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Investing in Web3 Gaming & RWAs: Moonbeam's $10 Million Innovation Fund
Recorded: June 19, 2024 Duration: 0:49:53Space Recording
Full Transcription
Hey, everyone.
This is Secret Nights from Moonbeam.
We'll just sit tight for another minute or two.
We'll get started shortly.
Hey guys, we'll be getting started in just a few minutes.
Okay, hey, thank you everybody for joining, I'm Siko Nates, I'm Head of Ecosystem Development
for Moonbeam.
I want to thank you all for joining and welcome to the Twitter space.
I think, you know, what we're going to discuss today is, you know, we've had quite a lot
of enhancements, I think, from the Moonbeam side over the last couple of weeks.
You know, I think, you know, the topic of today is this innovation fund that we're launching.
Basically, we're making available $10 million over a four-year period for investments into
gaming and RWA.
Those are both, you know, growth sectors that we believe are, you know, kind of very, very
hot in crypto right now.
And so, you know, we're excited to invest in those.
In addition to this, you know, you know, we've gone through this rebrand, we have, you know,
a new product roadmap that's out.
We're, you know, making funds available for the DeFi ecosystem on Moonbeam.
We're also investing $3 million into the DeFi ecosystem on Moonriver.
So I think, you know, it's kind of all hands on deck for us.
Hey, everyone.
Again, just we'll be getting started shortly here.
It would be great if one of the other folks could chime in and let me know if they can
hear audio.
Okay.
I guess Aaron can't hear me.
I don't know.
Can everybody else hear me?
Somebody give a thumbs up?
Yeah.
Okay.
All right.
Okay.
I think it's just Aaron.
Okay.
All right.
Okay.
Okay.
Let me just tell him.
Okay.
Yes.
So, okay.
So, yeah.
So, sorry.
Where was I?
So, yeah.
So, so I think there's a lot of stuff happening.
You know, we're, you know, kind of excited about all these different initiatives that are
underway.
But I think, you know, like I said, the topic for D-Day is this, is this innovation funds,
you know, kind of, we're investing in both gaming and RWAs.
I want to, you know, take a moment to introduce our, our panel members.
We have Neil Peters from NEMUS.
So NEMUS is the first recipient of the innovation funds.
So, thank you for joining Neil.
We have Eduardo Cabrera from NEMUS Stars Arena.
You know, they were a team that we had sort of given a grant early in the year and very
excited about the developments there.
We have Kelly Callahan from Arrington Capital.
And we have Jake Blue from Skytel.
And yeah, thank you all for joining.
You know, we'd maybe ask if you could all just, you know, take a minute to introduce yourselves,
you know, explain a little bit about who you are, your background, how you came to the
blockchain world and what you're working on.
And Neil, let's maybe start with you.
Okay, hopefully Neil can hear me.
Yes, I can hear you.
Sorry, I was having a little bit of difficulties.
But I'm here.
Yeah, so yeah, go ahead.
If you want to just tell everybody a little bit about yourself, you know, what your background
is, how you came to blockchain, and, you know, what NEMUS is and what you're working on,
and, you know, we'll take it from there.
Yeah, sure.
Myself, my name is Neil Peters, CEO and co-founder of NEMUS.
I joined, you know, the first thing I learned from blockchain, I think it was around 2016.
I was working in IT, and a few of my colleagues were talking about it.
And it was a point where I started digging into technology.
I started mining in the office back in the days.
And the technology really intrigued me.
Of course, in the beginning, I was trading a lot.
I thought I, yeah, I think most of the early traders think they would get rich of trading.
But pretty soon after, I thought, this is nothing for me.
I'm not a trader.
I'm more of a tech guy.
I worked in IT for over 20 years.
I did a lot with new technologies, and I believe blockchain technology was one of the things
that I should pursue.
So I did.
I think in 2018, I took a side job in crypto next to my IT job as a CTO for a gaming studio,
a Web3 gaming studio.
And from that point on, everything accelerated in crypto.
It was just insane how everything blew up.
A ton of games were coming out.
Not the type of games that we were looking for.
But, yeah, things were evolving.
That's also where I met Marco, my co-founder.
And basically, we stood up together.
We helped a ton of studios with launching specific technologies for games.
We advised a lot of studios.
And about a year and a half ago, Marco and I decided that we should start our own venture.
Initially, we started off as a gaming studio.
But, yeah, with my IT background, it was better for us to focus more on the technology side than on game development itself.
