Yuga Labs CEO Says Outing The BAYC Founders Was Very Dangerous

The Yuga Labs CEO Nicole Muniz bashed Buzzfeed for outing the Bored Ape founders and also said that she believes in the freedom of the press. However, outing the identities of the founders was very dangerous according to Muniz so let’s read further in today’s latest cryptocurrency news today.

The CEO of Yuga Labs Nicole Muniz which is the company behind the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection, criticized Buzzfeed for revealing the identity of the founders of the collection:

“Releasing their identities and frankly only giving us 30 minutes was very, very dangerous for them and their families. We believe in freedom of the press. We believe in journalistic integrity.”

The BAYC backlash also reveals how many people lack basic business knowledge. Even if you’re running a private company, you still must file paperwork with the government to disclose company founder name(s), location, corp. structure, etc. The regulations vary by state, but still https://t.co/hM4RnqHrf6

— Tatiana Walk-Morris (@Tati_WM) February 5, 2022

She also added that she wanted time to make sure the founders’ families knew and were safe. Muniz did say that she and her company believe in the freedom of the press but she did criticize Buzfeed’s story for not having a real purpose:

 “The thing is, is like, if it was for something, it would have been okay. It was a story about ‘what if,’ and that sort of leaves me with this feeling of just like, it just felt so dangerous. And the only thing that people got out of it was just knowing their real names.”

The danger revolved mainly around potentially attracting characters in the crypto industry:

“In the crypto community, there are these things called crypto whales. It’s people who have made a lot of money in crypto. And it’s attracted some nefarious characters and it has put people in severe jeopardy.”

She also noted that there was a misconception that the founders are crypto whales. Earlier this month, Buzzfeed published an investigation that revealed Wylie Aranow and Greg Solano as the founders of Bored Ape. The investigation didn’t reveal anything negative about the individuals and earned Buzzfeed a bashing on Twitter from the entire crypto community:

“Doxxing people for clicks and ad revenue. Typical Buzzfeed trash. Wonder if I can short Buzzfeed somehow.”

Outside the world of crypto, the Buzzfeed story didn’t generate quite the controversy. It is common for the public to know the identities of the people behind companies and for journalists to reveal identities  however the founder of the news curation service Gabe Rivera described the Buzzfeed piece as a “standard business reporting.” He noted:

“Calling it illegitimate implicitly asserts only certain wealthy, connected people should continue to know the identities behind folks orchestrating billions in transactions.”