Host Josh Kriger delves into the NFT and Web 3 scene in Hong Kong with guests from Memeland and Illuvium, discussing project developments, upcoming events, and the city's welcoming environment for innovation. The episode highlights Memeland's initiative to boost community connection and Illuvium's plans for an exciting NFT game launch, focusing on quality and collaboration.
This episode is brought to you by Bitlayer, a pioneering company that provides secure and efficient Layer 2 solutions for Bitcoin, enhancing transaction capabilities and scalability.
Please enjoy!
Listen or watch this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Myco, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, Iheart Radio, YouTube, YouTube, Amazon, Audible, or on your favorite platform. Remember with Myco.IO you earn for your attention.
Sponsorship and Advertising:
If you are interested in sponsoring the podcast, please fill out the Sponsor Interest Form, which we review 1-2 times per month.
Key Topics Covered:
- Memeland and State Land Initiatives: The episode discusses Memeland's launch of State Land as a launchpad for new projects in the NFT space, emphasizing quality collaborations and community engagement.
- Illuvium's NFT Gaming Development: Illuvium's progress in developing NFT-based games is highlighted, detailing their plans to release a game in Q2 and their focus on unique blockchain gaming features.
- Southeast Asia's Web 3 and Gaming Scene: The vibrant Web 3 and gaming ecosystem in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia is explored, with discussions on Bitcoin adoption and the region's growing interest in sim racing competitions.
What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let us know in the comments on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/@edgeofnft/
Episode Highlights:
- "Ecosystem, especially in the Web 3 side of Hong Kong, is definitely most well built in Asia or even the world. Like, we have different entities in the space right now. Like, even the government, show full support to Wafi, ecosystem." - Conan Li (00:02:30 00:02:43)
- "We wanna go beyond Memelane, and we wanna introduce to the space the best project that is going to launch something or they in need of some momentum to get their project running." - Conan Li (00:03:24 00:03:34)
For the full transcript, see further below.
People and Resources Mentioned:
Connect With Us:
- Website: https://www.edgeofnft.com/
- Twitter: https://x.com/EdgeofNFT
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/edge-of-nft-podcast/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/edgeofnft/
- Phaver: https://app.phaver.com/xxg1YpPHFZZ9oTjK9
- Discord: https://discord.gg/CQhZUdsV
- Telegram: https://t.me/edgeofnft
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/edgeofnft
Subscribe to the Podcast:
Disclaimer:
This is not financial or tax advice. Edge of NFT content is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Whenever making financial decisions, we recommend doing your own research and talking to your accountant for financial advice. Disclosure: From time-to-time we may feature sponsored content for which we receive value and we may share links for which we receive a commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. See our full Disclaimer (https://www.edgeofnft.com/disclaimer), Terms & Conditions (https://www.edgeofnft.com/terms-of-use), Privacy Policy (https://www.edgeofnft.com/privacy-policy), and Copyright Notice (https://www.edgeofnft.com/copyright-notice) for details.
Full Episode Transcript:
Intro [00:00:01]:
Welcome to the Edge of NFT, the podcast that brings you the top NFT% of Web3 today and what will stand the test of time.
Intro [00:00:09]:
Bolts of the business side and also the human element about Web3 is changing the way we interact with the things we love. This podcast is for the dreamers, disruptors, and doers who are pumped about this ecosystem and driving where it goes next.
Josh Kriger [00:00:28]:
Hi, everyone. This is Josh Kriger, co-host of Edge of NFT in Hong Kong at Bork. This whole road trip is powered by our friends at BitLir. Really excited to talk with some leaders in space. We're all vibing and collaborating at this, the first of several exciting events this week in Hong Kong. Today, I have Conan and Karen from Memeland here with us. How are you guys doing? We are good.
Conan Li [00:00:52]:
Good. Yeah.
Karen Cheng [00:00:52]:
Thanks for having us.
Josh Kriger [00:00:53]:
Yeah. Yeah. So just to give everyone some background, Conan's the community director. Been with Memeland, for 6 months, which is like 6 years in Web3. Right? And Karen is super OG. She's been with Memeland for 5 years. So part of the In 83 years. In 83 something years.
Josh Kriger [00:01:14]:
And, she co hosts a Kelley popular Twitter space, as well. And, yeah. Great to have you guys both on the show. And, let's just talk about, like, what's going on here in Hong Kong. This is my first trip. I've already met several people that made a first trip this week. Hong Kong is back, but it's been around for a while. What do you think sort of is sort of giving you additional visibility now and how does it fit in the overall sort of Web3 landscape?