We had already, I think we were advising over 20 studios already that wanted to do something with blockchain technology.
So, basically, what Marco and I did, we followed our dreams.
We followed what we were doing.
And that's basically, yeah, we're building technology for gaming studios that they can use to connect their game, basically, to blockchain and use blockchain in an efficient way.
And that's how NEMAS started.
Of course, we had a few micro-pivots in the beginning.
But I think we're now on the really right track on where we're going.
And basically, if you look at what we're doing, we're taking care of gamer onboarding.
So, we have a wallet, an account-obstracted wallet, really focused on the gaming industry.
And the biggest compliment that we got a few weeks ago was from a Web2 gamer saying,
Hey, guys, I thought you guys were doing something on Web3, but the game I just played is just a normal game.
And for us, there was a eureka moment where we were like, oh, my God, this is it.
We need Web2 gamers thinking that they're playing a Web2 game.
And for all blockchain enthusiasts who are listening, I don't think you want to hear this.
But what we're doing, we're pushing all the technology to the background.
So, we're not bothering gamers anymore with complex stuff like using MetaMask, etc., topping off wallets.
We're just enhancing blockchain technology behind the game and making sure that gamers can play a game.
And that's what they want to do.
They don't want to use technology to do something in a game.
They want to play a game.
And that's on the onboarding side.
And we believe once you have a gamer onboarded, you need to keep them engaged as well.
And, of course, gameplay and games are so important because if a game is boring or not fun, gamers won't come back.
But what we're doing, if there's a fun game, we're providing the next step, basically, to keep them engaged.
We're starting off with a tournament system pretty soon, which is, yeah, how do I say that in a quick way?
It's a sponsored tournament system, a plug-and-play tournament system, so studios don't have to develop anything themselves.
They just need to provide us data.
And with this system, we can enhance the user engagement.
So, we're pushing gamers to come back on a daily basis.
We're pushing gamers to perform specific tasks in game, etc.
So, from an engagement perspective, we're really pushing gamers to play the games more and engage more with the games.
And I think that's the next step that we're going into.
We also have a lot of tech, but I won't bother you with that currently.
Awesome.
Thanks, Neil.
Thanks for the introduction.
Let's go over to Eduardo.
Eduardo, can you maybe just introduce yourself and, again, tell us a little bit about yourself, how you get into blockchain?
You know, tell us a little bit about Animo Stars and, you know, that kind of thing.
Yeah, sure.
So, my name is Eduardo Cabrera.
I've been making games for almost 15 years now in different capacities from software engineering to product development.
I kind of got into blockchain in 2016, originally through mining.
You know, I only had a couple of machines, so it wasn't anything, like, too big or anything.
Then my focus shifted for a while back into game development before we started Animo in early 2020, I think it was.
Or actually a bit later, 2022, I believe.
But, yeah, it's been quite a ride.
The whole journey was inspired by this opportunity in the games industry.
We've all seen AAA titles are starting to fail us.
You know, they're not the products we expect these companies to deliver.
So, I think there's really good opportunity to create something that's original, not seen before, and then it has that engaging component, which is the gameplay itself.
And then it's all built on top of all this infrastructure, which, you know, is commonly referred to as Web3.
Additionally, and, you know, this is kind of where we go a bit into the weeds of, you know, Web3 versus Web2 onboarding.
How are we going to kind of get these users accustomed to everything?
And I think it kind of reflects a bit on what Neil said earlier, that, you know, we kind of have to abstract the technology and just, you know, normally you don't see games advertising like,
oh, we use Amazon Web servers or Microsoft Azure, or you have the option to choose one or the other.
It's just there.
It just works.
That's kind of what we're going for, just a simplified experience and a good game.
Yeah, that's it.
All right.
Awesome.
Thank you, Eduardo.
And, yeah, Kelly, you know, can you, you know, maybe introduce yourself and, you know, explain a little bit about your role at Arrington and, you know, kind of, you know, areas that you're working on right now?
Sure.
Thanks, Iko.
So, Kelly Callahan, I'm a partner here at Arrington Capital.
I have been full-time in crypto for six or seven years now, was an early employee at what grew to be a rather large layer one blockchain,
headed up all their marketing efforts, comms, PR, communication, a lot of the growth strategies.
Joined the Arrington team about two years ago.
Michael Arrington and his team were always very supportive venture capitalists and backers of a project I was part of.
And so, I get to work here at the fund and support 250-some-odd private venture investments that we've made out of Arrington Capital.
I love supporting our founders.
