American internet media and entertainment company Buzzfeed has revealed the identities of two of the original four Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT collection founders “Gordon Goner” and “Gargamel” to be Greg Solano and Wylie Aronow in the real life.
Journalist Kate Notopoulos is the author of the February 4 article titled “We found the real names of the pseudonymous founders of the Bored Ape Yacht Club”.
Notopoulos was able to uncover the pair’s identities by researching publicly available records from Yuga Labs, the company behind the collection. Yuga was incorporated in Delaware with an address associated with Greg Solano and other records pointing to Wylie Aronow.
Doxxed against my will. Never mind.
Web2 me vs Web3 me pic.twitter.com/uLkpsJ5LvN
— GordonGoner.eth (@GordonGoner) February 5, 2022
The tech journalist argued that “there are reasons why, in the traditional business world, the CEO or founder of a company uses their real name and not a pseudonym,” adding that “the people behind BAYC woo investors and run a business that is potentially worth billions.
“How do you hold them accountable if you don’t know who they are? »
Officers of publicly traded companies must be named in Securities and Exchange Commission filings and reports. When it comes to small private companies, banking regulations and “know your customer” laws require managers to use their real names in many cases.
“These laws are intended in part to prevent terrorists, criminals, or sanctioned nations from doing business in the United States,” Notopoulos wrote.
However, the non-consensual exposure of Aronow’s and Solano’s identities drew heated criticism from members of the Web3 community, who described the article as “doxxing” rather than proper journalistic practice.
I was doxed so why not. Web2 me versus Web3 me. pic.twitter.com/jfmzo5NtrH
— Garga.eth (@CryptoGarga) February 5, 2022
In a February 5 Tweeter, crypto podcaster “Cobie” called the article “typical Buzzfeed trash,” saying it “doxxed people for clicks and ad revenue.” Meanwhile, venture capitalist Mike Solana wrote “there was absolutely no reason to dox these guys”, adding “they are literally cartoon monkeys”.
Messari founder Ryan Selkis was also clearly unhappy with the story, sharing a 2009 Tweeter by Notopoulos who used a homophobic slur.
As for Notopoulos, she seemed relatively unfazed by the backlash. She job a screenshot of messages sent by someone threatening to make their personal information public, including their “location, place of work, parents’ home and addresses of siblings”.
Responding to the threat, she asked the person if he was a “big strong guy”, to which they replied, “No, I’m a degenerate”. She replied, “Oh shit. They have a heavy chest of drawers that they need help moving to the garage.
Related: Daniele Sestagalli discusses the future of Wonderland after QuadrigaCX co-founder dox
On Feb. 4 (the same day the article was published), Yuga Labs reported that the NFT Collection was in funding talks with one of Silicon Valley’s leading venture capitalists, A16z, which had assessed the $5 billion collection.
Solano and Aronow are not the first big names in the crypto space to go public this year. On January 27, Cointelegraph published allegations that the real identity of the co-founder of the DeFi protocol “Wonderland”, “@0xSifu”, also co-founded the now defunct Canadian exchange, QuadrigaCX.