Karen Cheng [00:01:43]:
I think it's definitely a welcoming city in Asia. And I think, like, we're welcoming all, like, types of projects for us to connect here. It's a great place to be at. And, I think there's a lot of opportunity around Asia NFT. So Hong Kong obviously being a hub. And, yeah. We meet a lot of great people around here. So it's good to base here because you get to have all these people flying in instead of going elsewhere.
Josh Kriger [00:02:07]:
Yeah. And there's no shortage of amazing restaurants where you , like, show people off and , you know, eat a bunch of dumplings and all sorts of good stuff. Right? And Conan, what about you? NFT other thoughts?
Conan Li [00:02:20]:
Well, like, for the past few months, I also travel a lot, like, for different, Y3 conferences. But, like, every time I come back to Hong Kong, I can still feel the ecosystem, especially in the Web3 side of Hong Kong, is definitely most well built in Asia or even the world. Like, we have different entities in space right now. Like, even the government, shows full support to the Wafi ecosystem. So I gotta say if you are in Wafi, you can definitely not fake Hong Kong.
Josh Kriger [00:02:48]:
Yeah. You have to make it over and get to know folks here. So, you guys have been busy building, during the bear and, you know, prolific on the content side and community building. But it dropped a bit of a bombshell recently. Got a lot of attention. For those that don't know about Saikland, can you give us some of the background on what that project is and where your aspirations are going from here?
Conan Li [00:03:16]:
Yeah. Forked is kind of like a launch pad for Memeland. So, what Memeland has always tried to do is we wanna go beyond Memelane, and we wanna introduce to space the best project that is going to launch something or they are in need of some momentum to get their project running. So, what the client is doing is we, try to, get on board some high quality pro project in the space right now and help them to get the momentum on the or the so called the, starting energy they need. And, we also wanna have a win-win situation. So Memeland, our holders, or even the project that are partnered with us can, get what they want and, try to, II I'm not saying that we are trying to give the utility to meme coin, but, we we wanted to build something for the whole space So, people get to know that meme land is not just an NFT project right now. Yeah.
Josh Kriger [00:04:12]:
Very cool. And what are sort of some of the objectives and criteria with choosing the right projects? Obviously, you know, you have everything from the sole founder teams that have an idea to, you know, very sophisticated projects that have serial entrepreneurs that have successful exits. Like do you are open to all types of projects or are there any sort of criteria that you're focused on?
Conan Li [00:04:37]:
Well, we are not very strict about the project we are collaborating with. But there's one thing we are very careful with. That is the AI, the whole authority or credibility of the team. We do not wanna collaborate with, like, any project could actually, like, turn into kind of a, like, a scammy one. So that's what will harm the branding of the whole meme , and that's the one thing we are very careful about. Yeah.
Josh Kriger [00:05:05]:
Yeah. You gotta do your due diligence there. It's the same thing with our show. We try really really hard to elevate, you know, the adults of the room that have, you know, really ambitious plans. But also the conviction and sort of experience to get it done. Right? It's all an experiment. You don't know what's gonna work and what's NFT, but you at least wanna know that the right ingredients are there for making a good recipe.
Conan Li [00:05:30]:
Yeah. Especially when Stig Land is talking about onboarding, like, even like, 1,000 and or or even millions of people on the same, same project. But, like, if that project, like, turns out Kelley, and, we have to, like, somehow bear the responsibility to that. Yeah.
Josh Kriger [00:05:47]:
Yeah. No pressure.
Conan Li [00:05:48]:
Yeah.
Josh Kriger [00:05:49]:
Karen, how's the community responded to state land? How has this sort of influenced the hold on one sec. Yeah. Alright. Let me ask again. So Carthon, how has the community responded to the State Plan so Carthon? And, you know, I'm curious if it's sort of brought in some new folks that are curious about sort of what MIMO is up to.
Karen Cheng [00:06:12]:
Yeah. I think it's so far, it's very positive, and people are looking forward to the next project that we're gonna collaborate on. And we are still working the details around, like, how to introduce another project and making sure that our objectives are aligned because I feel like even working with another founder, you kinda need to align on the goals and the vision of, going into the Web3 space, and I think that's important for us to understand if we have the same value. So not just because, oh, there's another hype project that is coming in that will just jump on NFT.
Josh Kriger [00:06:45]:
So I think that's another way to like checking out their vibe. I guess I like to vibe check with our team. Yeah. I love that. And do you have, like, a target frequency of how often you're gonna be launching projects or it's still being worked out?
