Dialogue with BAYC Founder: The Biggest Success Story in the NFT World

Original Title: 《Planet of the Bored Apes: Inside the NFT world's biggest success story》

Author: Jessica Klein, Input

Translation: Lao Yapi, FastDaily

On the evening of February 4 this year, 33-year-old Greg Solano and 35-year-old Wylie Aronow received some shocking news at home with their significant partners.

They had just learned that BuzzFeed News would publish a report revealing their identities to the wider world, which they had been carefully hiding (they thought they were doing a good job of it).

Earlier this month, Solano spoke at a hotel in downtown Manhattan, recalling, "We got a 20-minute warning."

As Solano and Aronow often do when making significant or even minor decisions about their business, they immediately made a call, everyone freaked out, and then they planned their next steps. Aronow said, "Frankly, we had very real security concerns." He sat on a bench in the hotel courtyard restaurant next to Solano. Bad actors might try to hack into their accounts. People might show up at their homes or do something worse. They both said, "We don't know what will happen."

They began deleting personal information from the internet. Aronow recalled that he deactivated his Instagram, fearing it might contain clues about his home location, and then they warned their families about what was about to happen to prevent them from becoming targets as well.

While Aronow's immediate family fully understood why the upcoming article would attract so much attention, Solano had to explain the specifics to his father. He and Aronow are the creators of the Bored Ape Yacht Club, the hottest NFT project on the internet. They launched the Bored Ape Yacht Club through Yuga Labs in April 2021, which is currently valued at $4 billion.

The Bored Apes consist of 10,000 unique digital portraits of apes, each with a distinct combination of traits, ranging from common (the "bored" mouth) to ultra-rare (the "solid gold" fur). Last October, a rare ape sold for a staggering $3.4 million at a Sotheby’s auction. In the same month, veteran artist manager Guy Oseary, who represents Madonna and U2, became a business partner of BAYC.

Today, Bored Apes are ubiquitous in pop culture, from T-shirts sold by Old Navy to VMA-nominated music videos featuring Snoop Dogg and Eminem. Celebrities like Steph Curry, Justin Bieber, Gwyneth Paltrow, Post Malone, and Seth Green own Bored Apes. Other high-profile holders include Jimmy Fallon and Paris Hilton, who had a controversial exchange about their apes on The Tonight Show in January of this year. (Solano and Aronow said they had no prior knowledge of Fallon's remarks, and they found it "very surreal" to discuss it on the show.)

Despite the crash of the cryptocurrency and NFT markets this year, Bored Apes are still considered a "blue-chip" investment in the field. The current floor price for an ape is about $140,000, down from a peak of around $434,000 in April. For every secondary sale of a Bored Ape NFT, Yuga Labs earns a 2.5% royalty.

Solano's father knew his son was involved in a project in the NFT and cryptocurrency space, but he only learned the details when he received a call from his son that night in February. Solano, who has Cuban heritage, explained, "I didn't tell my dad because he would tell everyone. He would tell the woman at la carreta (the café)------'My son is the mastermind behind it!' Who else wants to know? Who else wants to know?"

This was a problem because, before the BuzzFeed article was published, most people only knew the usernames they used online------Solano went by Gargamel, named after the villainous wizard from The Smurfs, and Aronow was Gordon Goner, a punk-inspired name, along with their respective ape avatars.

The other two co-founders of BAYC were also in the same boat; they were responsible for the technical aspects. 32-year-old Zeshan Ali went by No Sass, later shortened to Sass (his bio on the BAYC website reads "Here for the gorillas, not for Sass"), and 31-year-old Kerem Atalay, also known as Emperor Tomato Ketchup (the name comes from an album by the indie pop band Stereolab).

And all four of them wanted to keep it that way. In their view, Solano and Aronow were the ones who had been cornered. (Ali and Atalay's identities were not disclosed in the article.) BuzzFeed News senior tech reporter Katie Notopoulos disagreed with this assessment. Notopoulos told Input, "I would characterize it as news. Many other rational people would think so too." As she explained in June's Untangled podcast, "We don't understand the operators of a company worth billions of dollars, which seems to violate all social norms."

