After Doxing Incident, BAYC Team Starts Asking For Customer ID

A month after the doxing incident when Buzzfeed News revealed the identity of the BAYC founders, Yuga Labs started asking for customer ID for an unspecified new project so let’s read more in today’s latest cryptocurrency news.

A month after complaining the founders were doxxed, the company behind the Bored Ape Yacht Club is looking for customer ID from their users. Yuga Labs is asking users to provide sensitive personal information like passport numbers and countries of residence for a shot at accessing the company’s new venture. However, the site won’t tell what it is exactly up to. By clicking the “register” button, it will direct you to another site dubbed Blockpass which runs identity verification processes for crypto services, and then you will have to provide a passport number, national ID, and proof of residence. There’s also a list of banned countries like Russia, Cuba, Iran, or China and 28 more.

The company described the new project as a part of a new collaboration with the Hong Kong-based Animoca Brands which was recently valued at around $5 billion. Yuga Labs was also valued at nearly $5 billion thanks to Bored Ape Yacht Club and it is also the most successful NFT collection in the crypto space. The request is not an issue in itself by the irony is that Yuga Labs has been embroiled in controversies around privacy norms in crypto and advocated for the position that anonymity should be respected at all costs.

Buzzfeed News made the popular doxing incident last month when they revealed the identities of Yuga Labs co-founders Greg Solano and Wylie Aronow. The reporter Katie Notopoulos dug up some information for them and revealed their identities. Solano and Aronow framed it as “doxxing” which is a word that means making your personal identity known in the crypto space but also includes harassment outside of the space. Yuga Labs CEO Nicole Muniz also confirmed the founder’s identities to Buzzfeed and did a video interview with D3 Network that framed the revelation as dangerous.

The crypto supporters tended to see it that way too and on the other hand, the reports saw it as a normal act of journalism. After making a fuss, the BAYC team is now asking for your personal information so the irony is huge. Perhaps, Yuga Labs doesn’t have a choice but to require this information because the financial regulators always ask companies to collect it.