I love doing whatever we can for them, especially when it comes to early stage and sort of go-to-market and how we communicate some of the complex things that are happening in the space right now.
So, I'm very passionate about it.
I think that there's a huge opportunity.
We love what's going on in the Moonbeam ecosystem.
We were very honored to participate in an accelerator program about a year ago, which the Neil and the Nemus team were a part of.
And we love to see the thriving that happens in the months and years coming from something like that.
So, really love supporting our founders, looking at new investments.
We're focused on a number of different areas.
We're pretty broad-based, so we can write checks into a lot of different startups and founders.
We like earlier stage.
And that's Arrington Capital.
Awesome.
Thank you so much, Kelly.
And last but not least, Jake, if you wouldn't mind introducing yourself and talk a little bit about SkyTel and what your role is in support, that would be really great.
Cool.
Thanks, Ike.
Yeah, I'm Jake Blue.
I am investment lead at SkyTel.
So, kind of looking after the investment team.
Same thing as Kelly.
We take a strong stance on supporting kind of our portfolio companies.
So, we do keep a good relationship once we have invested.
In general, yeah, my background is kind of a bit more economics and accounting-based.
I actually was probably one of the crazy people that didn't have a traditional background that went straight into the Web3 scene out of university.
And, yeah, I got into kind of through a good mate I was living with at the time.
He had his own DeFi startup on Polygon.
And he said, you've got to check this awesome and cool industry out.
And I absolutely fell in love straight away.
And, yeah, a little bit about SkyTel Digital.
Yeah, so we kind of position ourselves not just as a venture fund, but also as kind of, we say, the future of asset management.
So, we have the venture fund, which is kind of our main vehicle, where we deploy kind of mostly within the Polkadot ecosystem.
We do kind of look outside the ecosystem as well.
And then we have a couple other aspects to SkyTel as well.
Notably, one that kind of got Moonbeam quite involved in a lot of the games building on top of Moonbeam is an incubation program that we ran quite closely earlier this year with Mythical Games.
And then we also have a couple other aspects.
We have a project called Poke, which is kind of running a bit of the beady stuff for Polkadot.
And then we're also involved with a listed product called AMC.
And that's got a whole bunch of kind of liquid tokens within the Polkadot ecosystem, including Moonbeam or Glimmer, apologies, as well.
So, that's a little bit about SkyTel.
And, yeah, very excited.
Congrats on the fund and very excited to see what transpires.
Thank you so much, Jake.
Yeah, so we're going to continue the conversation here.
I want to say to the allers, in the meantime, if you have questions, please type them into the chat.
We'll make sure to leave some time at the end of this for the speakers to get into the discussions.
But, Neil, maybe starting with you.
So, Nimus is the first fund recipient, kind of helping us build out a Web3 gaming ecosystem around Moonbeam.
Can you tell us a bit more about the initiative?
What are kind of the goals you're hoping to achieve?
And how do you overall see kind of like the Moonbeam gaming ecosystem evolving?
So, yeah, that's a very good question, Siko.
What we see, we're involved in the Moonbeam ecosystem since the accelerator that Kelly mentioned.
And things are, the games that we're developing on Moonbeam are evolving.
And it's not only the games that are evolving, but also more and more games are looking into Moonbeam.
And I think that's partially the effort that we're all putting into, but also what Moonbeam has to offer.
And basically what our goal is with our company is to offer a specific tool set, and not only for Moonbeam, but also a broader ecosystem for studios so they can integrate the technology in an easy way in their game.
So they don't have all the technological hassles for developing it themselves.
And looking at what we're doing with Moonbeam, we have, I think we have a little over 200 studios now in our portfolio.
And we're talking more and more to the studios who also look into Moonbeam.
Of course, we're not the decision makers on which chain they should develop on, but we're getting a lot more interest.
And I think in the past few weeks, we did a few amazing intros of games that are really high quality.
And they're really enthusiastic about Moonbeam and the vision around Moonbeam.
And yeah, of course, the multi-chain aspect behind it.
And I think that's really valuable for games, but not only for games, but also for gamers.
We believe that everyone should have the freedom of using the blockchain that he wants.
And I think with the technology that Moonbeam has and the technology that we're developing on Moonbeam, players and also studios will have the ability to actually do that.
Awesome. Thank you.
And Neil, I know that in terms of what you guys are building out, you have the wallet, which provides this layer of abstraction.
And then you're working on this tournament system.
