- Buzzfeed seems to have missed the point after it doxed the Bored Apes creators last week
- The news site published the identities of the two Yuga Labs founders after an investigation
- Its actions raised the question of whether it had the right to do so, and whether it actually matters
Popular news site Buzzfeed courted controversy over the weekend by doxing the founders of Yuga Labs, the company behind the Bored Apes Yacht Club. After piecing together publicly available clues from business filings, interviews, and more, Buzzfeed identified the two men who formed the company that has gone on to be the home of the NFT world’s hottest property. The crypto space rallied behind the Bored Apes founders, with the recriminations and anger all distilling down to one simple question – why?
Buzzfeed Seemingly Concerned by Yuga Labs’ Valuation
Buzzfeed’s rationale for doxing the Yuga Labs founders is that they are “courting investors and running a business that is potentially worth billions”, referring to the fact that that the Bored Apes collection is valued at $2.8 billion, while Yuga Labs itself is in discussions with Andreessen Horowitz over investment that would value the company at around $5 billion. To which the crypto world replied, “so?”.
Unless Buzzfeed plans to invest in Yuga Labs, what does its valuation matter to them? Bored Apes buyers didn’t seem that bothered by this level of anonymity, and we can assume that Universal Music and Adidas knew who they were dealing with when they signed deals with the Yuga last year. Equally, it’s hard to believe that Andreessen Horowitz hasn’t done its research on the founders when considering its multi-million-dollar investment.
Bored Apes ‘Mystery’ Wasn’t a Mystery At All
To put it bluntly, unless Buzzfeed plans to buy some Bored Apes or invest in Yuga Labs, why should it give a monkeys that no one knows who founded the company? Bitcoin is worth over $800 billion dollars and yet no one knows who created it, and it’s doing pretty well.
Buzzfeed claims that it has solved some kind of mystery by doxing the Yuga Labs founders, when in fact the bigger mystery is why they decided to do it in the first place.
