--- title: "Creators of Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT Reportedly Doxxed" description: "The identities of the creators of the wildly successful NFT project known as the Bored Ape Yacht Club have seemingly been revealed." date: "2022-02-05" modified: "2022-02-05" authors: - name: "Jon Christian" job_title: "Executive Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/jonc" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/bored-apes-reportedly-doxxed" categories: - "Blockchain" - "Future Society" - "NFTs" tags: - "blockchain" - "bored apes" - "nfts" - "the digest" --- # Creators of Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT Reportedly Doxxed ![The identities of the creators of the wildly successful NFT project known as the Bored Ape Yacht Club have seemingly been revealed.]() *\Image: BAYC/Futurism\* ## Dox3 If you've heard *anything* about the NFT craze that's swept the web over the past year, it's probably been about the premier project in the space, the Bored Ape Yacht Club. Bored Ape's NFTs, which depict exactly what you'd expect from the name, have become one of the era's strangest status symbols, picking up celebrity buyers ranging from [Justin Bieber]() to [Eminem](). And now the tokens' creators, whose real life identities had remained shrouded in mystery, appear to [finally have been unmasked]() by *BuzzFeed News*' indominable Katie Notopoulos. Notopoulos' reporting found — drumroll, please — that the pseudonymous cocreators, who go by the handles "Gordon Goner" and "Gargamel," are a pair of little-known American creatives named Wylie Aronow and Greg Solano, respectively. ## Name Game Make of that revelation what you will. On the one hand, whatever you think of NFTs, Aronow and Solano's relative nobody status does corroborate the central ethos of the NFT craze that anybody can create — or at least have a hand in creating, because as *BuzzFeed* pointed out, these two were assisted by several others who remain unidentified — the hottest digital commodities on the web. It's also likely to bring fresh scrutiny onto the entire project, which has already taken heat for everything from [allegations of racism]() to [underpaying the artist who created the actual artworks](). And at the same time, a debate is [now raging]() over the ethics of identifying anonymous internet creators. On the one hand, Aranow and Solano have a right to privacy, and seem to have taken at least some pains to conceal their identities. On the other, [many have pointed out](), they arguably gave up at least some of that right to anonymity by virtue of running a boggling profitable online venture. At the end of the day, at least they've become unfathomably wealthy. **More on NFTs:** [*Guy Accidentally Sells $300,000 “Bored Ape” NFT for 1% of Its Value*]() ## Author I'm responsible for editing, assigning, and scouting at Futurism, as well as occasionally writing for the site. That work involves keeping an eye on a wide range of narratives and issues, but over the past few years I've become increasingly interested in how AI is shaping the future of media, the web, and information itself. My day-to-day often involves collaborating on reporting and commentary projects bylined by my colleagues, but I try to find time to do my own reporting as well; stories I've broken for Futurism have been cited by publications including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New Yorker, Wired, Ars Technica, New York Magazine, the Columbia Journalism Review, Bloomberg, and more. I grew up in Southern Vermont and attended Vanderbilt University. Prior to Futurism, I contributed to outlets including the Boston Globe, Vice, Wired, Slate, the Atlantic, the Outline, Ars Technica and more, and did stints in farming and food service. I currently live in Brooklyn, New York, and in my free time I enjoy pinball, word games, cycling, running, and music production. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()