And can you maybe touch on like, you know, how important is it for like games to kind of, you know, kind of have, you know, you know, these kind of like easy onboarding tools and that also like ways to kind of, you know, I guess, drive user engagement, right?
Is to kind of attract users.
So, yeah.
Yeah.
If you look back a few years ago, a lot of studios were funded with hundreds of millions of dollars.
And they had the ability to hire, let's say, 20, 25 blockchain developers and start developing stuff on their own.
But it's not only developing stuff.
It's also maintaining, upgrading, keeping it secure.
So, what we see is a really switch in the market of studios that are not looking into developing everything themselves anymore.
They're looking for turnkey solutions, which it can integrate within a day or two or possibly even less.
So, that's our main focus, making sure that we help those studios doing that.
And if you look at our tournament system, for example, it's a plug and play tournament system.
So, the studio only needs to provide us an API with some data.
And from that point on, we take over for them.
So, with a small, with a very small effort, they can gain a lot of, yeah, additional features to their games.
Got it.
Got it.
Awesome.
Eduardo, you know, Anemo is an early program.
Your partner is part of Moonbeam.
Can you tell us maybe a little bit more about, you know, the Anemo Stars Arena game?
You know, how did you, you know, and, you know, feel free to give your feedback.
How did you feel the collaboration with Moonbeam went?
You know, what were some important areas that, where you got support?
I mean, obviously, you know, financial support is one thing.
But, you know, there are other ways that, you know, a blockchain can kind of assist as well.
Right?
So, yeah.
Yeah, definitely.
So, like you said, you know, we had the privilege of being one of Moonbeam's earlier partners, which, you know, kind of really gave us all this insight into how you guys are operating and really gave us access to a lot of opportunities.
At least you and I, you know, we've seen each other in a couple of events already, which I think were fantastic.
And I think those kinds of opportunities really opened up thanks to the partnership with Moonbeam, especially in the Web3 space.
Because otherwise, you know, it would have been a bit harder to attend or kind of integrate ourselves into that space being game developers.
But it's, it's, again, part of this, this opportunity that Moonbeam afforded us.
And just to speak about the game itself, you know, we're building this, this third-person mech shooter built for PCs and consoles.
And kind of like the whole idea of the game is that changing the parts of the mech really changes the way you play.
So we want to introduce a lot of variety in there.
And this is going to give players the option to really fine-tune their gunplay.
So this means that you can, for example, combine assault rifles for kind of a more traditional play style or just really go crazy, you know, kind of go hookshot on a sword and then just start hooking people and slashing them.
So there's, there's quite a lot of group to play with.
Pun intended, of course.
But yeah, that's, that's, I think, a short summary of, you know, what we've lived so far.
Again, a lot of events that have opened up, thanks, thanks to this partnership that we have.
I only have positive things to say, you know, you guys have been really supportive when it comes to like integrations, just tech documentation, access to engineering support, and a lot more co-marketing.
You know, I think we've really boosted each other up quite a bit.
Got it. Awesome.
Yeah, and I think, I think, Eduardo, also with the fund and everything that Moonbeam's doing around gaming, we're creating an amazing ecosystem of games.
Not only games, but also community around it.
So I think helping each other what we're doing now and what we're doing in the future will definitely grow the ecosystem and all the games that are on Moonbeam.
So I think that's, yeah, a great initiative that we have here.
All right. Awesome.
Yeah.
So, so, I mean, obviously, you know, the two teams we have here are kind of from the gaming sector.
You know, the other focus of the innovation fund is, is RWA as a real world assets.
You know, Kelly and Jake, I mean, both your firms have been sort of, you know, longtime supporters of Moonbeam.
I'm curious to, what do you see in terms of the potential for, for RWAs for Moonbeam?
And, you know, as an investor, what are the qualities that you're looking for in an RWA project for, you know, for you to support that?
And, you know, Kelly, maybe, you know, we'll start with you first.
Yeah.
Thanks, Hugo.
I'm glad you asked me about this instead of gaming.
I am not a gamer.
Disclosure I should have given at the beginning of this space is, although I have enormous amount of respect for all the work that Neil and co are doing.
I think gaming, if you look at it from, you know, the potential for cross chain, cross chain assets to go in between different ecosystems, there's, there's a huge opportunity, especially given Moonbeam's focus and enablement of this cross chain communication and across different blockchain networks.
So, but on the real, on the real world asset thing, you know, I think there's a ton of growth there.
I think it's becoming more and more clear how much more efficient that is.