While devising a plan of action over the phone, Solano and Aronow decided it would be best to post their photos on Twitter to "out themselves." Solano marveled, "Aronow quickly found a good photo of himself. They didn't beat BuzzFeed's report, but they revealed their true identities to the internet within an hour of the article being published."

Four days later, Ali and Atalay followed suit, posting their names and photos on Twitter. Atalay said, "We wanted to have more control over the narrative and make it something worth celebrating beyond just Greg and Wylie."

Months later, Solano and Aronow are trying to reclaim control over their own narrative. Thus, this meeting, accompanied by their public relations personnel, finally tells their story in full for the first time and publicly addresses the significant controversy that has plagued them for over a year.

'F*CKING EVIL'

Throughout our time together, Solano and Aronow exude a brotherly yet guarded atmosphere. Solano says, "We are the most superstitious people in the world." He wore a brown T-shirt for the interview because Aronow thought he needed "yellow energy."

Aronow wore an amber bracelet he considered "positive," hardly touching his cheeseburger. At one point, Solano jokingly teased his friend's eating habits. He said, "Wylie only eats things like cheeseburgers and chicken wraps. We joke that he has a 'baby mouth.'"

I later learned that this was due to a debilitating illness that had kept Aronow bedridden for most of the past decade since his twenties. He can now manage his condition, but it remains unstable, and even salad is a threat that could trigger his illness (he won't say what it is) to flare up again.

The pressure is immense. As Yuga's public face now, it seems to be a headache. The company is growing: in March, it purchased two of the most popular NFT series, CryptoPunks and Meebits, from creator Larva Labs. Shortly thereafter, Yuga launched its own cryptocurrency, ApeCoin.

In the days following our conversation, Yuga will host a large-scale demonstration of Otherside, an immersive game developed in collaboration with the UK studio Improbable. But this is not just a game------it marks the beginning of the Web3 metaverse, opening up to the public beyond the Bored Ape community. Yuga will compete directly with major companies like Meta.

However, the pressure from lawsuits is even greater. In June, Yuga sued conceptual artist Ryder Ripps (known for collaborations with artists like Kanye West and brands like Gucci) for trademark infringement and other complaints, as he created an NFT series identical to Bored Apes in May. According to Artnet, the project is estimated to have generated $1.8 million in profit. (The mainstream NFT marketplace OpenSea removed the series).

But Ripps' knockoff project (known as RR/BAYC) is just part of the problem. (Ripps told Input that he collaborated with three others to develop RR/BAYC, including Jeremy Cahen, the creator of the NFT marketplace, who has also been sued). Since the end of last year, Ripps has been very publicly accusing BAYC of being rife with racist and neo-Nazi symbolism. The founders of BAYC have denied these claims, stating that they were all part of a plan to drum up interest in Ripps' knockoff apes.

Solano said, "For anyone who knows our history, it's extremely obvious how ridiculous this is. That said, the trolls' obsession, malice, and frankly how fucking evil the whole thing is, it's hard."

A serious expression crossed Aronow's face as he described the impact of the online hate they faced due to these accusations. He said, "It's like that every day."

The Odd Couple

Aronow said, "In terms of background, we really are an odd couple." He referred to his friendship with Solano. This is evident. The first thing you notice is the significant height difference between the two business partners: Aronow stands 6 feet 2 inches tall, towering over Solano.

Aronow has thick black hair and is covered in tattoos (he feels embarrassed about the vivid portrait of writer Charles Bukowski on his right arm, which he got as a teenager). His voice is deep and booming. He is the human embodiment of the NFT enthusiast rallying cry "LFG" ("Let's Fucking Go"). Solano is bald, has a goatee, and speaks softly, referring to Aronow as the perfect motivational "gym buddy."

Aronow said, "We fight over every idea, whether it's a simple tweet or an entire NFT project. In fact, our friendship began with a fight. About ten years ago, we first met at a dive bar in Miami during a college break, where they started debating the merits of David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest; Solano hadn't even read the book, but he reflexively hated it because his creative writing classmates praised it. They kept in touch long-distance, arguing about books, movies, and ideas, and played World of Warcraft online together."