Karen Cheng [00:07:00]:
I think the frequency is less of a worry there. It's more that we want quality stuff. So it's not like we're rushing to do another project, but more like we need to be well prepared in terms of AI. What kind of people are we helping out and bringing more people to the platform? Yeah.
Josh Kriger [00:07:17]:
Cool. And, you know, I know you wear a lot of hats. You have the show plus, community and social. And, of course, the Web3 community isn't a community without IRL events. So, you're hitting the road. Right?
Karen Cheng [00:07:31]:
Yep. We're hitting the road this whole year, starting, like, in Paris, and then we did New York. And then upcoming, we'll have more events in Asia. Actually, maybe the next couple of 6 months will always be in Asia. So excited to just be around, like, traveling and also meeting NFT people, our holders probably meeting our first time. So it's great like AI. We always chat with AI. We feel like you already knew that person, but, like, going into real life NFT, you're like, oh, we're meeting them NFT, and it's too great to see their faces. Yeah.
Josh Kriger [00:08:06]:
Yeah. You know, our outer edge we did after COVID was, like, so special for that reason because all these communities have been built on these strong, powerful digital relationships, but they really get cemented by that in person experience. Do you have any, like, fun themes or ideas for events? Do you know the style events? Is it gonna mix it up?
Karen Cheng [00:08:27]:
I think one thing about, like, going to these events is, like, people wanna feel like, oh, really feel like they belong to a community. And I think, like, it brings, like, the strongest feeling of, like, meeting the founders and getting to know who these people are behind the team. And they always see me online, but, like, when we talk to, you know, Tonga and AI, the band is like a different exchange, and it feels like I already knew them as a friend. So it's great to know, like, oh, what they actually do full time or, like, are they full time NFT crypto? So it's great to know all these people. But, also, like, some of our holders are actually helping us a lot, like, you know, maybe referring to other businesses or, like, introducing us to other projects as well. So I think that's a great sort of extended sort of our marketing team,
Josh Kriger [00:09:13]:
our our holders. Yeah. Well, you guys really are a gateway, for web 2 and Web3. I mean, 9 gag, 300,000,000, community. Right? And Ithink, you know, you're holding the torch in a lot of ways for this cycle sort of leading to more adoption and more trust in our space. I'm curious what you're excited about, what you see sort of moving forward during this cycle, that sort of, you know, you're anticipating positively?
Conan Li [00:09:50]:
AI, for, AI, especially for Memeland, I think, like what Karen just said, why we are hitting the road so much is because, first of all, we wanna meet our holders. Like, the other reason is because we wanna include somewhat new people to the community NFT matter, to include them as our NFT holders or our meme coin holders. But most importantly, what we are trying to do is to actually get them to, get to know more about NFT because, like, some of our, like, holders, they don't know about Web3 before, like, joining NFT. It's because they know the brand of AI, and they buy Memelands of day because they know the brand of AI, and that's one of our targets as well. We wanna try to get on board more and more people in the world for you, not just because of NFT. We wanna let them know that is the future, and that's what Ray, our CEO, is always trying to do.
Karen Cheng [00:10:40]:
Yeah. Another trend that I think we're gonna focus on is building the culture. So events are part of the culture and also content is part of the culture. So obviously we're gonna have more activities, whether online or offline so that we're solidifying AI, culture and making sure that there's like a strong sort of belonging for people that are inside the community.
Josh Kriger [00:11:03]:
Very cool. And on your Twitter spaces or x spaces, and sort of at these events, NFT there are certain trends around Web3 and Blockchain that people are talking about that you're seeing sort of bubble up to the surface. We just had a really interesting conversation with Tim Kelley, and he doesn't think this is gonna be the summer of fill in the blank anymore because there's so many different things happening at the same time. But I'm just curious what gets you excited from a macro perspective in terms of our industry?
Karen Cheng [00:11:33]:
I mean, it's just every day, every week there's something new and you can't really plan ahead of time. So it's almost like you're. I always like to describe it as like going to the war zone and then you just have to get everything you're you have to to prepare for war. So I think that's the great thing or more, the most exciting thing about this industry is to meet new people and then there's always something new happening and then you have to react fast because the iteration cycle is so fast that you just need to prioritize and see what you are building next.
Josh Kriger [00:12:08]:
So basically if you're traveling, you know, book your one way ticket and see where things go from there.
Karen Cheng [00:12:13]:
Yeah. In case of an earthquake or flood.