For us, you know, I think when we're looking at something, you're looking at a real world asset, which is a real world use case that people are using anyway, but how can they do it in a more efficient, effective, you know, speedy, you know, enabled, less clunky way that are being done in the real world?
And how can we make them, how can we make these real world assets smart?
How do you integrate smart contracts and more features and functionality into them?
I think, you know, if you look at Moonbeam's setup and how those real world assets need to function in the real world, you know, take, take a basic real world asset, a dollar bill, a $20 bill, right?
That is very easy to go in between a person to a business, to a bank, to a whatever.
I think Moonbeam lets a real world asset go across any blockchain, go across any ecosystem the same way, you know, a physical real world asset would go through.
And you can apply that to stocks, bonds, whatever asset you want to tokenize, right?
I was using a stupid dumbed down example.
And I think, you know, it kind of works the same way for gaming.
So I think gaming and real world assets are very intertwined there in the way that they need to be able to go cross chain and they need to be able to do that and able to be actually useful.
I mean, I think we're getting to that point where, you know, with all the liquidity coming on chain, with all these launches happening, these assets need to have real value and real utility outside the crypto community that we're all used to.
I think we sometimes forget and we're all in a silo of Web3 that we forget that there's a whole nother world out there and they're not living in the space we are.
And so I think we need to think about that feature and functionality that needs to happen outside of our own little world here.
Okay, awesome. Thank you, Kelly.
And yeah, Jake, just curious about your perspective.
Yeah, I think the first part of the question, I would say, is generally we try and look at real assets into kind of two bigger categories.
So the first one would be kind of, you know, almost from the inside of Web3 looking back out.
So you've got a whole bunch of kind of treasuries sitting on quite a lot of certain stable coins and they may be wanting access to kind of traditional financial instruments, maybe T-bills.
So that's something that one of our portfolio companies, Centrifuge, is doing quite well, where it's actually kind of looking from Web3 out and creating unique opportunities there.
But I think the bigger kind of looking from the outside in is it's pretty I think in the long term, hopefully we will see that DeFi will kind of offer quite unique opportunities, especially, you know, and create kind of these market inefficiencies that we might see in traditional world kind of translating into DeFi.
And these kind of inefficiencies will be kind of, let's say, null and void.
And I think this is where Moonbeam comes in really, really well.
And Moonriver is this kind of DeFi ecosystem that's already been created that makes it a lot easier for hopefully real world assets to sit on top of it one day.
And kind of with the use of this fund, definitely we'll see, you know, projects we've seen.
I think it's I can never pronounce it right if it's twin or it's T-V-V-I-N, but I never know how to pronounce it right.
But you see kind of projects like that hopefully starting to work a bit more in the Moonbeam kind of DeFi space.
And in general, kind of what advice would we give to real world asset kind of, you know, emerging projects within the space?
As I said, our benchmark is really high.
We invested in Centrifuge and they claim to have invented the real world asset term.
So in general, I don't think it changes too much from kind of any projects we look at.
But generally, it's looking for a good founder.
And then is the solution they're offering actually, you know, enhanced by the use of blockchain?
And is the solution that they're doing, you know, better than what's existing out there in the traditional world?
I think that would be something in the real asset space that really has to, you know, come through.
Got it. Thank you, Jake.
Neil, maybe going back to you.
So, you know, there's been a little bit of a weird, you know, I think the marriage between blockchain and gaming at times does feel like a little bit strange or a range, right?
So, I mean, I know that within mainstream gaming, you know, there is already sort of a concern around, you know, I guess kind of milking gamers for, you know, more cash for the same amount of gameplay, right?
So, and so, you know, from your perspective, like, how can blockchain actually, like, kind of, you know, enhance, like, the user experience so that it's not just a cash grab, not just a way of, like, you know, adding a needed complexity, but it can actually kind of, like, enhance the gaming experience and really kind of help deliver, you know, help studios deliver on that promise.
Yeah, I think that's a question that everyone's keeping awake, but I don't think there's just one answer to your question.
In my opinion, I think ownership and security is really important.
Again, starting at the onboarding side, if you, let's say, if you use a, if you play a Web2 game, the studio controls your account.
They're responsible for account management, et cetera.
And if you look at blockchain, blockchain with account abstraction can deliver a real value for those users to make sure that they own their own accounts.
So nobody's responsible for their assets, for everything that's in their account.
They are themselves.
And I think it's just a matter of time until the Web2 users see the increased security that blockchain can provide that.
