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Source: DeepChain Finance
On January 29, 2022, the price of "Boring Ape" BAYC flooring exceeded 100 ETH, setting a record high. After breaking through this historic milestone, the Rug Radio podcast chatted with the founders of the NFT project, who are popular with the crypto community and many celebrities, so let's take a look at how they achieved these amazing achievements.
Q: "Boring Ape" BAYC has grown to become one of the most popular brands in the NFT (if not the most popular), and it's all done in just nine months, how do you feel now in that position?
A: We never thought we'd be where we are today, and while the entire NFT series wasn't officially launched until April 2021, it's been almost a year since we started researching and launching the Bored Ape Yacht Club program. At the same time, we're really too busy to stop and take a hard look at the many things that are happening in the market right now. But occasionally, we get a feel for how incredible this NFT project is, how surreal the journey is, like when we host an Ape Fest event, and look around and see that a lot of people have come to New York City from far away to meet the community.
Q: A few days ago, on the RollingStone website, I read an article about the story behind bayc chinese female creators (reference article: "Boring Ape Creator, 27-year-old Chinese Girl's NFT Journey"), and I heard that there was more than one person involved in the creation of "Boring Ape" BAYC, and who else participated in the creation of the original Bored Ape NFT series?
A: We were fortunate to be able to assemble a talented team of freelance artists (including @allseeingseneca, @migwashere_, @thomasdagley, and two others who did not want to be named) – in addition to a friend who helped with graphic design. It is the efforts of each of them that help us turn the vision of "boring ape" BAYC into reality. We witnessed the formation of the "boring ape" BAYC, one sketch after another, and eventually became more and more exciting.
Q: In the past year, "Boring Ape" BAYC has had great success. As a founder, what important events do you think are worth sharing with us?
A: The list goes on. I remember that crazy night, on May 1st, our "Boring Ape" BAYC NFT series was sold out very quickly, which was amazing. In addition, through the BAKC NFT series, we raised nearly $1 million for animal charities – when we had absolutely no idea how people would respond to these "surprise doggos" – which is another highlight to keep an eye on. In addition, the day that NBA star Stephen Curry joined BAYC is also very memorable, and it is also the same day that "Mutant Ape" launched the airdrop.
Thanks to community support, we've been able to be in a very fortunate position in the NFT space, so it's a fantastic feeling that we offered a $1 million bonus to all BAYC and MAYC artists last year. And of course there's the "Ape Fest" event, where we've been through 2 years of COVID-19 and lockdowns, and it's great to see the community finally get together and then watch Lil Baby perform together. You just have to be there and feel a strong cohesion in the community.
Q: I had the opportunity to meet Guy Oseary last year and he gave me a lot of great tips! How does it feel to work with him?
A: Guy Oseay joined BAYC as a partner last September, and many people know him as the manager of U2 and Madonna, but guy Oseay has been one of the most prominent investors in the technology space for more than a decade. From the moment we spoke to him on the first call, we knew that his creative vision was aligned with our ideas. He was our incredible mentor and friend, and we even gave him the nickname "The Fifth Ape" (note: bayc project has four co-founders).
Q: You've had a lot of success, but you're also faced with some conspiracy theories about artwork and founders. I noticed that in the previous tweeted thread you mentioned that one of you was Jewish, and I remember feeling sorry for that team member because someone accused him of being an anti-Semitic, how did you feel at the time?
A: I guess a lot of successful people have these problems, and when you get successful, conspiracy theorists will crawl out and denigrate you? The backgrounds of the Yuga team are very diverse, so those rumors about us are really weird. The bullying was especially severe for our co-founders, cubans, Jews, Pakistanis and Turks, who is actually An Ashkenazi Jew who is currently the creative director of the "Boring Ape" BYAC project, and the person who denigrates Gordon is basically talking nonsense, and he calls Gordon an anti-Semite, which sounds crazy and very hurtful.
