GZ News — YouTube’s Head of Gaming joins Polygon, Fantom Transactions Surpass Ethereum
Ground Zero News covers the most recent news from the crypto and blockchain space.
Head of YouTube Gaming Ryan Wyatt joins Polygon
It seems that the trend of mainstream tech leaders quitting their jobs in order to join the crypto movement is on the rise. After Jack Dorsey quit Twitter so that he can dedicate more time to his crypto-friendly company The Block, the latest tech leader to follow the trend is Ryan Wyatt, the head of Gaming at Youtube. [1]
Key facts:
- Ryan Wyatt was a Global Managing Director at YouTube Gaming. [2]
- Ryan Wyatt is joining Polygon (MATIC) as their CEO of Polygon Studios.
- At the time of writing, YouTube Gaming has a whopping 91.6 million subscribers. [3]
Ryan Wyatt shared a tweet yesterday, citing his appreciation for the time spent at YouTube. Wyatt is looking forward to his future endeavor with Polygon, as the CEO of Polygon Studios, a venture dedicated to the development of software solutions at Polygon.
In an emotional open letter, Wyatt announced that February will be his last month at YouTube.
“It has been nothing short of an incredible journey with Google, and I will forever remember that fall day in 2014 when I first stepped foot on the Mountain View campus.”
Ryan Wyatt, former Head of Gaming, YouTube
According to Wyatt, YouTube Gaming sees approximately 250 million logged-in users every single day, which drives hundreds of billions of hours of gaming watch-time each year. [4] With the experience in managing an operation of that size, Wyatt will be an incredible addition to Polygon.
“I am fascinated by blockchain app development and am beyond thrilled to enter Web3 space. I am elated to announce that I will be joining Polygon Technology as their CEO of Polygon Studios.”
Ryan Wyatt, former Head of Gaming, YouTube
In his future role, Wyatt will be focused on growing the developer ecosystem through investment, marketing, and developer support, while bridging the gap between Web2 and Web3.
Wyatt is already well-known in tech and investment circles. The 35-year-old entrepreneur was featured twice in Forbes. In January 2015, Wyatt was featured in the Games category for “Top Young Designers, Executives, and Players” on the annual Forbes 30 Under 30 list. In September 2020, Wyatt was named to Fortune’s 40 under 40 list. He was also recognized by Business Insider as one of the “Top Stars Leading Google’s Entertainment Empire” in 2018.
The traffic on YouTube Gaming has increased 3-fold during Wyatt’s leadership, according to the data from Statista. [5] If he can pull the same trick with Polygon, the layer-2 blockchain could easily surpass the competing blockchains such as Fantom and Terra.
Polygon’s focus on developing a decentralized infrastructure capable of larger, cheaper, and faster transactions on layer-2 is steadily progressing. The project saw a major rise in prices and the number of users over the year 2021. With the addition of a mainstream business leader, Polygon will continue to advance its development and could potentially see a new ATH in 2022, given that the general market sentiment remains positive.
Fantom transactions surpass Ethereum for the first time
On Monday, 24th January 2022, the number of daily transactions on Fantom surpassed Ethereum for the first time ever.
According to the data from FTMScan, the number of Fantom daily transactions went over 1.2 million, while Ethereum recorded 1.1 million transactions during the same period. [6] [7]
Fantom has recorded a total of 170 million transactions since its launch in December 2019. The emerging blockchain is known to be a home for high yield farming rewards, attracting users interested in riskier strategies. The price of FTM is recovering quicker than most of the top-100 coins after a recent market pullback, but the chain is still young and it will take some time before the majority of crypto space gets convinced that Fantom is a mainstream blockchain worthy of long-term investments. [8]
In a recent analysis on TVLs on competing chains, Delphi Digital stated that the astronomic rise in Fantom’s TVL could dwindle as investors take profit and move to whichever chain offers the best short-term yields. [9]
“Mercenary capital came over to Fantom to farm these projects as they were providing incredible yields on single-sided staking.”
Delphi Digital, January 24th, 2022.
For more articles, analysis and news, follow Ground Zero on Telegram and Twitter.
Cheers,
- The Ground Zero team
References:
- Ryan Wyatt (fwiz.eth), Twitter.com, January 2022. Available at: https://twitter.com/Fwiz
- Ryan Wyatt, Liunkedin.com, January 2022. Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryancwyatt/
- Gaming, YouTube.com, January 2022. Available at: https://m.youtube.com/gaming
- Ryan Wyatt (fwiz.eth), Twitter.com, January 2022. Available at: https://twitter.com/Fwiz/status/1486020750607740928/photo/1
- Average number of concurrent viewers on YouTube Gaming from 2nd quarter 2018 to 2nd quarter 2021, Statista.com, January 2022. Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/761100/average-number-streamers-on-youtube-gaming-live-and-twitch/#:~:text=In%20the%20second%20quarter%20of,platforms%20for%20live%20streaming%20games.
- Fantom Daily Transactions Chart, FTMScan.com, January 2022. Available at: https://ftmscan.com/chart/tx
- Transactions, Etherscan.io, January 2022. Available at: https://etherscan.io/txs
- Fantom (FTM), CoinMarketCap.com, January 2022. Available at: https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/fantom/
- Fantom’s Rise Up the Ranks, DelphiDigital.io, January 2022. Available at: https://members.delphidigital.io/dailies/fantoms-rise-up-the-ranks/