A few years later, in 2017, the two began discussing cryptocurrency. Like others, they tried to make some money during the bull market. But what interested them most was the potential of the Ethereum blockchain, on which decentralized applications were built, including gamified collectibles like CryptoKitties, where you could buy, trade, and breed unique cartoon cats to create more Kitties.

Despite his interest in digital collectibles, Solano didn't buy his first NFT until early 2021. Shortly thereafter, in February, Solano texted Aronow about starting their own NFT project. Aronow said, "We immediately started brainstorming. One of the ideas was a public digital canvas, which Aronow shared with his old friend Nicole Muniz, who is now the CEO of Yuga. She astutely predicted that someone would draw a little penis on it."

They did just that. Aronow said, "I thought, where would you draw a penis? The answer is: on the bathroom wall of a dive bar. And what kind of person would go there? The kind of person I knew from crypto Twitter, who had made wealth from cryptocurrency but still just wanted to play MMORPGs online instead of living the expected millionaire lifestyle."

Aronow sent Solano "the whole article" to plan the idea, which included the name "Bored Ape Yacht Club." Aronow recalled, "As a great editor, Solano said------'That's it. That's it.'" The concept evolved into------in cryptocurrency, millionaires are the real apes, with "apes" meaning that people living in 2031 would compulsively invest in a new project without doing much research. Aronow said he and Solano formed an LLC the next day. (The information that BuzzFeed reporters used to identify their identities was mainly related to Solano's address at the time.)

"I really wanted to talk to others who suddenly created something very popular. It was just incredibly surreal."

They were not artists; at the time, Solano was working in publishing, and Aronow was unemployed, so they hired a team to execute their ideas. Muniz, the founder of a branding consultancy, introduced them to a visual artist known as Seneca, who created the initial BAYC concept art based on directions like "grungy punk rock" and "dive bars in the Everglades." Four other artists helped design the original 10,000 apes.

In a profile earlier this year in Rolling Stone, Seneca described her compensation for the project as "not ideal." The two said they compensated her about what Solano's five-figure salary was at the time for four to five days of work, and by the end of last year, they paid Seneca and the other four artists $1 million each. (Seneca did not respond to Input's request for comment).

Meanwhile, Solano reached out to his friends Ali and Atalay, whom he met while studying computer science at the University of Maryland. (Solano met Atalay first when they were both at the University of Virginia------Solano was pursuing a master's in art, and Atalay was an undergraduate). Ali grew up on the West Coast, with parents who were immigrants from Guatemala and Pakistan, who met in an English class. Atalay's parents were also immigrants from Turkey; he said he had a "normal, suburban upbringing," mainly in Washington, D.C.

Solano is not a programmer, so he asked them if they knew Javascript, which is not the relevant coding language for blockchain. The tech duo quickly learned the correct programming language------Solidity. Atalay said, "That was the easiest part." Because the ERC-721 token standard used for NFT programming had long been made public, it was easy to use as a template.

The complexity lay in managing the multiple components of the project: the website, smart contracts, token-gated community space, and tying them all together. Ali said, "We only had two people, especially both just learning blockchain programming, so it was a big challenge to do this."

But they did it. The presale and minting launched on April 23. And on the night of April 30, 2021 (the date of Hitler's death), as Ryder Ripps and other BAYC conspiracy theorists would point out------the quartet released the apes at a price of $200 each. Then they went to sleep.

Around 3 a.m. on May 1, Ali received a call from Atalay. He said Ali thought there was a "big problem," but instead, he and Atalay watched as the collectibles sold out in real-time in the early morning hours. (It turned out that the news of BAYC had spread through the fervent NFT community). At that moment, they knew they had created something big.

This all happened nearly 15 months ago. Shortly thereafter, all four co-founders began working full-time at Yuga Labs. Yuga added new NFTs to the ape family, giving them dogs in June 2021 (via an airdrop from the Bored Ape Club) and mutant apes in August; the latter series sold for $96 million within an hour of its launch. Steph Curry was one of the first celebrity holders, purchasing his ape for about $180,000 that same month.

In September 2021, Muniz joined as a partner (a month before Oseary) and became CEO in January of this year. In March 2022, Yuga Labs raised $450 million in a funding round led by a16z. Today, the company has about 70 employees. Aronow said, "I really wanted to talk to others who suddenly created something that became so crazily popular. It's just incredibly surreal."

