On Friday, the makers behind the Bored Apes Yacht Club (BAYC) were revealed by BuzzFeed as two men in their 30s from Florida, Greg Solano and Wylie Aronow, using the pseudonyms Gargamel and Gordon Goner, respectively.
The report triggered an outcry from the crypto community who see this as “doxing,” (including Solano and Aronow) with many claiming there’s no journalistic or public interest need for the pair’s real-world identities to be known.
Sleuthing: However, BuzzFeed claims it merely reported information that was already public and found the pair by searching public business records for Yuga Labs, the company behind the BAYC.
It discovered that Yuga Labs had an address affiliated with Solano and then uncovered other public records that connected Solano with Aronow.
Why it matters: “The backlash isn’t surprising but it betrays deep ignorance about the function of journalism and an entitled belief that crypto must be covered on its own terms,” wrote Los Angeles Times deputy business editor Jeff Bercovici in a Twitter thread.
Too big to hide: The BAYC collection has recently become the most expensive group of NFTs with the cheapest now going for almost $300,000 and giving the Bored Apes a market capitalization of $2.8 billion.
It was last week reported by Axios Yuga Labs is in talks with venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz about an investment that would value it at $5 billion. Last month, celebrity socialite Paris Hilton showed off her Bored Ape on The Tonight Show with host Jimmy Fallon who himself bought one last year for around $216,000.
The bottom line: The crypto community and internet communities broadly place a high value on anonymity. However, the more you do, the more you’re worth and the more influence you have increases the level of interest in who you are.
That Satoshi Nakamoto, bitcoin’s mysterious creator, has remained anonymous all this time is nothing short of a modern miracle and he only managed it by walking away. No one should expect to remain anonymous forever.
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