Yat Siu

Animoca’s Yat Siu bullish on TON partnership as Bitcoin sets strong foundation for 2024

Animoca Brands became the biggest validator of the TON blockchain in 2023, banking on the network effect of Telegram’s 800 million users to drive GameFi adoption.

Animoca Brands co-founder Yat Siu is confident that a number of investments and partnerships could prove fruitful in 2024 as mainstream institutional interest in Bitcoin (BTC) gathers steam.

Speaking exclusively to Cointelegraph at the Next Block Expo event in Berlin, the chairman of the gaming venture capital firm highlights some 70 investments made in 2023 that are expected to deliver results next year.

NFT games are ‘only scratching the surface’ of what’s possible — Animoca’s Yat Siu

Yat Siu thinks it’s only a matter of time until more advanced models of NFT gaming are created, designed around the ideas of digital ownership, interoperability and economic utility.

Animoca Brands co-founder Yat Siu believes nonfungible token (NFT) games are only scratching the surface of what’s possible and predicts completely new models of gaming will be developed as a result of digital ownership.

Speaking to Cointelegraph, Siu likened the potential growth of NFT gaming to mobile phone gaming, which started out relatively niche and clunky in its formative stages before rocketing to become the most popular method of gaming across the globe.

“Mobile gaming brought a form factor of a type of game that we’ve never seen before, you know, one-hand play and that kind of stuff, and innovations around how you play with AI [artificial intelligence]. Because of the fact that you have this limited form factor, it became the most popular form factor in gaming,” he said.

Siu commented that while many blockchain games themselves also have a clunky experience at this stage, the whole sector is still quite new. As such, it is only a matter of time until more advanced models are created that are designed around the ideas of digital ownership, interoperability and economic utility for the user:

“With NFT games, we’ve only really scratched the surface. Everyone’s very focused on ownership. […] I think it’s going to mushroom into everything and we’re going to see new kinds of game formats emerge because of the ownership that we weren’t able to do before.”

In the interim period, Siu pointed to metaverse gaming platforms and massively multiplayer online games as models that fit well with NFTs, as you “can trade items and you have deep levels of economic design” that make sense.

The Animoca co-founder also argued that many current users are willing to accept that the blockchain gaming experience is not necessarily smooth at this stage.

He suggested that this was because they are aware of the significance of being able to own a stake in the games, as opposed to the traditional model in which people sink capital into games that they can never retrieve:

“I mean, when you think of this [blockchain games], you could say it’s a UX [user experience] nightmare. But, because of ownership, people put up with it not just because it’s valuable, but because it’s meaningful because this is my land, this is my car.”

Asked when NFT technology will get to a point of seamlessness that even a grandmother can use it without being aware of it, Siu emphasized this would likely be through the widespread tokenization of physical things, NFT integration with commonly used services and how people interact with each other.

He outlined that as the world continues to become more digitally focused, children will of course want digital things.

“Grandma is probably going to buy a digital item for their grandchildren as a way to not just as a gift that’s relevant to them, but also as a way to interact,” he said, adding that vice versa, a grandchild could even gift their grandmother a digital illustration that they drew:

“We’re going to have a digital world. These digital artifacts and art and creativity and games and utility that’s going to be mushrooming in the thousands and thousands and thousands of small medium enterprises that are going to be doing this.”

Yat Siu: Asia GameFi opportunity huge as gamers don’t hate NFTs

The Animoca Brands co-founder suggested that Asian gaming companies don’t have to deal with the same amount of pushback against NFTs that U.S companies have faced.

Animoca Brands co-founder Yat Siu thinks that GameFi has the biggest opportunity for growth in Asia, as gamers there don’t hold the same vitriol toward nonfungible tokens (NFTs) as they do in the West.

Sitting down with Cointelegraph during Asia Crypto Week, Siu argued that Asia generally has more of a welcoming culture toward gaming and advancements in tech such as NFTs, digital property and play-to-earn (P2E).

“I think that Asia has the potential to really lead in blockchain gaming, at least in the short term. And there’s a couple of reasons why I think that’s the case. Not just because, you know, there’s the most gamers in this region of the world, but it’s also because gamers in Asia are welcoming NFTs.”

“Gaming companies in the West have to deal with consumer resistance that gaming companies in Asia do not have to,” he added.

The Animoca co-founder attributed this acceptance of NFTs to a broader Asian viewpoint on capitalism, which he suggested is viewed more favorably in the region — barring China — than in the United States, as people see it as a path out of poverty.

He pointed to examples such as South Korea, which “only four decades ago” had the same size economy as North Korea, but has swiftly climbed the global rankings through innovation, “creativity, legal frameworks and property rights” despite lacking natural resources.

“The consumer in Asia looks at capitalism as a net-good fight. In other words, okay, there is inequity. There’s a guy who made a lot of money, but people think ‘I can get there too, or I have an opportunity,’” he said.

Drawing a contrast to the U.S., Siu highlighted that capitalism draws a more demonized view by some people there, and rightly so as many people haven’t seen capitalism “work for them.”