The four founders insist they do not live a lavish lifestyle. They have all bought houses in various locations across the U.S., which they refuse to disclose (except for Solano, who lives in Miami). But Solano and Aronow say they spend most of their time at home, working at least 10 hours in their home offices------Solano's office is bare, while Aronow's is filled with BAYC memorabilia and children's wallpaper, which he says came with the house.

But they do get to meet celebrities, like Snoop Dogg and Colin Kaepernick. Aronow said, "Sometimes Guy will introduce us to someone on speakerphone. Oseary will hold his phone up to the screen. He'll FaceTime with someone I completely idolize." Aronow's favorite celebrity is primatologist Jane Goodall (Yuga Labs contributes 1% of the total supply of ApeCoin to her foundation). Solano said he enjoys meeting digital artist Beeple.

For Solano, perhaps the biggest change is that he now takes celebrity business calls in stride. He said that in the past, he was just as introverted: "I wouldn't think to call and order pizza."

The Eccentric Figures

Solano and Aronow both grew up in Miami, and they lament that the city has become less cool due to the industry they are in. Their Miami is not the concrete jungle of cryptocurrency bros living in downtown high-rises. Aronow said his Miami is particularly "lush, beautiful, and full of very strange characters."

As a child, he encountered many such characters------powerful "80s Miami Vice-style guys," who were old friends of his father. They would take him out to lunch and tell him stories about his father, Don Aronow, who was murdered in 1987 when Wylie was still an infant.

Aronow said: Don Aronow was the son of Jewish immigrants born in Brooklyn, who made a fortune in the construction industry in New Jersey in the 1950s and later became a leader in the powerboat industry, gaining fame in the process. He witnessed "the emergence of the industry" there, selling boats to "movie stars, kings, and queens" and dealing with them.

Former President George H.W. Bush was a friend who owned one of Don's powerboats. U.S. border security personnel used his boats------just like the drug smugglers they were pursuing. John Travolta played Don in the 2018 film Speed Kills, which Aronow described as "terrible," with RogerEbert.com giving it half a star.

In 1987, Don was shot dead in his car in North Beach. He was 59 at the time. About a decade later, two men (one a former competitor in the powerboat industry and allegedly the hitman he hired) pleaded "no contest" to his murder. However, many conspiracy theories still surround the businessman’s death, involving mob connections and a jealous partner of a supposed mistress. According to online speculation, Don was also a CIA agent.

Regardless of the true nature of Don's life and death, Aronow said the stories he heard from his father's friends often conflicted with those from his mother (former Wilhelmina model Lillian Aronow), and his death deeply affected Wylie's childhood. He grew up in a coconut grove with his mother, stepfather, and an older brother who was eight years his senior and a "bar hero" in the Miami punk scene.

Aronow said he didn't want to offend his parents but described his family environment as "dysfunctional." His childhood was spent largely in video games like Final Fantasy. By around age 12, he often ran away from home, attending local punk rock shows like his older brother before him. There, Aronow found a "second family" made up of similarly troubled figures.

By age 15, Aronow was an alcoholic and addict. He would run away from home for months at a time, sleeping with other young runaways on construction sites and in mangroves. He said he had been sent to the same "court-ordered treatment" facility twice. He added, "One of the facility heads said I was the worst case of teenage alcoholism he had ever seen."

He was sent to a second "very chaotic" facility. He said: It was the kind of place Paris Hilton went to, where they would kidnap you at night and take you to the desert. The people running the Utah center wouldn't let him read anything except the Bible or a self-help book, which is basically the Bible for anonymous alcoholics. Aronow chose the latter, saying he read that book about 50 times while in Utah, and it changed his life.

He said, "The moment I got back to Miami, I became the A.A. captain, trying to help other alcoholics see the same message I felt in the desert." At that time, he was only 15, smoking and drinking black coffee with sober people decades older than him (these days, Aronow occasionally drinks but does not do drugs).

"I really wanted to give everything because in my mind, I thought, maybe I'm going to get sick again."

