The Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), a collection of simian avatars created by four anonymous founders, has quickly grown into a lucrative company in an emerging area. The founders have discussed the roots of the concept of a group of elite apes living in a swamp clubhouse with media such as Rolling Stone and the New Yorker.
Meet the BAYC members
1. Greg Solano aka Gargamel
Greg Solano, one of the major bored ape yacht club founders, was born and raised in Miami. The 32-year-old is a former editor and book critic who earned her MFA from the University of Virginia.
He and one of the game’s designers collaborated on a book about ‘World of Warcraft.’
His brother-in-law was first introduced to cryptocurrency in 2017 when he purchased a little amount of ethereum. Later that year, he convinced Wylie to join the crypto community. They started looking for innovative capitalization ideas together after that.
Got doxed so why not. Web2 me vs Web3 me. pic.twitter.com/jfmzo5NtrH
β Garga.eth (@CryptoGarga) February 5, 2022
2. Wylie Aronow aka Gordon Goner
Wylie Aronow was born and raised in Miami as well. He, too, aspired to be a writer like Solano.
Gordon Goner enrolled in an MFA program, but had to withdraw out due to health concerns.
The 35-year-old lived in Chicago for a short time and was once interviewed for the Chicago Tribune’s “Readers of the Week” section.
NFTs, according to Wylie, needed to serve a purpose other than becoming virtual treasures. He sought to give the token’s buyers some utility and importance. He also worked part-time as a day trader.
So Wylie came up with the idea of starting a club in BAYC for like-minded people to get together and crack jokes while discussing crypto, and Greg agreed. What happened after that is now part of history!
Bitmex, a cryptocurrency corporation, took Wylie to arbitration in May 2021 over a disputed domain name. According to Bitmex, Wylie purchased the domain name bitmex.guru in 2018, which was established to deceive users looking for the real Bitmex website.
Wylie failed to appear, and the judge ordered that the domain name be transferred as a result of his failure to appear.
Got doxxed against my will. Oh well.
Web2 me vs. Web3 me pic.twitter.com/uLkpsJ5LvN
β GordonGoner.eth (@GordonGoner) February 5, 2022
3. Zeshan aka No Sass
Greg and Wylie approached Zeshan about bringing shape to their bored ape concept. He, like Kerem and Greg, was a computer science graduate of the University of Virginia.
In true cat-out-of-the-bag tradition, No Sass tweeted his photo.
Welp, here we go…
Hey, I’m Zeshan. Nice to meet y’all (:
Web2 me vs. Web3 me pic.twitter.com/0AnqurQ1el
β Sass (@SassBAYC) February 8, 2022
4. Kerem aka Emperor Tomato Ketchup
Kerem is an engineer who helped the main bored ape yacht club founders breathe life into their abstract idea by creating NFTs. He graduated in Computer Science from Gregβs university.
He self doxxed his identity a few days after the identities of the BAYC main founders were revealed. Thus, Emperor Tomato Ketchup spilled the beans when he tweeted out his picture alongside the caption.
Seems like the cat is out of the bag anyway, so…
Hi, I’m Kerem
web2 me vs. web3 me pic.twitter.com/v7i4JDCTlcβ EmperorTomatoKetchup (@TomatoBAYC) February 8, 2022
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