He argued that this type of thinking ultimately bleeds into gamers pushing back on NFTs, as people worry about being priced out of the market with expensive NFTs that are seen as a “rich man’s tool:”

“When the headline news isn’t a $5 or $10 in-game NFT item, but a $300,000 Bored Ape well, then, you know it’s a little bit like saying the entire car industry is just Lamborghinis. That’s not true either. But that’s what we see. And so the rejection in the West comes from that lens.”

Expanding on the Asian context, Siu also emphasized that blockchain gaming is opening up access to venture capital from Silicon Valley that hasn’t really been tapped before, especially in the context of countries like the Philippines where P2E gaming guilds have become quite popular.

He again highlighted that this is due to a vibrant ecosystem that is growing in Asia as many gamers are adopting the tech while many projects are actively innovating in the space.

“Now you have companies like a16z, not just ourselves investing but also Silicon Valley money moving into Vietnam and Philippines. I think that’s unheard of. So that’s kind of exciting as well. I do think Asia is pointing toward a Web3 blockchain gaming future. Broadly speaking,” he said.

Minecraft ban ‘hypocritical’ and NFTs are inclusive: Animoca’s Yat Siu

“They did not cite evidence, they didn’t even correctly point out what NFTs are, nor did they talk to NFT Worlds,” noted Animoca Brands co-founder Yat Siu.

Yat Siu, the co-founder of crypto/NFT venture fund giant Animoca Brands, labeled the recent Minecraft NFT ban as “hypocritical” and emphasized that nonfungible tokens (NFT) can be inclusive, despite arguments to the contrary.

As previously reported, Minecraft developers Mojang Studios announced a ban on all NFT integrations in the game on July 20. The firm stated that NFTs were against its values, as they foster price speculation, scarcity, exclusion and potential rug pulls.

Speaking with Cointelegraph, Siu expressed his frustration at Mojang Studios given the context in which NFTs were being integrated with Minecraft before the ban.

Projects such as NFT Worlds were utilizing Minecraft’s open source servers to host a metaverse platform that had crypto and NFT ecosystems built around it. The project appeared to be relatively popular, given that it has generated more than $80 million worth of NFT trading volume and claims to have around 100,000 players.

The Animoca Brands co-founder noted that he found it hypocritical that Minecraft would exclude a small portion of the user base, considering that the company’s stated that it values “inclusion” and suggested NFT integrations in games drive exclusion.

“The general perspective is that this is hypocritical, NFTs have not hurt anyone at Minecraft, it’s very clearly a minority. This was not a decision of actual evidence of harm, this was a preference decision, purely based on an opinion.”

“They did not cite evidence, they didn’t even correctly point out what NFTs are, nor did they talk to NFT Worlds,” he added.

While Siu acknowledges many in the traditional gaming community want nothing to do with NFTs, generally out of fear of games becoming over-monetized and “even less fair.” In this instance, users had the choice to play in NFT-affiliated servers or not, and there were no NFT integrations forced on regular Minecraft users.

Siu stressed that excluding minority views means “you actually hurt the whole community, and you stifle its growth.”

In terms of NFTs being inclusive, Siu argues that NFT tech or the digital property itself doesn’t foster inclusion or exclusion, and instead, it’s all about how the tech is deployed to drive community value.

He noted that in the right contexts, NFTs in games or the Metaverse can offer users a redistribution of the platform’s economy and power. In Siu’s point of view, NFTs enable users to own a tokenized stake in their favorite platforms which can then be utilized how users see fit, as opposed to the Web2 model in which users are not offered ownership over their content and data.

“What NFTs do is redistribute the economics of the players who add value to the game which then also has the same effect of decentralizing and redistributing the power dynamics inside games. [Therefore] allowing for more freedoms and power to the community instead of just a community.”

“Property rights and freedoms are intertwined, the next natural evolution is digital property rights to either enhance or actually produce true digital freedom,” he added.

Minecraft ban ‘hypocritical’ and NFTs are inclusive — Animoca’s Yat Siu

“They did not cite evidence, they didn’t even correctly point out what NFTs are, nor did they talk to NFT Worlds,” noted Animoca Brands co-founder Yat Siu.

As previously reported, Minecraft developers Mojang Studios announced a ban on all NFT integrations in the game on Wednesday. The firm stated that NFTs were against its values, as they foster price speculation, scarcity, exclusion and potential rug pulls.

Speaking with Cointelegraph, Siu expressed his frustration at Mojang Studios, given the context in which NFTs were being integrated with Minecraft before the ban.

The Animoca Brands co-founder noted that he found it hypocritical that Minecraft would exclude a small portion of the user base, considering that the company stated that it values “inclusion” and suggested NFT integrations in games drive exclusion:

“The general perspective is that this is hypocritical, NFTs have not hurt anyone at Minecraft, it’s very clearly a minority. This was not a decision of actual evidence of harm, this was a preference decision, purely based on an opinion.”

“They did not cite evidence, they didn’t even correctly point out what NFTs are, nor did they talk to NFT Worlds,” he added.

Siu stressed that excluding minority views means “you actually hurt the whole community, and you stifle its growth.”

“What NFTs do is redistribute the economics of the players who add value to the game which then also has the same effect of decentralizing and redistributing the power dynamics inside games. [Therefore] allowing for more freedoms and power to the community instead of just a community.”

“Property rights and freedoms are intertwined, the next natural evolution is digital property rights to either enhance or actually produce true digital freedom,” he added.