Aronow went to college with hopes of entering a top MFA program, like the one taught by his hero------writer George Saunders at Syracuse University. Those dreams were dashed when Aronow fell seriously ill in his twenties and had to drop out.

Similarly, Aronow won't name his illness------given his superstitious nature, he doesn't want to give it "that kind of energy." But it kept him bedridden for most of a "really dark decade." His family supported him financially due to his illness. He traveled across the country looking for doctors who could help him (most of whom were ineffective), learned meditation, and hung out in online communities, "scraping by" through Twitch streaming and YouTubers. He dabbled in cryptocurrency trading but never held a real 9-to-5 job. Somehow, he managed to meet his current girlfriend.

Eventually, in his early 30s, he found the right specialists, the right medication, and the right diet. His illness improved. Then, at the same time, the rest of the world fell ill. The COVID pandemic took hold. With everyone stuck at home, people sought ways to engage in community activities online, just as Aronow had done for the past decade. NFTs as art and collectibles exploded onto the scene.

Then, in February 2021, Solano texted Aronow, "Hey, do you want to do an NFT?"

Aronow said, "At that moment, I thought, I want to do anything. I really wanted to give everything because in my mind, I thought, maybe I'm going to get sick again."

Ordinary People

Solano himself admits that his backstory is far less dramatic than Aronow's. His parents were both Cuban immigrants who came to the U.S. when his mother was a baby, and his father joined the Communist youth group, the Young Pioneers, when he was old enough. (Solano only first visited Cuba about seven years ago).

Solano's mother lived in Miami her whole life, while his father moved there after serving in the U.S. Army Special Forces (also known as the Green Berets) in his twenties. His parents divorced when Solano was 11, and he and his sister lived with their mother, who worked for a television network, which she refused to name.

Solano wanted to be a writer from the age of 11. After graduating from New York University, he moved south to earn an MFA from the University of Virginia, which he said ultimately became "the best time of my life." He could spend all his time writing, quickly made friends, and met his future wife, now a professional landscape designer, who first connected with him because she liked his poetry.

"You see the founders online as larger-than-life figures. Then when you meet them, you think, well, that could really be me."

After graduating from the University of Virginia, he found a job at a small publishing house, working on licensed intellectual property------Harry Potter coloring books and World of Warcraft manuals. It wasn't a dream job, nor was it the highest-paying job (a cheap Bored Ape NFT now sells for twice what he was making then), but it was satisfying. He said, "It would be great to retire and write a physical book."

He realized the ironic fact that------his work is now almost intangible. He said, "But at the same time, we've been working to make it more tangible."

Indeed, BAYC has real-life perks (including access to branded merchandise like hats and hoodies). More importantly, ape holders own the intellectual property of their apes, opening up vast opportunities for branding. Actor Seth Green said, "When you talk about people spending X dollars on any of these bored apes, what that spending includes is a promise, an opportunity, to become the next Mickey Mouse!"

(This May, Green lost his bored ape Fred in a phishing scam. Green later managed to regain ownership of his ape, saying he reached a "multifaceted" agreement with the NFT collector who bought the ape from the scammer, and he told Input, "The L.A. County Sheriff's cybercrime unit is handling the case. Once I reached an agreement and got my ape back, I felt relieved, able to look at this market with a god's eye view. Rather than feeling so crazy, as if all my plans were terminated with a keystroke.")

Beyond business, there is also fun in the form of IRL events. Last fall, in conjunction with the NFT.NYC conference, BAYC organized its first ApeFest, culminating in a warehouse party in Brooklyn with performances by The Strokes, Beck, and Lil Baby (an early celebrity ape holder).

At that time, the founders could enjoy the celebratory events without being recognized by the wider BAYC community. Ali said, "I remember last year at ApeFest, I could hang out with anyone, and no one knew who I was. Once the leak happened, I knew that would be different." The second ApeFest, during the return of NFT.NYC in June, featured four nights of performances, including LCD Soundsystem, HAIM, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, and (again) Lil Baby.

There are also more low-key BAYC gatherings held around the world. For example, the one I attended after our interview with Solano and Aronow. It was held on a leafy terrace of a dark basement bar in downtown Manhattan, with about 15 ape holders, one of whom launched his own line of hot sauce featuring his bored ape, gathering to drink. Like the NFT scene overall, the group skews young and male.

