Yuga Labs Secures Ex-Epic Games Exec as New CTO

Yuga Labs, the force behind the massively successful Bored Ape Yacht Club, has announced the appointment of Mike Seavers as their new Chief Technology Officer, effective May 22nd.

Seavers, the former Executive Vice President of Development at Epic Games, will take over the CTO role from co-founder Kerem Atalay, who will remain a strategic adviser.

A Proven Technology and Product Leader

Seavers boasts more than two decades of experience as a technology and product leader. During his tenure at Epic Games, he headed the development teams responsible for creating Unreal Engine, Fortnite, and the Epic Games Store, among others.

Before joining Epic Games in 2021, he held the CTO position at Riot Games, where he supported the development of popular games such as League of Legends, Valorant, and Legends of Runeterra.

Yuga Labs CEO Daniel Alegre expressed his excitement in a press release, stating, “Mike has a proven track record of taking organizations to the next level, and he shares our vision for how important digital identity and community will be for the future of the internet. We have an opportunity to be the Web3 platform at the forefront of entertainment, and Mike’s expertise will help us scale to achieve that.”

Seavers shares the company’s enthusiasm for the potential of Web3 technology, saying, “There have been rare moments over my career where I felt like a new technology was creating a true paradigm shift for the world. I recognize that web3 is one of those moments, and I am absolutely thrilled to join Yuga Labs to help usher in a new era of the internet that impacts the world for the better.”

Yuga Labs’ Market Dominance and Recent Legal Victory

Yuga Labs has emerged as a dominant player in the NFT Space. According to a recent DappRadar report, the company accounted for nearly 35% of all NFT trading volume over six months from October 2022 through March 2023.

This is an impressive feat, considering the pressure NFT prices have faced during crypto winter.

In addition to their market dominance, Yuga Labs has recently won a legal battle in Los Angeles, where a judge ruled that an artist’s copies of their NFTs do not qualify as protected speech under the U.S. Constitution.

The court granted Yuga’s NFTs trademark protection. It determined that the copies made by conceptual artist Ryder Ripps and his business partner Jeremy Cahen infringed on the company’s rights and were not protected by the First Amendment.

Ripps had claimed that his copies were intended to criticize the company’s alleged racist and anti-Semitic symbolism.