Original Compilation: Chain Catcher

Original title: "Cars, Ownership, Capitalism, NFTs, and the Metaverse》

Original Compilation: Chain Catcher

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From Property Rights to Auto Economy

Mercedes-Benz patented cars represent the technological foundation of the commercial automotive industry, but it is the guarantee of ownership that allows other businesses to provide services directly to car owners without intermediaries. As suppliers of goods and services compete for the car owner's business, building their offerings on top of what already exists (the car) enables the pursuit of capitalist opportunities and spurs innovation.

Service can significantly increase the value and usefulness of a car. For example, consider restoring a classic car, applying a scratch-resistant paint coating, upgrading to expensive seats, or installing top-of-the-line shock absorbers and springs. These and many other services can provide useful social benefits, and their value increases with the number of car owners—the network effect.

In this way, the ability to own assets as the foundation of the platform is far greater than the sum of its parts.

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Bottom line: content is the platform

Back in 2018, we explainedContent is the platform, and NFTs provide a viable framework for making digital content (finally) a real asset: no longer just an item licensed for your use in a walled garden in a pure consumption model, but an actual, ownable asset with property rights attached . Owned by a decentralized private community, these assets form the basis for a vast, world-changing ecosystem. Much like early commercial vehicles.

This ownership effect applies to any property we can own—for example, real estate ownership makes it possible to own realtors and brokers, mortgage providers, interior designers, furniture designers, and many others. In the Metaverse, this is easily seen in games like The Sandbox, where creators offer various items for other creators to use.

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The tree that took four years to bear the fruit of the metaverse

2022 will be the year when hundreds of millions of users will enter nascent open virtual worlds, driven by NFT games. I'm not referring to the proprietary business nightmare driven by big tech companies or the existing highly controlled walled garden gaming world, but ratherOpen, decentralized system and environment network governance connected by all important concepts such as ownership, interoperability and community.

Four years ago, at Animoca Brands, we decided that NFTs and digital titles were the perfect match for the game. In 2018, we acquired a company calledThe SandboxandAxie Infinity）、OpenSeaandDecentralandwait. Since then, we've been pitching our vision for the future, and I don't mind saying it's hard at times.

andNBA Top ShotandCryptoKitties) early support, we sell on openseaandandThe Most Valuable Game NFTs of 2020,byPlay to the Dawn of Economic Income。

and byAxie Infinityand byYGGLead game guild model (seeWhy We Invest in Yield Guild Gamesinvestinvest。

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Towards a new capitalism

Our capabilities as operators and investors in blockchain products allow us to glimpse an opportunity that goes well beyond just another capitalist endeavor primarily focused on maximizing profits. No, we believe we have an opportunity to frame a more sustainable, ethical and fair capitalism.

Web 3.0 enables all participants to create and own a digital world that forms part of an open metaverse. This means not only benefiting from your creations and properties, but also sharing in the larger overall network effect, which will make your assets appreciate in value as the entire ecosystem grows.

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The end of the zero-sum game

andPolygonandFlow. We are working on Polygon (e.g.REVV Racing、Crazy Defense Heroes、Arc8) and Flow (egMotoGP™ Ignition、Olympic NFTs) to create a variety of new experiences.

These products obviously generate sales revenue, but that's not all. We do this by holding and staking their tokens (in this case,andandFLOW Token), become stakeholders, validators and contributors of the blockchain itself. This means that when our products generate sales and attract more participants to these blockchains, the tokens of these chains will appreciate in value. We also generate more of these tokens through staking.

For simplicity, all parties benefit from mutually shared network effects active across the blockchain. This benefit is not limited to us or any entity selling products on the network, but is distributed throughout the value chain, including the end user, the entire blockchain with all its native products, and of course Animoca Brands and our shareholders. We do this using all the blockchain ecosystems we support, such asHedera、Harmonyand various other ecosystems.

The shared network effects of Web 3.0 have the potential to end the classic capitalist zero-sum game approach to business, as growth originates from and benefits from communities that have traditionally been the targets of exploitation by capitalist institutions: consumers and wage labor as drivers of network effects .

In an open metaverse, any ordinary end-user can be rewarded for investing time and money (through true ownership and control over digital assets), or by creating original things (such as The Sandbox's new game experience) or composing music on it. And get rewarded with existing assets (similar to how aftermarket car seat manufacturers are structured on existing cars).

Of course, the entire field of GameFi - including the highly attractive P2E movement - also provides incentives and rewards throughout the value chain.

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customer owner

The most precious resource in the world is data. Every time you use any online service, data is generated—whether by uploading photos, viewing products or information, engaging with existing content, or any other activity. Service providers monetize your data in various ways, often to your annoyance (for example, by selling your personal data to advertisers).

As the originator of that data, you should be able to benefit from it, but you can't because it doesn't belong to you - it belongs to the platform that generated it, and you have to agree to give up that data if you want to use their services. These platforms get rich by harvesting your data and exploiting the network effects you and a host of other customers facilitate.

Like the oil that ultimately powers your car, data has no value in itself—it has to be extracted and processed to be useful. But data should still be subject to property rights. If you suddenly find out that your real estate is rich in oil, you might feel a little frustrated if an oil company goes into the business of drilling for oil on your land without compensating you.

However, this happens to our data every day. But what if we could own and benefit from our data? Welcome to the open metaverse, because that's exactly what we're trying to achieve.

The resulting network effects of digital property rights and participation are not only important precedents for true data fairness, but also provide a solution to one of the world's biggest problems - inequality - and set the stage for an unprecedented wave of creativity and innovation base. Think of how Karl Benz's invention revolutionized the entire Odaily, except this change will be at a digital pace: exponentially faster and bigger.

In short, every client also becomes an owner.

One of the most powerful effects enabled by Web 1.0 is the fair distribution of knowledge. Internet connectivity, for example, enables far-flung farmers to fairly assess the value of their goods, helping them receive fair compensation for their goods.

Blockchains can accomplish something very similar with our data, except we don't need to extract natural resources from the physical world - we just create data through our online presence. This most valuable resource is created automatically by our activities, which means we have the ability to create our own assets.

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fair new year

It's hard to express how excited we are about the opportunities and possibilities on the path to the Open Metaverse.

We didn't for a moment think that this was a task that one company could pull off, which is why our corporate strategy over the past few years has been not only to develop our own Metaverse products, but also to provide seed funding to the wider community. We've invested in over 150 companies, handpicked by us based on their ability to contribute to the open metaverse and shared network effects.

Rather than having an open metaverse — which cannot and should not be owned by any single entity — our approach is based on openness, fairness, user ownership, property rights, and a non-zero-sum approach.

An open metaverse is like a new country or a new society. Interestingly, countries and societies that do not offer strong property rights tend to be worse off economically. Better property rights mechanisms lead to higher economic growth.

As in the real world, an online society that lacks stable and enduring property rights will have far less economic potential than a society that guarantees these vital rights to all voters. We believe this is where the metaverse is headed, which is why the eventual closed metaverse product won't be as successful.

With the Metaverse, we've been given a rare opportunity: not only are we building in an exciting new space, but we're also able to help shape it, moving it from a centralized structure to a truly open one.

I thank all of our shareholders, partners, ecosystem participants and other supporters for their trust in Animoca Brands, and I am deeply grateful to all of our talented teams who are committed to this exciting new future. May your 2022 be open and fair!