Plans for ApeFest 2023 are emerging. Someone said, "I would love to go to Las Vegas. I don't know how many apes live in Las Vegas, but…" Another suggested bringing the festival to the desert. A prominent community member, Josh Ong, responded, "Apechella!" The concept of a 2025 Tokyo ApeFest was proposed. Solano suggested going to "some mountain."

After a quick group photo, the founders' public relations personnel whisked them back to the hotel. But some insisted on staying, so I asked them what it felt like to meet the creators of BAYC. A young man on Twitter named Doris Burke (not the ESPN broadcaster, as his bio stated) said, "It's almost surreal because they are just, like, ordinary people."

He continued, "You see them online as larger-than-life figures, and then when you meet them in person, you think, well, that could really be me."

"Evil Trolls"

Not everyone sees the founders of BAYC as "ordinary people." There are many critics on Twitter who view them as opportunists at the top of a monkey JPEG pyramid scheme, a charge Input has previously investigated. (The founders naturally disagree with this characterization.) Of course, there are perhaps their most vocal critics------Ryder Ripps.

Ripps launched a website, GordonGoner.com, earlier this year, where he compared Yuga Labs' logo to the Totenkopf symbol used by the Nazis and claimed that the word Yuga is a reference to anti-rightist movements. (The company states that the name comes from a villain in the Nintendo 3DS game The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds).

Ripps believes that all the founders' pseudonyms have sinister meanings. Gordon Goner is a play on "drongo negro." Gargamel from The Smurfs is an anti-Semitic depiction of a Jew. Sass is a combination of "the two main Nazi military branches," namely the SA and SS. Ripps pointed out that Emperor Tomato Ketchup was originally the title of a Japanese film that was widely censored for being considered child pornography.

Additionally, Ripps claims that the apes themselves are racist------an example of "apeing," where people compare a racial or ethnic group to monkeys to demean them. He also pointed out some allegedly problematic ape traits, including the "Prussian helmet" (which Ripps claims is another Nazi dog whistle) and the "sushi chef headband."

Others have picked up his gun and gone further, such as popular YouTuber Philion, who recently released a one-hour video titled "Bored Ape Nazi Club," dissecting Yuga's imagery. So far, the video has been viewed over 1.6 million times.

Earlier this year, Input investigated Ripps' claims, speaking with the artist himself and consulting experts from the Anti-Defamation League, who expressed skepticism about most of the accusations. However, experts from the Anti-Defamation League did agree with Ripps that the "hip-hop" traits (gold chains, gold teeth) and "sushi chef headband" are problematic. However, one researcher told Input at the time, "It's hard to infer that the people behind them are white supremacists."

Aronow compared this controversy to the rumors surrounding his father both during his life and after his death: "We are all shrouded in a world of conspiracy bullshit." He and Solano became serious and measured in their wording when discussing Ripps. The accusations are understandably a sensitive topic. (The next day during their photo shoot, Aronow noticed that the sleeve of his green military jacket had a badge that looked German. He repeatedly said, "That's not my jacket." The photography team promised to edit out that detail).

The founders said Ripps is a "malicious troll" skilled at "moving the goalposts" to make them look bad in front of those who are unaware of the situation. They pointed out the factional line that Aronow and Oseary are Jewish, while the other three Yuga founders are children of immigrants.

Oseary said, "In the early days, I was really offended. I even reached out to Ripps. I wanted him to know through my conversation with him that I would never be associated with something like that. You know, I'm Israeli, I'm Jewish."

"This should always be a fun, rebellious club. It should never transcend any form of criticism."

The founders added that Ripps has deliberately sought to provoke them into suing him. (In June, Yuga Labs filed a lawsuit against Ripps in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, claiming that Ripps "deceived consumers into purchasing RR/BAYC NFTs by abusing Yuga Labs' trademarks" and "flooded the NFT market with a knockoff NFT series using original Bored Ape Yacht Club images, devaluing Bored Ape NFTs").