Josh Kriger [00:12:16]:
Or AI. Yeah. You name it these days. Definitely floods in Dubai. That was something else. Cool. Where can people go? Obviously, we know where people can go to follow Memeland. Just look up Memeland.
Josh Kriger [00:12:28]:
But, for you if they wanna follow you on x or, get more involved, where should they go?
Karen Cheng [00:12:33]:
Sure. Well, first of all, follow the GM Show Official. That's our show. And I'm Currency Currency, so follow me.
Conan Li [00:12:41]:
Yeah. And, if you wanna follow me, my Twitter handle is this is Conan or it's x handle right now. AI. I see.
Josh Kriger [00:12:49]:
Awesome. Thank you guys so much for hanging out. This is a
Conan Li [00:12:52]:
a lot of talk. For having us. Yeah.
Ad Read / Disclaimer [00:12:54]:
A quick word from our sponsors who's ready to navigate the cutting edge of tomorrow's legal landscape. Because at Zuber Lawler, they're not just attorneys, they're visionaries. With expertise in emerging technologies AI, blockchain, and the metaverse, they're paving the way for you to seize the future. For mergers and acquisitions to IP, their selective team delivers strategic solutions tailored to the ever changing world of technology. Join us at Zuber Lawler, where the future meets the law at zuberlawler.com. Back to the episode.
Josh Kriger [00:13:22]:
Hi, everyone. Josh Krieger, cohost of Edge of NFT, lives at Bitcoin Asia in Hong Kong. Having some really great conversations with leaders in this ecosystem. This whole series and road show is powered by BitLiar. So special thanks to them for bringing us here to have these conversations. And right now I'm here with Eric Alexander who wears 2 hats and many of us in the crypto space. He's a native capital founding member in the Web3 grand prix team lead. Great to have
Karen Cheng [00:13:52]:
you on the show, Eric. Hello. Nice meeting you. Thanks for having me.
Josh Kriger [00:13:55]:
Yeah. So before we get into all the stuff you're up to with the grand prix project, what's your take on the vibe here in Hong Kong? This is my first time here. How often does Hong Kong cross your path?
Karen Cheng [00:14:08]:
Well, for me, it's pretty special because my first experience with Bitcoin was 10 years ago in Hong Kong. Oh, okay. So I'm back 10 years later. I'm Kelley incubated, I would say, because I come from a creative advertising background. So I wasn't ready for it. I fell in love with Bitcoin and all the innovation. I've built several projects, but through experience with many projects, I was able to learn, grow with it, and Kelley, understand the ecosystem pretty well, where it goes, how it moves.
Josh Kriger [00:14:36]:
And what are you seeing on the ground in terms of the ecosystem seen in Hong Kong on this trip?
Karen Cheng [00:14:43]:
I think Hong Kong is quite vibrant, and I think right now they're taking a leap into the Bitcoin ecosystem, which is interesting because last year, I went to several conferences. As you know, they were a Taproot upgrade back in, 2021. We enabled the rise of Odeon, BRC NFT. And, at that time last year, the committee was super AI. But what I saw, the moment some of the assets built on BRC NFT, Ordino started to pick up value or get listed on major exchanges, then everybody came to Bitcoin. So right now the excitement is there. People Kelley in it. I can also give a sample in Singapore last year at the ordinal summit.
Karen Cheng [00:15:20]:
It was still really boutique but what I Kelley, the builder are back on Bitcoin. And today, I see it's happening with the RUNE protocol launched directly during the halving. There's a lot of things happening now. There's a new way of mining ordinary, with NFT. So I think we NFT up to speed and I think Bitcoin finally take its full position where it should be.
Josh Kriger [00:15:40]:
Very cool. Well, let's talk a little bit about what you've been up to lately. I know you're spending a good amount of your time on the Web3 grand Kelley project. What is that project? Break it
Karen Cheng [00:15:50]:
down for our listeners. So we're launching a sim racing competition. We're actually besides the to be as a driver to be part of the leaderboard, then there's a reward mechanism. You can share a price pool. You can add a different competition. What I noticed actually with Native Capital or CryptoPharm, we were about to take on a project doing something similar, but we felt the team was too weak. But we saw from our investor that they were young and had huge interest. And what we lack about sim racing, it's, some games like Assetto Corsa, Forsa.
Karen Cheng [00:16:21]:
They're all, open source. And there's a huge community building on sim racing which is not connected. And it's similar to the open source of Bitcoin in terms of the blockchain community. I say, why don't we take this, build NFT, build on Bitcoin, and so it goes. And that's what we started with. So are you a racing fan? Obviously, Formula 1 is a big deal in Singapore. Well, we've won our first project in the past with the 1st crypto to sponsor an after party Formula 1 in Singapore. So I'm a fan of Formula 1, a fan of supercars, and what we found out is that we selected the most limited edition supercar for the past 15 years.
