Animoca Brands to focus on creator economy, interoperability in 2024

Animoca Brands CEO Robby Yung says the Hong Kong-based gaming company intends to continue to support the creator economy and promote interoperability through its investments and other initiatives in 2024 to promote Web3 mass adoption.

Speaking to Cointelegraph at the 12th Global Blockchain Congress event in Dubai, Yung said that Animoca believes gaming will be a primary driver for Web3 adoption due to its widespread appeal. However, the company is also exploring adjacent verticals, such as education, to support creators through “efficient infrastructure and network effects.”

Yung emphasized that Web3 tools, such as publisher nonfungible tokens (NFTs), enable content creators to monetize their work in a decentralized environment that fosters a more equitable and lucrative platform, saying:

“By empowering teachers, for example, through these publisher NFTs, we’re giving them a set of tools, which allows them to monetize the content they already make, and do it in a way that’s much more frictionless and benefits them more directly.”

Publisher NFT is a concept introduced by Animoca ed-tech subsidiary TinyTap, which is designed to combine co-publishing rights to specific educational content made and shared on the TinyTap platform. Yung added that such Web3 platforms allow educators to distribute content peer-to-peer and have direct relationships with their students.

Animoca Brands CEO Robby Yung (right) during a fireside chat at Global Blockchain Congress in Dubai. Source: Cointelegraph

He highlighted the challenges faced by creators in Web2 platforms, noting the lack of control and fair compensation. He remarked, “[In] any kind of creator-driven platform… artists typically are not making the kind of income that they were making from previous models.” He added, “We feel like that’s really unfair,” emphasizing the need for a “frictionless experience” so creators can have direct relationships with their audience.

Animoca also emphasizes the adoption of Web3 through interoperability within the Web3 sphere. Yung said that a major part of this effort is the Mocaverse project, which streamlines gamification and identity systems across different Web3 applications. Additionally, Yung actively participates in the Open Metaverse Alliance for Web3 to promote interoperability standards across the industry.

Yung said that over the next 12 months, the investment firm will also focus on the Mocaverse platform as one of its key flagship agenda items and “try to expand that partnership universe as broadly as possible.”

He also expressed his confidence in their REVV Racing motorsports ecosystem and other Telegram initiatives, including the firm’s moves with the social casual gaming platform Gamee and TON Foundation.

Yung said that while Animoca does not employ a specific allocation strategy nor an investment target in terms of size and number of deals, they try to support as many good opportunities as possible.

“We are optimistic for 2024, so we will definitely continue deploying resources into new businesses as well as the existing portfolio,” he said.

According to the executive, they have invested in more than 30 projects in 2023 so far and nearly 500 to date across Animoca Brands and Animoca Ventures. He explained that roughly half of their investments are in infrastructure and tooling, while the others are in content that breaks down into gaming, metaverse, music, art and decentralized finance (DeFi), among others.