The decision is the most recent twist in a lengthy and peculiar tale involving one of the most significant figures in cryptocurrency

Due to the activities of a prominent and contentious critic, a federal judge decided on Monday that the Bored Ape Yacht Club's executives must be removed from their positions.

Wylie Aronow and Greg Solano, co-founders of Yuga Labs, the $4 billion business that created the well-known NFT line Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), were ordered to appear in court on Monday as part of the company's ongoing trademark infringement case against conceptual artist and internet provocateur Ryder Ripps.

The decision is the most recent twist in a lengthy and peculiar tale involving one of the most significant figures in cryptocurrency. Ripps began spreading allegations about Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs hiding racist and pro-Nazi iconography around the beginning of 2022. Later, in May, 10,000 Bored Ape NFTs from Ripps' imitation collection were sold. He said that it was an aesthetic statement with political overtones.

According to Ripps, the collection revealed Yuga's Nazi affiliations as well as the legal issues surrounding the duplicability of NFTs. Yuga filed a federal lawsuit against the musician on the grounds of suspected trademark infringement.

Yuga, possibly the most dominant brand in the rapidly growing, multibillion-dollar NFT industry, has endeavored and occasionally struggled to walk a fine line between silencing a loud critic making incendiary charges and unintentionally handing him more ammunition.

It appears that Yuga is doing everything in his power to prevent the artist from taking advantage of the legal situation. The business only filed a case against Ripps for trademark infringement, not copyright infringement or defamation. This was probably done to avoid Ripps using the lawsuit as a platform for his divisive statements or as a referendum on the duplicability of NFTs.

New information regarding the case, though, might have put it on a path toward greater sensationalism.

Yuga claimed in a January 5 filing that both co-founders were "apex witnesses," high-level corporate employees who are typically immune from deposition if lower-level employees can testify to the same material. This was an attempt to stop Ripps' counsel from questioning Aronow and Solano.

Such arguments were deemed "deficient on the merits" by the judge, who came to the conclusion that only Yuga's co-founders could provide insight into the Bored Ape mark's history.

As a result of Yuga's repeated requests from Ripps' counsel to schedule depositions, the judge additionally scolded the company for "lack of diligence" and ordered its co-founders to take a deposition as soon as feasible.

The fact that the people who filed the complaint against me are unable to explain their own behavior and have avoided providing any information during the discovery process, he claimed, "should speak volumes."

One of Ripps' attorneys, Alfred Steiner, said that he understood Yuga's reluctance to invite its leadership to the deposition room.

No one wants to be removed, said Steiner. "They don't want to respond to the tough, challenging questions that the defendants' criticism demands,"

That criticism dates back to Yuga's earliest days and was made in a December filing on behalf of Ripps and his co-defendant Jeremy Cahen. It claims that a complex web of satirical, alt-right, neo-Nazi, and racist themes served as the foundation for the company's logos and even its name.

Yuga has categorically refuted these assertions, and Aronow has referred to Ripps as a "demented troll" who has a history of disseminating "ridiculous conspiracy theories."

Ripps and his group will now have the chance to interview Aronow and others in-depth over this theory, under penalty of perjury. Whether or if this endeavor is successful for Ripps' legal defense, it nevertheless represents a chance that the online provocateur would not have otherwise had.