Metaverse can be considered one of the major buzzwords in 2022. To people from outside, the metaverse seems to be very fashionable or temporary but not with Him. 

At the Techsauce Global Summit 2022, our strong moderator Karena Belin, Co-Founder of WHub & AngelHub in Hong Kong, sat down and shot questions to Yat Siu, a veteran  technology entrepreneur/investor based in Hong Kong with accolades from Global Leader of Tomorrow at the World Economic Forum to Young Entrepreneur of the Year at the DHL/SCMP Awards on everything one needs to know about Metaverse.

Metaverse Demystified

Yat Siu started off by demystifying the definition of Metaverse that seem to circulate in the society. For him and Anomica Brands, Metaverse should be open and decentralized. Looking at our activities nowadays, people spend most of their time digitally from posting pictures on social media to playing online games. All efforts have been cultivated but at the end of the day, we own nothing. Anomica Brands believe that open metaverse and online interaction in the future should be anchored by digital or intellectual property rights. Us people who currently dwell on web 2.0 will need to change drastically in a better way, to enter the realm of web 3.0.

“Once we connect them up, I think magic will happen”

Of over 380 companies in the portfolio of Animoca Brands right now, despite the majority being in the gaming industry, Yat Siu is now incorporating brands across industry, especially arts and education. The number might seem big but what he desires to do is just so much bigger. With 300 companies with minor investments, Siu attempts to create a community for all partners. 

While Animoca Brands helps strengthening foundation by blockchain system and defi, despite some setbacks, companies in his portfolio can start connect and help each other growing. His objective is clear: to create an open metaverse. To be able to do so, he told Belin that he needs to find use cases that trigger users to join the revolution of web 3.0. By creating the interruptability, web 3.0 and metaverse can create a bigger community. “The more the winners, the better,” said the executive chairman of Animoca Brands.

However, Yat Siu believes the industry needs a standard or an organization to create a better space for everyone. That is why he and other Web3 metavese platform creators come together and established “Open Metaverse Alliance for Web3 (OMA3)”. The alliance tries to get linkminded companies and build a stronger community and to solve the key challenges of metavese.

What’s next: Arts, Music and Education

Arts and music industry have been another area that all buzzwords like metaverse, NFT, and web 3.0 circulate for some time. According to Siu, the wake-up call started in March 2021 with digital auctions of art pieces. Artists sensed that the time has come and just followed their heart. Now, we see Damien Hirst and Tom Sachs, to name but a few, traditionally experienced yet contemporarily inspired artists take turns on the news selling NFT. We will see a lot more coming in, said Siu. 

With the music industry and its deep rooted cause of the loyalty of labels, NFT record labels are the solution. Music industry is very broad and, with more independent mindset, Yat Sui believes the EDM segment would be the first to act. More importantly, he and his team has been working with the music arena and told Techsauce Global Summit 2022’s audiences to expect something within two months’ time. “It’s the reintepretation of music in the artistic and visual sense.”

For some, education is one of the major untemoted area with overloaded works and underpaid issues. Siu, on the other hand, sees education as another area with possibilities of NFT and metaverse use cases to expand the industry further. From paid-to-play, free-to-play to play-to-earn and move-to-earn nowadays, The CEO of Animoca reckons there can be “learn-to-earn” and “teach-to-earn” as well. 

What Animoca Brands is looking for?

Our moderator, Karena Belin, can save alot of people by asking this question: for partnership, what does Yat Siu and his company look for? And the answer is simple; Siu is still seeking new use cases of NFT, metaverse and Web 3.0, especially the use of intellectual property that can potentially create value to the community.