aronow is 6 feet 2 inches tall, making him taller than Solano.

Aronow has thick black hair and is covered in tattoos (. He feels embarrassed about the lifelike portrait of the writer Charles Bukowski on his right arm, which he got when he was a teenager (. His voice is deep and resonant. He is the human embodiment of the NFT enthusiasts' rallying cry "LFG" ) "Let's Fucking Go" (. Solano is a bald man with a goatee and a gentle demeanor; he calls Aronow the perfect motivational "workout buddy."

![Exclusive Interview with BAYC Bored Ape Founder: We have huge ambitions to surpass some Metaverse giants])https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-8fdd003e35351a9e37045b37c0319880.webp(

Aronow said: "We will fight over every idea, whether it’s a simple tweet or an entire NFT project. In fact, our friendship began with a fight. About ten years ago, we first met at a bar in Miami during a college break, where they started debating the merits of David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest. Solano hadn’t even read the book, but he reflexively hated it because his creative writing classmates praised it highly. They kept in touch long-distance, arguing about books, movies, and ideas, and played World of Warcraft online together.

A few years later, in 2017, the two began to talk about cryptocurrency. Like others, they tried to make some money during the bull market. But what interested them most was the possibilities brought by the Ethereum blockchain, where people built decentralized applications, including gamified collectibles like CryptoKitties, where you can buy, trade, and breed unique cartoon cats to create more Kitties.

Although he was very interested in digital collectibles, Solano didn't buy his first NFT until early 2021. Not long after, in February, Solano texted Aronow, saying they should start their own NFT project. Aronow said: "We immediately started brainstorming. One of the ideas was a public digital canvas, which Aronow shared with his old friend Nicole Muniz, who is now the CEO of Yuga. She astutely predicted that someone would draw a little brother on it."

These people just did that. Aronow said: "I was thinking, where would you draw a penis? The answer is: on the wall of a bathroom in a dive bar. What kind of person would go there?" The kind of people he knows on cryptocurrency Twitter, who made their fortunes from cryptocurrency but still just want to play MMORPGs online instead of living the luxurious life expected of millionaires.

Aronow sent Solano the "entire article" to plan this idea, in which the name "Bored Ape Yacht Club" appeared. Aronow recalled: "As a great editor, Solano said - 'That's it. That's it.'" This concept evolved into - millionaires in cryptocurrency are real apes, with the term "apes" meaning that people living in 2031 will compulsively invest in a new project without doing much research. Aronow said he and Solano founded a limited liability company the next day.

"I really want to talk to others, they suddenly created something very popular. This is simply an incredible surreal experience."

They were not artists; at that time, Solano was working in publishing, and Aronow was unemployed, so they hired a team to execute their ideas. Muniz, the founder of a branding consultancy, introduced them to a visual artist known as Seneca, who created the original BAYC concept art based on directions like "grungy punk rock" and "swamp dive bars." Four other artists helped design the original 10,000 apes.

In a report earlier this year, Seneca stated that her compensation for the project was "not ideal." The two said that they compensated her for about four to five days of work, which was roughly equivalent to a five-figure salary at that time for Solano, and at the end of last year, they paid Seneca and four other artists $1 million each.

At the same time, Solano and his friend Ali and