Karen Cheng [00:16:58]:
We're not available physically in the market anymore, and everybody can race it in a game. Alright.
Josh Kriger [00:17:04]:
That sounds pretty fun. So I guess the next natural question is build it
Karen Cheng [00:17:09]:
on Bitcoin? Well, from what I've seen so far NFT you build on an EVM, it's your own virtual machine. It's still really tech centric or gaming centric for the people or the user who are comfortable with the technology. But when we tell people you own Bitcoin, then the trust is that Bitcoin achieves mass adoption in terms of trust. Everyone's Bitcoin. So we know based on our market research that the sim racing community might not be familiar with protocols like Solana, Polygon, AI, who are fairly new in the market. But you say, oh, you added Bitcoin, then all of a sudden, the gates are open. So we feel it's an easier adoption to bring a web 2 gaming solution to Web3 solution.
Josh Kriger [00:17:49]:
Very cool. So are you concerned about latency and game play? Like how are you thinking about these sorts of things? And
Karen Cheng [00:17:59]:
yeah, just curious. Right now in terms of we're looking at different solutions. Right now, the way we move, we win a mechanism where people perform the race and we airdrop the token later. They participate with the token and they can extract, but they also invite other partners to join the races or to sponsor the race, sponsor the driver. We use more, I think, some of what the facility Eathan blockchain is giving us. So you can stake the driver and share a price pool with him. You can also do banner advertising. So there's all of the different utilities we found, not limited to our token.
Karen Cheng [00:18:28]:
We're open to all the tokens, of course.
Josh Kriger [00:18:30]:
It's not just about how you play the game. It's about the overall sort of infrastructure around the game.
Karen Cheng [00:18:36]:
Ecosystem around the game. How you can participate. You can decide to sponsor a driver because you like the way Kriger and you feel he's gonna make it and answer more expensive races and to share a bigger prize pool. So we use it as a mechanism right now.
Josh Kriger [00:18:49]:
What are you thinking in terms of your target audience for the game?
Karen Cheng [00:18:53]:
Well, the thing is sim racing. We have made the study worldwide already. So we're pretty much geographically where we go. We're seeing a huge rise of sim Kriger in the China market. Korea is big as well, Japan, Indonesia. So we pretty much focus on Asia Pacific because let's go back to data. Let's go back to Bitcoin. As of today, based on the latest studies, you have 420,000,000 active users of crypto around the world.
Karen Cheng [00:19:17]:
62% are based in Asia Pacific, which is 260,000,000, a bit above. So we feel like we should focus on where the sim racing community is growing, which is Asia Pacific and where the adoption of Bitcoin is already, pretty much established.
Josh Kriger [00:19:31]:
Makes sense. So what are the next steps from here? Where are you in the process
Karen Cheng [00:19:35]:
of the lease? Kelley mode. So we showcased some of the races when there's to play with it. We're going to have several conferences. We've dealt with a few already. We have a forecast today. We had Bitcoin Asia for the last 2 days, Carthon with Bitcoin Layer, which is a mid layer, a fantastic solution. Yep. And to Power
Josh Kriger [00:19:52]:
to those who powered this show.
Karen Cheng [00:19:54]:
Yes. Exactly. So we'll be going to different conferences as well. We have a pool of investors, like, curious to try the game and raise more funding, then we go public. And, I guess for afterwards, we'll be launching races on a weekly basis. And what's
Josh Kriger [00:20:08]:
the approximate timing there or what quarter?
Karen Cheng [00:20:10]:
I feel the public sale of the token will go around, somewhere at the end of June, July, August, and the 1st race will go in September. I think I would like to match you with Formula 1 Singapore because something we can do, which is super exciting, every Formula 1 fan knows on the Saturday is their qualification time. And our game is based on performance time on the lap. So you don't race together. You race against each other's time. We can actually take the leaderboard from the actual f one, match the car on our game, and you can see on your favorite. This is the best driver in the world and with the same Carthon, virtually, on the f one track. So we're trying to merge our public listing at the same time.
Josh Kriger [00:20:49]:
Very exciting. And if folks wanna learn more and, you know, get into one of these supercars, where should they go? I think
Karen Cheng [00:20:56]:
The best is to go to a website wgpx.io, which is really simple. And, they can use Twitter and check us out anyway. Alright. Thanks, Eric. Thank you. Appreciate your time. Cheers.
