Bored Ape Founder's Interview: We Have Huge Ambitions to Defeat Some Metaverse Giants

On the evening of February 4 this year, 33-year-old Greg Solano and 35-year-old Wylie Aronow learned at home that BuzzFeed News would publish a report revealing their true identities as the founders of the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC).

They had been carefully hiding their identities until then. Solano recalled: "We only received a 20-minute warning." They immediately called to discuss the next steps, worried about safety issues. "To be frank, we have very real safety concerns," Aronow said, "bad actors might try to hack into our accounts. People could show up at our homes or do worse things."

They quickly removed personal information from the internet and warned family members about what was about to happen. While Aronow's immediate family understood the seriousness of the situation, Solano had to explain the specifics to his father - he and Aronow are the creators of BAYC, which was the hottest NFT project on the internet at the time. They launched BAYC through Yuga Labs in April 2021, and the company is currently valued at $4 billion.

BAYC consists of 10,000 unique digital ape avatars, each with a unique combination of features. Last October, a rare ape was sold for $3.4 million at a Sotheby's auction. In the same month, famous artist manager Guy Oseary became a business partner of BAYC.

Nowadays, Bored Apes are everywhere in pop culture, from T-shirts sold by Old Navy to music videos featuring Snoop Dogg and Eminem. Celebrities like Steph Curry, Justin Bieber, and Gwyneth Paltrow own Bored Apes. Despite the collapse 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 about $140,000, down from a high of $434,000 in April.

Solano and Aronow both grew up in Miami. Aronow's father, Don, was murdered in 1987 when Wylie was still an infant. Don was a leading figure in the powerboat industry and mingled with "movie stars, kings, and queens." There are still many conspiracy theories surrounding his death.

Aronow said that the stories he heard from his father's friends often contradicted his mother's version. His childhood was profoundly affected by his father's death. By the age of 15, Aronow was already an alcoholic and a drug addict, having run away from home multiple times. He was later sent to a rehabilitation center, where he read the book "Alcoholics Anonymous" about 50 times, which changed his life.

Solano's parents are both Cuban immigrants. He wanted to be a writer since he was 11, later studying at New York University and the University of Virginia, and working at a small publishing house. In February 2021, Solano texted Aronow: "Hey, do you want to do an NFT?" Aronow said: "I want to do everything. I really want to put in everything because in my mind, I think, maybe I'm getting sick again."

They quickly conceived the concept of BAYC - cryptocurrency millionaires are the real "apes", who compulsively invest in new projects without doing much research. They hired a team of artists to execute this idea and released these apes on the night of April 30, 2021, at a price of $200 each. By the next morning, all collections were sold out.

Today, Yuga Labs has grown into a company with about 70 employees. They are developing a Metaverse project called Otherside, hoping to compete with large companies like Meta. Aronow said: "The ambition and scale of the task we are here to accomplish is immense."

Despite the downturn in the cryptocurrency market, the founders are not worried. Solano said: "Only losers care about bear markets." Aronow added: "We have high profits. We have enough funds to survive any bear market for years and continue to build. We aim to take down some giants."