TWO NFT millionaires behind Bored Apes Yacht Club have been unmasked for the first time.
Greg Solano and Wylie Aronow decided to reveal their true identities to the world after a report exposed them.
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The likes of Paris Hilton, Jimmy Fallon, Eminem and Justin Bieber are among the ever-growing list of celebrity members that have bought into the elite club’s collection of ape avatar NFTs.
The avatars act as a deed of ownership that members can use to prove they own the one-and-only version of the image, of which there are 10,000.
But the illusive illustrative creators behind it have remained anonymous – until now.
The pair decided to show their faces publicly for the first time after a BuzzFeed News report worked out their identities.
Public business records for the club’s owner Yuga Labs made it possible to uncover who they are.
Posting on their respective ape Twitter accounts, both revealed their real appearance against their avatars.
35-year-old Aronow goes by Gordon Goner, while 32-year-old Solano is under the pseudonym Gargamel.
They both used the “Web2 me vs. Web3 me” meme to out themselves, a trend where people compare a photo of themselves in the real world alongside an NFT or avatar.
The two men are from Florida.
Bored Ape has other illustrators but they have managed to keep their identities hidden for now.
With cryptocurrency on the rise, creatives have turned to selling their content as NFTs, usually purchased with Ethereum.
Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs are generally available to purchase through secondary markets such as OpenSea.
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What is an NFT?
Here’s a simple guide…
- NFTs are a hot new tradable item taking the internet by storm
- The letters NFT stand for “non-fungible token”
- If something is “fungible”, it can be traded for an identical counterpart
- For instance, Bitcoin is technically fungible – you can swap one for another, and have the same thing
- Physical cash is also fungible – you could trade one £10 note for another
- An NFT is a totally unique digital token with no copies
- Like Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, NFTs work using a blockchain
- A blockchain is a public ledger of transactions recorded across the internet – and is totally unalterable
- The NFTs on the blockchain can be traded like Bitcoin, but they’re unique by design
- This gives them a special value, because each NFT is individual and unique
- You can turn almost any kind of data into an NFT
- People are selling digital artworks, songs and even tweets in NFT form
- More elaborate NFT sales include virtual trainers/sneakers and even a virtual house
- Importantly, NFTs are not physical – so if you buy an NFT object, you’re just owning a part of the blockchain and NOT a physical item
In other news, Apple has revealed a bunch of new emoji for iPhone, including a pregnant man and two saucy symbols.
Experts have warned that future space launches could be jeopardised if “stupid” regimes like Russia don’t stop blasting the skies creating debris.
And the most popular phone since the millennium has been unveiled, with many shocked to find out it’s not an iPhone.
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