Of course, we need good tech solutions around it, but making sure that the assets of users are not at risk or not, yeah, not controlled by anyone else.
I think that's one of the important aspects.
The other one, which is, I think it's upcoming.
We haven't seen it a lot yet in the market, but it's interruptibility of assets.
And I keep saying this because I do believe that eventually there will be a market for this.
So what I mean with that is basically move your gear between games.
So let's say I have a gun skin and I'm using that on Counter-Strike.
Eventually it will be possible by the use of blockchain technologies, or no, not moving, but using that specific asset that you have on blockchain in another game as well.
And I think in the old Web2 world, that would cause a lot of stress with game developers and infrastructure developers on how the hell are we going to create this.
And by the use of blockchain, which is basically a huge central database, which can be used by all games, it will be a lot more easy to use those assets in other games.
So I think those two aspects are really important.
And of course, our tournament system that we're working on, it should run fully out and on.
So there should be no manual action required, creating a tournament or paying out gamers, etc.
So no man in the middle, nothing anymore, just directly consumer to consumer.
And I think those are really valuable aspects.
And I think what we need, and this sounds pretty bad, is one big hack with a Web2 game studio where people lose millions of dollars of assets.
And from that point on, blockchain can really prove that it's a lot more secure than just a Web2 studio hosting servers on Amazon or Azure.
I think from my perspective as well, I think players want more engagement.
I mean, if you look at the games that are really popular, I think the latest one that gained a lot of popularity was Pell World.
I think gamers want more of an opportunity to engage and be part of the conversation.
And so I think, yes, that starts with more control over your assets or your accounts.
But I think there is also an opportunity for gamers, for example, to participate in game design or governance or to give a better signal around future game direction.
Have you ever tried creating a support ticket with a Web2 studio saying, this gun is way too powerful?
Right, right.
You will never get a response from a studio because those studios are like, we're controlling the game.
It's ours.
And we are determining which gun is strong and which one isn't.
And I know where you want to go.
And I think if you place those variables on chain and you put a DAO mechanism towards it or something like that,
so people can actually vote so the gamers control the power of the game and the power of the assets in game.
And I think that's also where blockchain can prove its efficiency and giving control to the gamers.
And I know we were a studio ourselves.
We're talking to a lot of studios.
It's really hard to give that control out of hand.
But in order to enhance the engagement of users and make them more happy,
I think implementing this in a robust and efficient way is really going to help your game.
Yeah, definitely.
Eduardo, I mean, Animal Stars is maybe a little bit, I think, further along than a lot of Web2 games
where you guys have managed to get some mainstream gamer penetration by the games not only available via Steam.
And so it's not in Epic.
It's not available on the PC platform.
But you guys are also targeting PlayStation and Nintendo.
And so I'm curious, you know, can you maybe talk a little bit about what that process was like?
You know, what kind of reception you've seen?
Do you see it as like kind of a benefit?
Or is it kind of more an obstacle that gaming studios have to conquer?
You know, talk just maybe a little bit through kind of what that experience was kind of going for those platforms.
Yeah, so, I mean, we have observed the reception to be varied based on what project is being presented.
So, for example, if the project is a sincere effort to create a unique experience for players,
the reception is usually overwhelmingly positive, right?
As long as your target is to create something, a compelling product that will sell on their marketplace,
they're on board.
And, you know, we've seen this recently reflected with more quality projects
that have been being worked on for a couple of years already.
And just to give you an example, you know, I think the watch is already going,
wanting to go on consoles as well.
There's a couple of other projects that are targeting this.
But, you know, you've seen them starting to get some traction on platforms like Steam and Epic,
which is already a good sign, a positive sign going towards that direction.
So, again, it really depends on the project.
If it's a good, sincere effort to make a good game, they're going to do well,
and they're going to be well-received.
Got it. Got it. Awesome.
Okay.
Jake, I mean, you know, you're from, you know, you guys have a pretty broad reach.
You're supporting both gaming and RWA.
How would you, like, where would you say kind of the similarities
and differences are between those two sectors?
You know, where do you see kind of the opportunities?
Where are the challenges?
You know, maybe start with gaming and then kind of go for RWA.
Yeah.
Yeah, sure thing.
I think I very much agree with Neil's sentiment of having kind of everything fully on chain
for games kind of just decreases, I would say, the gamers' experience currently.
And I still, you know, we feel that that's quite a big hindrance.
At the end of the day, games need to be fun.
They need to kind of encourage people to come back and play it again.
