Greg Solano, also known by his pseudonym "Gargamel," is a co-founder of Yuga Labs, the company behind and responsible for the creation of the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), a platform for non-fungible tokens (NFTs). ^[1]

Education

Solano attended the University of Virginia and graduated with a Masters of Fine Arts (MFA). ^[4]

Early life

Greg Solano was born to Cuban immigrant parents. His mother immigrated to the United States as a baby, while his father arrived just before he was old enough to join the communist youth group, the Young Pioneers. His father later served in the U.S. Army Special Forces, also known as the Green Berets, before moving to Miami in his 20s. ^[7]

Ever since the age of 11, Solano dreamt of being a writer which was around the time when his parents divorced. Solano and his older sister lived with their mother, who worked at a television network. Despite this, Solano was able to focus on his studies and achieve his dream of becoming a writer. ^[7]

College life

He received his undergraduate degree from New York University and then went on to earn his MFA at the University of Virginia. During his time at UVA, Solano quickly made friends, met his future wife, a landscape designer, and had some of “the best years of his life”. He was able to spend all of his time writing and was able to fully immerse himself in his passion and first found out about cryptocurrencies in 2009. ^[7]

Solano was also really into MMORPGs and was a massive Everquest and World of Warcraft fan which was the motivation to creating Otherside. ^[5][6]

Career

Greg Solano, alongside his partner and other co-founders of Yuga Labs, has driven the company to become the leading NFT project with the release of the Bored Ape Kennel Club (BAKC) and Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) as well acquiring one of the most significant pioneers of the NFT space, CryptoPunks. They have now also branched out into the metaverse by releasing their first MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) that integrates not only their own NFT but also other NFTs in the whole crypto space called Otherside. ^[2]

After graduation, Solano took a job at a small publishing house, where he worked on creating physical books such as Harry Potter coloring books and World of Warcraft manuals. Although the job was not his dream and did not pay particularly well, Solano was happy to be able to work in the publishing industry and create tangible books. He also has co-authored a book about World of Warcraft with one of the game's designers. ^[3][4][7]

Solano worked as a book editor and also wrote book reviews for literary websites up until right before him and Wylie started working on and released the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection in April 2021, he was a senior book editor at a book publisher. ^[3][4]

The Doxxing

On February 4, 2022, the identities of the team behind the Bored Apes were revealed by Buzzfeed. Greg stated that the two creative founders of Yuga Labs, Wylie Aronow and himself were given only "20 minutes warning". The two tried to take down as much personal information as possible as they were weary of the location of their homes being revealed and putting their families in jeopardy. Solano had to quickly explain as much as he could to his father about the situation as the two founders "didn't know what to expect". Greg Solano stated that they, "always had an LLC" so if there were any issues with the government, they always had a "legal entity" to address the issue to. ^[4][6][7]

Within a few hours of the Buzzfeed interview, the two decided to reveal their identities on twitter. Greg Solano was taken aback by the attention he got in public after the reveal as he states that only a few months back at their event, Ape Fest (before the doxxing), he was, "out there like giving wristbands like people thought I was an intern". ^[6][8]

"felt a little bit like mickey mouse at Disney world"