Ad Read / Disclaimer [00:21:07]:
And now for a quick word from our sponsor before we dive into the next segment. Are you ready to take your sports predictions to the next level? Look no further than the main card. AI, the fancy management platform that's taking the blockchain world by storm. With main Carthon, every card is a ticket to excitement. You can predict sport outcomes, trade cards in the marketplace, and challenge opponents in thrilling weekly duels. And don't wait. Head to main Carthon now and start earning rewards with your NFTs because it pays to be early. And now back to today's episode.
Conan Li [00:21:37]:
Here in, of course, another episode of Edge of NFT, we're in Hong Kong, and we're at the 4th event. One of the speakers that just came off the stage, we have Danny Wilson with Illuvium. You know, Kelley appreciates you being able to join. Obviously, you are building a lot of really cool things in gaming, which has been a really cool topic of discussion here at Fort. Can you just tell us a little bit more about what you're building and why the timing of what you're building for gaming is really critical to what's happening in blockchain?
Eric Alexander [00:22:06]:
Yeah. So we've Yeah. We've built it through NFT, and we've obviously been through the roller coaster that is crypto. And, you know, we started from, you know, a team of 4 people based out of Sydney, and we grew to an exponential amount of 240 people at one AI. Wow. And so, you know, timing for us, and, you know, in terms of the capital raise, in terms of, investment from, from the Jeff general public in our token event, was very critical. And obviously, that was back in 2021, March 2021. We obviously then saw a pretty significant downturn for the next sort of 12 to 18 months.
Eric Alexander [00:22:40]:
We just kept building, we kept growing. We tightened up the business to a point where we genuinely needed to sort of protect that capital that we had raised, what was gonna happen, obviously, in the next sort of 12 months. But now we've come out with another NFT. We've just successfully closed, a bridging round or a series a round just recently.
Josh Kriger [00:23:00]:
Yeah.
Eric Alexander [00:23:01]:
And that's what's given us, has put us in a very, very good position now to deliver the game, which is obviously first and foremost, delivering in hopefully q 2. And obviously, the funding there is to support us with the good 2 years of and the ability to then, you know, continue building and, potentially, a new gun.
Conan Li [00:23:20]:
That's amazing. Congrats on closing that. Especially the bear market, it's all in zest challenges for sure. But, you know, now we're here. We're in Hong Kong, and, we're at this amazing of, Fort. And, you know, for a lot of people who haven't visited Hong Kong and aren't able to see, like, all the amazing things that are happening just over here in this side of the world. You know, what what made you wanna come and be a part of this event and be a part of all these events happening this week here
Eric Alexander [00:23:44]:
in Hong Kong? Yeah. Totally. So, Adi invited us, originally to the NFT earlier. And, so obviously, we're strategically Southeast Asia, including the Philippines , which is a very keen targeted market for us. Predominantly because a lot of our, you know, anticipated gamers will come from this space and this geographic location. But ultimately, you know, Forbes and, you know, what Adi and the team have presented here is very unique and specific and, I guess, very niche in terms of the people that are here are very directed and targeted to the space that we're after. You know, typically, conferences are quite large, and you don't have that same interaction. So for us, this this type of event is, you know, exactly what we're after and it will help us, you know, really cater, I guess, our launch plans and some of the partners that we've talked to today and towards, you know, getting the game out there and getting a great success.
Eric Alexander [00:24:35]:
Definitely.
Conan Li [00:24:37]:
You know, a lot of the people that I've been meeting here are are not just excited about what's happening in in Bitcoin and in the world of memes and everything else, but very excited about games, very excited about AI, very excited about all of the things that people have been building for the last 4 years that are now ready for the for the main show. Right? That and they're all about to start launching. So with that, obviously, you've been building for a while, getting ready to launch the game. What are the types of exciting things that people can be looking forward to, Olympium this year?
Eric Alexander [00:25:06]:
Yeah. So I think, the biggest, biggest thing to look forward to guessing is, you know, people have been talking about games for years now. And you're talking about blockchain games and trying to, you know, develop and build games that people genuinely wanna play and that will have longevity in this space. And, you know, we've spent a lot of money. We spent an excess of $50,000,000 building this AI. And, you know, NFT once we do launch, it'll be, you know, I'd like to say world- first in terms of quality of AI, the interoperability between 3 games and how they all interact with the blockchain and they will interact with each other. So there's some very unique features and some, very unique, pieces to the Illuvium puzzle that, you know, upon launch will show, you know, the blockchain game is here to stay. It's not a fad.
