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- Crypto platform Yield Guild Games (YGG) made $ 12.5 million in 31 seconds selling YGG tokens.
- YGG lends digital assets to players so that they can earn money through crypto games like Axie Infinity.
- “They create incredible economic opportunities,” a16z partner Arianna Simpson told Insider.
At the end of July, the crypto platform Yield Guild Games (YGG) made $ 12.5 million in 31 seconds by selling YGG tokens.
It was supposed to be a chance for the community to buy the tokens, but few were able to do so when the tokens sold out so quickly. YGG’s Discord server has been inundated with complaints – people angry that the auction was over in an instant.
YGG called an emergency meeting at 1 a.m. and brought together team members from virtually all over the world.
“We were glad he was sold out,” co-founder Gabby Dizon told Insider. “We were a little tired because people were attacking us.”
YGG posted an apologetic message and, as the outrage faded, the team finally had a moment to celebrate their accomplishment.
The platform, which launched in December, had already secured $ 4.6 million from a well-known venture capital firm led by Andreessen Horowitz ahead of the token sale, and the auction was proof they had a community. passionate.
Dizon describes YGG as an “Uber for digital assets”. Simply put, YGG lends non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to community members (he calls them “scholars”) across the world. These assets allow researchers to participate in winning cryptocurrency games, like the ever popular Axie Infinity, where players engage NFT creatures in Pokémon battles. They earn crypto tokens by playing which they can exchange for cash.
During a year of massive closures and layoffs, thousands of people in the Philippines have played these games for a living. “A lot of people during the pandemic are being saved by these NFT games,” Dizon said.
However, as the popularity of these games skyrocketed, so did the cost of NFTs required to play.
When Alexei Udall, Head of Partnerships at YGG, first played Axie Infinity last summer, the starting price for NFTs was $ 40 (“I was like, ‘Wow, that’s really expensive.’ “, he reflected). Nowadays, the starting price is over $ 200.
Dizon and his co-founders, Beryl Li and Owl, began loaning NFTs to people in their communities, who then donated a portion of their profits to the YGG community.
It has worked so far: YGG currently has 4,700 researchers worldwide, many of them from developing countries, and they hope to reach 15,000 users by the end of the year. Udall has heard stories of academics who may have moved out of apartment buildings into homes or afforded their medication. One of her favorite stories is about a woman who could afford to have her baby in the hospital rather than at home.
For Arianna Simpson, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, crypto games are a crucial piece of the “metaverse,” a buzzword for a shared virtual world.
As Mark Zuckerberg flirts with a Facebook-sponsored metaverse – with virtual meeting rooms and Oculus headsets – many in the crypto world dream of a metaverse economy, where anyone with a computer and a Internet connection can connect and earn a living.
“You could be a gamer, a virtual blacksmith and an avatar maker, a fashion designer, a level designer, an architect, providing your skills in these different games and virtual worlds,” Dizon said.
It’s a future for Andreessen Horowitz.
“They are creating incredible economic opportunities that just weren’t there for people,” Simpson said. “What Gabby and YGG have enabled is basically for people to have new forms of work.”
As for the token sale controversy, the founders said most of the complaints were long gone.
“I guess it was just another day in crypto,” said Leah Callon-Butler, communications manager for YGG.
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