Ripps said, "By implying that I'm doing this for money, it's a distraction from the validity of my criticism." He called his series a "protest and parody of BAYC." In a video interview with The Defiant, Ripps referred to RR/BAYC as "possibly the greatest work I've ever done." He added, "It proves what NFTs are. It's a provocation against a company. It raises a very important question. It's creating an army of educators."

While discussing the controversy with Solano and Aronow at the hotel, I brought up features like the sushi chef headband. Solano said, "This was supposed to be a fun, unrestrained club. It should never transcend any form of criticism."

Aronow added, "It's hard not to offend everyone in the world."

Entering the Metaverse

Three days after meeting Solano and Aronow, I found myself standing in an all-white room surrounded by a group of seemingly stone-like robots. About 4,500 of us (including the four founders) gathered as Curtis, a giant ape in a Hawaiian shirt and captain's hat, explained the journey we were about to embark on. Beside him was a short, stout alien creature named Koda. The person was called Blue.

Curtis announced at the start of Yuga Labs' new metaverse's public demonstration, "Welcome, travelers, to another world. Or rather, to infinite space, somewhat like a hall of other worlds."

After some guidance on how to make our avatars dance and such, we opened a hole below us. We were all sucked into a swirling rainbow tunnel that spat us out onto a lush little island. Curtis joked, "Wow, nerds, it's raining!"

For the next hour or so, we nerds completed a series of tasks under the guidance of Curtis and Blue. We searched for a "new pair of glasses" for someone who broke theirs at the recent NFT.NYC conference and teamed up to incapacitate the dangerous, drunken Koda (we were told this was the "first boss battle" in Otherside). At the end of the demonstration, everyone struck a pose for a "selfie."

The reaction to this demonstration on crypto Twitter was enthusiastic. A few days later, Solano, Aronow, and I chatted on Zoom about how the demonstration went. Aronow said, "Honestly, it was one of our best launches." They pointed out that while there are tasks to complete in Otherside and drunken bad guys to overthrow, the focus of the game is not that it is a game. It is a virtual leisure space where players can simply hang out with their ape buddies, purchasing assets in the world with ape coins and owning them as NFTs.

They explained that this is an "interoperable metaverse," as people can bring their NFTs in and out of Otherside and use them elsewhere on Web3. For example, Fortnite makes money by having players purchase assets in the game, like skins for their avatars; its publisher, Epic Games, made over $9 billion from the game in 2018 and 2019. Aronow said, "All this value is going into the metaverse, and none of it is coming out."

It is also a collaborative metaverse. Travelers (users who purchased with Otherdeed tokens) receive a piece of land in the metaverse that they can use however they wish (according to Otherside documents: "under the guidance of the community's knowledge"). Navigators can also provide feedback through Discord servers, which will likely influence the shape of Otherside. Aronow explained, "They are iteratively inputting what this will become every step of the way."

"The ambition and scale of what we are trying to accomplish here is enormous."

He continued that this will help Yuga compete with internet giants like Meta in the race toward the ultimate metaverse. He said, "The ambition and scale of what we are trying to accomplish here is enormous."

Solano and Aronow believe they are the right people for the job. Aronow said, "In the wrong hands (potentially bad actors), the metaverse could be a utopian, terrifying place." They envision their metaverse as lush, beautiful, and full of very strange characters. (Though perhaps, as someone said in the group chat during the Otherside demonstration, it will be filled with "a lot of men.")

They said it will take years to develop Otherside. But when it is ready, one has to wonder, who will care? The cryptocurrency world moves quickly, and by then, won't the ape craze have already passed? Additionally, the cryptocurrency and NFT markets have been declining recently.

When I brought up the ongoing crypto winter at the hotel, Solano told me, "The game that losers are playing is the one that cares about bear markets." Moreover, they are not worried. They have plenty of money.

Aronow added, "Our profits are particularly high. We have a very substantial war chest here to ensure we can survive, and not just survive, but build during any bear market for years to come. Just keep building, building, building."

This is a huge challenge, something the founders could never have imagined when they were just a pair of completely anonymous partners discussing sketches of little penises on a hypothetical bathroom wall. Aronow said, "We might be the biggest company in the NFT space right now, but in terms of building the metaverse, we are far from the biggest company. We have to slay some giants."