Eric Alexander [00:25:50]:
Right. You know, there's obviously a lot of narratives that get spoken about every single cycle, and, you know, it's good to see gaming still in that narrative for the next bull run. But, it is a general Jeff case of, you know, blockchain technology. It generally is people's assets, digital asset ownership is a thing that's here to stay. So for us, we're really excited because we've spent years and a lot of money building something that we believe, you know, will be the pioneer in gaming and utilizing blockchain technology. So, yeah, pretty exciting times.
Conan Li [00:26:20]:
As a gamer, I'm very excited for it. I'm looking forward to that release. Josh as you kinda look at, you know, the rest of this year, as it relates to what is going to be the thing that really helps Web3 adoption continue to prosper. For some people think it's Bitcoin, layer twos. Other states, it's ordinals. Other states, it's mean culture, other things. It's gaming. Maybe it's a political Yeah.
Conan Li [00:26:45]:
Of all of these things. Right?
Josh Kriger [00:26:46]:
think what
Conan Li [00:26:48]:
Do you think it is gonna help be the catalyst of this next move forward?
Eric Alexander [00:26:51]:
Yeah. Look, Ithink as I've mentioned, you know, that everyone talks narratives and, you know, what is the next narrative? Is it AI? Is it real world assets? It's I guess it's, you know, it's it's it's all of it. Right? You know, memes, as much as you love them or hate them, they're part of the infrastructure. Part of, you know, what's gonna make this space successful. Will they be here in 5 years time? Who knows? But the reality is it's yeah. It all plays a Carthon, you know, gaming is a very important part that has some very rural, you know, use AI. And it's just exciting to be part of that. Definitely.
Conan Li [00:27:24]:
So, it's already been an exciting year for 2024. I know, again, people are excited for what's to come with Illuvium. For those who are listening right now, how can they learn more about what's going on and potentially be able to
Eric Alexander [00:27:36]:
connect with you as well? Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. So Illuvium, Illuvium dot io, is the website. We've obviously got our discord channel, which is where our communities lives and thrives. 300 +1000 people sit inside the community. That's where you're gonna learn a lot more. At the moment, we are in private beta access.
Eric Alexander [00:27:51]:
So we're in pv4, which is just the pre release to open beta. The game will be downloadable from Epic Games. It's very easily accessible for anyone that wants to get an AI. But, yeah. We're very close to NFT, so just keep an eye out over the next 4 to 6 weeks, and, yeah, you'll be able to play the game shortly.
Conan Li [00:28:09]:
Awesome. Well, Danny, thanks so much for spending some time with us and for everyone listening. And, of course, continue to follow with everything that Illum has going on. AI. Cheers, buddy. Thank you. We're in the upstairs area where we have both booths all around us. We have a media area.
Conan Li [00:28:23]:
We also have a stage over there going on with some amazing panels. Sharva, tell us a little bit about what went into putting on FORT.
Forked Team [00:28:31]:
Okay. So we've been throwing events with the FORT team since 2016. Yeah. We were organizing workshops all around the world. So, a couple of months ago, we came up with the AI, with a crazy idea to organize Fort. So we have events in less than 1 month. It's a, like, brand new concept, Web3 founder focus event. Yeah.
Forked Team [00:28:56]:
And, like, we are planning to grow. Yeah. So today, we're in Hong Kong, and we're really proud of what we have done in less than one month. Wow. Yeah. And, the quality of people we're hosting is really impressive.
Conan Li [00:29:13]:
I agree. I mean Yeah. Highly impressive that you're able to put this together in a month. And, I've met a lot of amazing people here today, people that I've been trying to get in contact with for quite a while. So, you have the quality people here in Hong Kong, but you also have a lot of exciting things that are happening here in this city. So what was the thought behind, making sure that this event happens here in Hong Kong versus somewhere else?
Forked Team [00:29:36]:
Actually, we love Asia. I mean, we've been doing events in Singapore, Shanghai, Malaysia, Taipei, Hong Kong as well. So I think, sure, there are many things happening in Hong Kong right now. So I thought that this is a great spot. So we are also planning to organize another NFT in September, in Korea. It's a gaming event. Yeah. AI, I mean, Hong Kong is just our starting point.
Forked Team [00:30:10]:
Yeah.
Conan Li [00:30:11]:
Yeah. And I Think there's a lot of strategic value in that.
Forked Team [00:30:13]:
And NFT things are happening in Hong Kong right now. So for sure, we want to be part of it.