And I guess kind of where I see a really nice opportunity,
I go back to something one of our portfolio companies is doing really, really well.
So, mythical games, if you just take, like, the level of professionalism that they have,
you know, it's very much so game first.
And then it's creating, okay, cool, what, how are we going to, you know,
bring in an existing kind of blockchain element to it?
And obviously what they're doing is very, very much so from a player-to-player economy's
perspective, something that hopefully will, you know, create more engagement,
capture a little bit more demand, new revenue streams,
and something that they've done a lot of research in.
If you look at their team that's behind that, it's a lot more kind of like actuaries
and it's quite a lot financially driven behind that aspect.
So, it's a whole other economy around games that really, really excites us,
especially around kind of secondary trading of items,
which we've seen with games that they've been working with, NFL rivals, et cetera.
But at the end of the day, they're still a gaming studio.
They build really, really cool games.
And then the games are the number one priority.
Once that's kind of in another place, they then obviously have this whole other
economy behind the scenes, which is really, really exciting with a lot of
research that's gone into it.
Moving on to real-world assets, I think kind of where we see the biggest
opportunities for growth is definitely within kind of the stablecoin space.
Obviously, we have looked at kind of, you know, what I mentioned about, you know,
a lot of these big Web3 treasuries are sitting in a lot of stablecoins.
That's something that's really exciting with Centrifuge Prime,
where they're giving kind of Web3 treasuries access to traditional assets.
And then the other thing around stablecoins, I think they're definitely becoming a lot
more hotter at the moment, especially kind of these yield generating stablecoins.
So I'll be quite excited to see what pans out there.
And obviously, you see with Tether, I mean, just the revenue that they're bringing in
on an annual basis is exorbitant.
So there's a lot of excitement around stablecoins as well.
And something, you know, if you're looking at kind of where the majority of the people
that are holding USDT, you're looking at countries that have really high inflation
and are trying to hedge their bets against their local currency as well.
So that's something that I'm excited about.
And if you can add kind of, you know, yield generating on top of that,
it could be something that could explode in the next while.
I'll be keep my eye on that.
Right, got it.
And so would you say that it's primarily kind of tokenization or on-chain tokenization
of kind of sort of more traditional like financial instruments, right?
Like I know, for example, with Centrifuge like we've seen and with other projects
like we've seen kind of tokenization of treasury bills, for example, right?
So is that kind of the primary use case that you're seeing or is there also –
I mean, I know that people like sometimes also look at like, you know,
oh, you know, like a hundred-year-old whiskey or like a luxury car or, you know,
but typically with those kind of applications, there's bigger challenges
in kind of how you handle the off-chain, I guess, verification, right?
So just curious on your thoughts on that.
Yeah.
I would say it's such a big sector to break down real-world assets.
So, I mean, if you're looking at, as you said, there's actual – the real assets
that you have out there maybe in the agricultural commodity space,
and then obviously you move a little bit more into the financial stuff
where you're looking at kind of public credit, private credit, fixed income space.
So I think that seems like it's a natural, easier fit,
especially within the private credit space like we've seen with Centrifuge.
And I completely agree with your sentiment going with actual – the verification.
You know, there's a lot of supply chain stuff out there where you're trying to look
at the provenance of where commodities come from, and it's just there's too many elements
that can go wrong where blockchain is never going to be able to have like a full,
definite, you know, verify, not trust perspective to it.
And I think while we're looking a bit more kind of at the private credit,
as you said, the T-bill type of stuff, that's – it's a lot easier to put on chain.
Right.
Right.
Makes sense.
Okay.
Thank you, Jake.
Kelly, maybe, you know, kind of come back around to you.
So what would you say is the climate for Web3 VCs right now?
Like, I mean, you know, there may be some developers like, you know,
listening on the call, thinking of raising funding, you know,
trying to kind of get a sense of what the landscape is like.
I'm just curious, you know, we've seen some headlines of VCs raising considerable amounts
of new capital, and, you know, there's been some VCs that have made major investments
in both gaming and RWA.
So what's the landscape like right now, would you say?
Is this like a good time for somebody to raise capital or not so much?
I think, you know, I think there's been a lot of capital that's been raised
and deployed in the first, what are we at, almost six months of this year.
Far different environment than it was for the majority of 2023.
That being said, you know, for projects that are thinking about raising,
there's always going to be money for the cream of the crop projects.
If you have an amazing idea, if you have an amazing team,
if you have amazing plan and program, MVP, whatever stage you're at,
there's, you know, those people are always going to find money or find a way.