About art: It's also important to take a step back. We have a very wide and varied "Boring Ape" NFT series, which basically refers directly to pop culture as well. From Magnum PI's Hawaiian shirts to togas and other historic-inspired outfits to the gay team's acclaimed rainbow suspenders, it's a mix of disrespectful references to punk rock and '90s hip-hop. If you isolate these things, maybe just look at one or two combinations, but overall, everyone can turn our NFT series into pretty much any narrative you want.
We wanted to create an "ape collection" where anyone could find themselves, and it was this expression and scope that made BAYC stand out.
Q: Why did founders choose to remain anonymous? Are you going to remain anonymous forever?
A: In the crypto space, many project founders have chosen to anonymize or use pseudonyms, which has a long history, and people want to protect their personal privacy in this field, and there are very real reasons, but for us, it is more important to trust. When we entered the field, the first thing we knew we were going to do was to set up a Delaware LLC because it would allow us to ensure anonymity while showing that we were serious and committed to doing things seriously in the NFT space. In fact, our employees and partners know who we are, and over the past nine months, the community has learned about us through our digital identities, and we prefer to be judged by our actions and work performance. In our opinion, it is bayc that really should be focused on the NFT project, not us.
Q: We obviously know that bayc has four male co-founders. At the same time, we often hear about the underrepresentation of women in the NFT field. Do you have a female Hengyuan in your team? The reason I asked this question is actually that I heard that there are actually 2 women in your leadership team.
A: In fact, we have more women than men — and we have women in every position in the company. On the management side, Nicole (aka @vstrangeYUGA) currently serves as co-CEO of the company and @SodaOps currently serves as COO. Nicole is now a partner at Yuga and has been involved in a lot of behind-the-scenes work on the Boring Ape project since day one. As the company expands, it's perfectly competent for Nicole to be co-CEO full-time, and we're excited to @SodaOps as our CHIEF Operating Officer, one of the key players in keeping the wheels spinning."
Q: Many people are surprised to find that Yuga has more employees. Can you tell us who you brought to the Boring Apes team? What does your daily work status look like? Let's say you send a "gm" on Slack every morning.
A: We are now in a period of rapid growth (the company currently has a total of 36 members), and some of them are the best people we can find in this field. In addition to Nicole and @SodaOps, another of Yuga's partners, @PezYUGA, currently serves full-time as our Chief Content Officer (CCO). At this stage, our team consists primarily of social media managers, community managers, producers, illustrators and artists, graphic designers, copywriters, engineers, and IT staff.
This morning, we'll all log on to Slack and have meetings where everyone compares their daily performance and lets the group know when they start working, and sometimes we play word puzzles together. A little secret to you, one of our engineers has created a clone of Wordle (which he won't share publicly) in which he can try countless times without any impact on his real game score.
Q: How many "boring apes" did bayc founders own?
A: Our four founders own 6 "boring apes," and frankly, we don't like the creators holding hundreds or even thousands of "boring apes" BAYC collections. In fact, we meant people to use "boring apes" as their own digital identities and then visit our community. So it makes sense that each founder actually only has one or two "boring apes" instead of owning a bunch. In addition, as an entity, Yuga Labs currently owns 7 "Boring Apes" and 10 "Mutant Apes" except for a minting NFT from the primary market, and the entity has never sold a single "Boring Ape" or "Mutant Ape."
Q: What are your most interesting areas of interest for the crypto/NFT industry right now?
A: We are bullish on interoperable metaversities. In many ways, metaversities already exist, such as people already using NFTs as their cross-platform digital identities. However, there is still more room for growth in the metaverse, and it also needs to be further developed and popularized.
Q: Do you have any news about the next Ape Fest conference?
A: Last year, we achieved incredible results, especially considering that we only had two months to prepare for this win. Immediately after the first Ape Fest conference, we started preparing for the next Ape Fest, and this time we will do our best. We thought it would be an incredible experience and we couldn't wait to share more.
Q: I have to ask - when will the coin be issued?
A: Hahaha! You know, we can't answer that question.