Conan Li [00:30:17]:
Definitely. I mean, kicking off the week, of course, we have Bitcoin Asia happening, Orange Asia happening. And it's cool that you're doing a lot of events here in Asia. There's a lot of amazing companies out here. There's a lot of people that are building and proactively doing stuff and are very much welcoming to the world of 3. So it makes sense to be here at this moment. So as you've been here, of course, you have a lot of amazing panels. Yeah.
Conan Li [00:30:42]:
What type of, content, has really stood out to you so far with with some of the different conversations that
Eric Alexander [00:30:47]:
have been going on?
Forked Team [00:30:48]:
I think gaming, for sure. Founder stories because, like, everyone loves to hear inspirational stories from founders from, like, really great brands, AI, so I mean, like, in terms of agenda, we really have an amazing agenda. It's been done by AZ, and he's so proud of it. Like, I asked him, like, which one do you prefer? He's like, I like everything. Like, I cannot pick, so I agree. But, sure, gaming, one of the, like, top.
Conan Li [00:31:23]:
Definitely. I know just, here a couple of different interviews that are set up or a couple of different games that look very cool, they can do demos.
Forked Team [00:31:31]:
Yeah. Sure. Yeah.
Conan Li [00:31:33]:
Yeah. A lot of amazing
Josh Kriger [00:31:35]:
tracks in in in thought
Conan Li [00:31:36]:
leadership that's here in founder stories. The thing that I NFT, you know, one of the conversations I was listening to, someone raised their, asked for the crowd to raise hands and say, how many founders are here and how many founders are this is their 1st NFT. And there's so many hands that went up.
Forked Team [00:31:48]:
Yeah. Most yeah. Since we're Web3 founders, we have so many founders, and each of them have, like, so many promising projects, most of them. So as I said, we really have high quality audios, and we're really proud. It's a great networking opportunity. Yeah. So
Conan Li [00:32:09]:
Absolutely. So, of course, this is one of more to come. Next event happening in September for those who are curious about Fort, wanna learn more, want to come to a future event. Where can they do that?
Forked Team [00:32:21]:
Yeah. They can follow us on Twitter. Yeah. It's a Carthon conference. You can visit our website. It's, whatever. I mean, it's hard to spell. Maybe we can write it down.
Forked Team [00:32:33]:
Yeah. Yeah. Something like that.
Conan Li [00:32:35]:
we'll make sure to give both of those. And if people wanna follow you, how can they do that?
Forked Team [00:32:38]:
Yeah. My name is Sharad. So Twitter, you can find me Sharad and, in the line below.
Conan Li [00:32:47]:
Awesome. Well, Sharad, thank you so much for
Josh Kriger [00:32:49]:
for You
Forked Team [00:32:50]:
Follow us on social media. So we are posting constantly about our events, about the news and stuff.
Conan Li [00:32:58]:
Definitely. I know that's one of the ways that we found out that this was happening and, excited to keep up with what's next. And You
Forked Team [00:33:03]:
found about us on Twitter?
Conan Li [00:33:05]:
So someone shared it with us via Twitter. And then it was like, AI. We're actually putting this on. I was like, great. Let's find a way to come be a part of. Because we're
Forked Team [00:33:12]:
actually We are trying to make some unique content. We don't wanna post some boring stuff, so we try to keep, tone of voice. So to make it more exciting, interesting. So it's cool. We felt that people really liked it and they shared. And, many people came here NFT because of, for sure, because of our partner's sponsors and, etcetera, but also word-of-mouth.
Josh Kriger [00:33:38]:
Yeah.
Conan Li [00:33:38]:
Yeah. And word-of-mouth is powerful and so y'all did a good job with doing that. So, again, I'm really excited to be here at this event. Thanks for putting us on. Thanks for talking with us today. And everyone, make sure you go check out, Forbes.
Josh Kriger [00:33:47]:
Just talk to you.
Forked Team [00:33:48]:
Thank you. Yeah. Thank you.
Outro [00:33:51]:
Views and opinions expressed on Edge of NFT reflect solely those views and opinions of the show hosts and its guests. Please make sure to do your own research. Our show is not financial advice. You understand that you are using any and all information available on or through this podcast at your own risk. Whenever making financial decisions, we recommend doing your own research and talking to your accountant for financial advice. From time to time, we may feature sponsored content on the show for which we receive value and we may share links for which we receive a commission if you make a purchase through one of those links. Refer to our AI, www.edgeofnfkey.com for our full disclaimer, terms and conditions, and privacy policy.
.webp)
.jpg)
.svg)