You know, their passion incorporated into it.
So I think, you know, I think it's cooled a little bit,
especially just given some of the recent market dynamics.
I think you're looking at seasonality across Europe.
In the U.S. going into summer break, you're going into U.S. elections.
I think there might be some holding of new investments until that's over.
So I think there's a lot of macro and global things going on
that are going to come into play when you look at fundraising.
But that being said, you know, I think capital is still being deployed.
I know we're still investing in really high-quality projects.
And there's definitely still an opportunity, right?
Like we've been talking about gaming a lot.
We just did a research paper on the gaming space and just interesting facts, right?
I mean, gaming really started, gaming as we know it,
sort of the great-great-grandparents of that was in 1972-ish, the early 70s.
And since then, gaming has grown into this massive industry
that generates $280 billion estimated in 2023.
And that's larger than music and movies combined,
which is about $94 billion a year.
And so if you look at some of these spaces, there's still huge growth opportunities,
whether it's, you know, Web3 elements into those
or another way of thinking about how they expand.
But these trends aren't something that's just popping and spiking,
like the environment for capital raising or the price of Bitcoin, right?
These are longer-term trends that have been at play for years.
So I think there's tons of opportunity for the right teams.
Right. No, that makes sense. Thank you, Kelly, for that insight.
Yeah, like, you know, maybe just kind of closing here,
like, I don't know if, you know, I don't think we get any questions,
but, you know, maybe I'll ask each of you, you know,
for people that joined late, like, Neil, if, you know,
just really briefly, you know, if somebody doesn't know anything about Nemos,
and, you know, what would you say is, like,
the single most important takeaway that they should kind of take away from this space?
Can you repeat that question again?
Yeah, well, like, if somebody wants to learn more about Nemos,
like, what would you say is, like, the single most important takeaway of that
or the single most important thing that they should kind of, you know,
you know, kind of remember from this conversation?
If you're developing a game or, no, if you're developing a game
and you want to reduce cost and complexity, call us.
I think that's the main thing that we do.
Yeah, we help studios.
And we're on the gaming, on the gamer side.
Eventually, we will be connecting communities to each other as well.
So, yeah, the gamers should definitely pay attention to us
because in the coming months, a lot of interesting things will come out.
Okay, awesome.
Yeah, and Eduardo, like, maybe same question for you around Nemos.
Right, so, I mean, if anyone wants to learn more,
definitely check out our website, our Twitter account.
You know, we post updates on anything from content development to new features,
updates on new programs that are coming up.
Most recently, the Animal Unlimited program,
which is kind of a reward program for the Genesis NFT holders,
and then the Ambassadors program so we can start, you know,
including some of these influencers from the inside
so they can get an insight into what's coming up
and then hopefully have a bit more time to prepare for it.
And, yeah, I look forward to releasing the game later this year.
Yeah, okay, awesome.
Well, thank you so much.
And, yeah, Kelly, Jake, I mean, I want to thank you as well
for your support and for being here.
I think, you know, as we mentioned with those innovation funds,
I think, you know, we are kind of looking at, you know,
we're interested in getting teams to apply.
You know, there's an opportunity for them
to get kind of investment directly from Moonbeam.
But, obviously, you know, we have these connections with,
you know, firms as yours and some others,
and, you know, we'll definitely be in touch
if we see sort of very compelling projects come along there.
So, yeah, thank you for your continued support.
Yeah, I think...
Go ahead.
No, I was saying thanks so much.
And Cytel is really happy to have conversations
with anyone out there.
Two very exciting kind of sectors in RWA and gaming.
So, you know, we're very bullish on both.
Happy to have any conversations.
Okay, awesome.
Yeah, Kelly, any final words from you?
Yeah, no, same.
I think this is great.
You know, congrats to Moonbeam on driving some of the conversation
around these two very important areas
and two areas that are still poised
for quite a bit of growth in Web3.
Also happy to take any intros
or look at anyone raising in this particular space on Moonbeam.
All right, awesome.
Thank you so much.
Yeah, so that's about...
I don't think we got any questions,
so I think that's about all we have time for.
Again, I want to thank all our panelists for attending
and thanks for all the listeners.
And, yeah, hopefully everybody will keep an eye out
and everything that's happening in this space.
Thank you so much.
Bye.
Thanks, Eric.
Thanks, Iko.
Thanks, Iko.
See you guys.
See you guys.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
Host
Moonbeam Network
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