As a reminder, the article is about revealing the real identities of the developers of Bored Ape Yach Club’s NFT collection. As we’ve already noted, these are two Florida-based developers Wylie Aronove and Greg Solano. It was they who lurked under the pseudonyms Gordon Goner and Gorgamel.

The material was published by Buzzfeed staff and received heavy criticism for it. As popular representatives of the blockchain community said, there was no point in revealing the developers’ real identities, because they did nothing wrong themselves. Well, the journalists simply decided to make money from the clicks. Read more about the beginning of the situation in a separate article.

NFT tokens of the Bored Ape Yacht Club line

Buzzfeed scandal

In a recent interview, Muniz noted that the aforementioned article could put Aronove, Solano and their families in danger. Here is Muniz’s rejoinder in which she shares her perspective on the situation.

Revealing their identities was a very, very dangerous gamble for the developers themselves and their families. We believe in freedom of the press. We believe in journalistic integrity.

That is, a representative of Yuga Labs absolutely disapproves of the initiative of Buzzfeed representatives to name the real names of the creators of the most popular NFT collection in the world today. Especially since it was done just for the sake of ticking off the box.

Yuga Labs CEO Nicole Muniz

As you can see, although Muniz touched on a very “touchy” subject about journalism, she still insisted on the lack of ethics in the Buzzfeed publication. Also, according to her, the article has no “real purpose” to the narrative.

The problem is that if their names had been called for a purpose, things might have been different. It was an article with a bunch of “what ifs” – sounds too dangerous to me. The only thing readers got out of the publication was just their names.

Here is the original video in which Muniz voices his own position. We recommend you watch it if you can understand English by ear.

The head of Yuga Labs fears that Aronove and Solano and their entourage may now become a magnet for “all sorts of nefarious personalities”. Here’s another of her quotes on the subject, published by Decrypt.

There are cryptokits in the cryptocurrency community – people who have made a lot of money from digital assets. This fact has attracted some nefarious individuals to them and put them in serious danger.

That is, we are talking about criminals and people who are willing to cross the line for the sake of making a large amount of cryptocurrency. Nicole in this case hints that a similar danger could await the developers. Still, some might assume for sure that they have enough coins in their accounts.

Wylie Aronove and Greg Solano with their avatars from the BAYC collection

That said, Muniz is quick to assure everyone that Aronove and Solano are not “whales” themselves, meaning they do not have a substantial fortune in crypto. Perhaps this is another way of drawing less attention to them, if the company’s CEO is really worried about the safety of his colleagues.

The interview itself was published on the D3 Network’s YouTube channel. In the comments, however, many disagreed with Muniz’s point of view. Here’s one of the popular posts from a user nicknamed Guy Austin.

Why do official company owners need to remain anonymous? Only those who earn by dishonest means would worry about their anonymity.

Another similar comment from a user nicknamed Mimar Oba.

Her argument against exposing the BAYC founders seems to be that the information exposes them to the risk of being kidnapped and so on. So any other wealthy head of a company that has been widely known for years is not exposed to such risks? Come on. Everything she says sounds very fake.

BAYC’s NFT collection

We believe that the creators of BAYC have a right to anonymity after all - at least because they want it. And while the NFT developers have reacted to the publication with restraint and even tweeted pictures of themselves, they are clearly not happy about what is going on. Again, Buzzfeed's publication did not carry any value, meaning that the journalists just wanted to make money from showing advertising simply by interfering in someone's private life. And since they did it on their own initiative, they clearly deserve the criticism they received.

What do you think about this? Share your opinion in our millionaire cryptochat. Talk about other topics related to blockchain and decentralisation there as well.