Community & Ownership Change Everything
During the past weeks, our Chief Business Elgin Kim went through an intense sequence of events in the US visiting CoinDesk’s Consensus 2022 in Austin Texas, NFT.NYC, and the Metaverse Expo in Las Vegas.
Four weeks of brainstorming, networking, co-creating, and of course immersing in casual talks and partying.
Elgin wanted to share his experiences meeting a seemingly endless collection of Web3 experts, investors, and fans. He collected his thoughts — and summarized the key outtake of an intense month in four simple words: Community & Ownership change everything.
Happy reading!
CoinDesk’s Consensus 2022
It was the second week in June and the temperature was soaring well above 100 degrees in downtown Austin. The first day of CoinDesk’s Consensus 2022 was about to start. Held at the downtown Austin Fairmont Hotel and the Hilton Hotel, less than a quarter mile from each other, I would walk just fast enough to get to one and the other without sweating too much. It was hot! But there was a certain chill in the air. Bitcoin was hovering around $20k. Ethereum at around $1000. And from an all-time LUNA high of $119 just a couple of months prior in April, LUNA in June was at…well you know the rest.
Between the meeting rooms and ad hoc meetings in the hallways, there was a sense of deal energy. I personally met with many ecosystem partners looking for different types of partnerships. Anyone from on ramp/off ramp payments, middleware, and market making, we were all working on deals because despite the winter, however long it may be, we knew we were building the future. And the investors were just as actively looking to build web3. I met quite a few global investors and they were cognizant that the market correction allowed them to see and invest more clearly. The deal flow did not stop for them. Again, it was clear that in June the crypto community was strong as ever, optimistic as ever.
One of the memorable moments that made a big impact on me was a meeting with Forte, a middleware company. It’s a golden nugget of advice that will stick with me for a long time. Staring straight into my eye, one of the gentlemen in the meeting asked me if I even needed to tokenize. My brain was spinning for an answer and caught between a hmmm and an ahhh, I was relieved that it was asked in rhetoric.
He quickly continued to advise and emphasized, “don’t let the value of your token dictate the value of your product.” By that he meant, don’t be too eager to prematurely IDO and pump the value of our tokens. Instead, we should continue to focus on our killer product and let the value of our product naturally raise the value of our tokens. And with that attitude, we continue to build an awesome socialfi decentralized social product for creators, fan contributors, and anyone who wants to enjoy collaborative content.
And of course, Austin would not be complete without some outdoor BBQ…even in the 105 degree heat!
NFT.NYC
And speaking of heat, the NFT community was hot as ever at NFT.NYC. It was only about a week and a half that separated Austin and NYC and I really don’t think the winter/summer attitude had changed that much. People were walking around and throwing parties like it was 1999, or at least early 2022.
Yes, the parties. A lot of parties. And you couldn’t really have an NFT/crypto conference party without Steve Aoki, right?
Intentional or not, NFT.NYC was really decentralized. Yes, the multiple floors of the Marriott Marquis were crowded with people. Ballrooms on each floor were stuffed with small exhibitor booths. While more discussions were happening at the Edison Hotel.
But the real conversations and community gatherings happened at the independently organized side events — Doodles, Art Blocks, Bored Apps, art showcases, and tech partners. It was a week where fans came together to support their favorite NFT projects and where communities came together.
It was about the community. Like-minded participants were coming together not only to support the project but also its value. Because as an owner, you’re an investor.
That said, you don’t need web3 for a community. You just need people sharing the same space and time… doing yoga in the middle of Times Square.
But I chose tranquility watching the burnt orange sky set upon the metro tracks.
Metaverse Expo
Next stop to Vegas for the Metaverse Expo. This one was special because it was our first booth as a company! Booth duty!
We had an awesome group of curious people coming to our booth to see what Sagaverse was up to. Creators, gamers, streamers, blockchain engineers, NFT collectors, gamblers, and investors — all were impressed with the demo version of our app that allowed fans to remix and collaborate with the original creator’s content to truly re-create a new version of the original asset as a true derivative NFT.
The team enjoyed bringing our app to life by showcasing the ease of use to remix video content, minting NFTs within the app, and the idea of simple on ramp/off ramp of fiat<>crypto payments.
Being an app for creators and fans, one of the attendees asked me why we were at a metaverse conference. It was interesting to also see filmmakers and documentarians going around asking, “what is the metaverse?”.
Who knows how “the metaverse” will play out in a few years but the way I see it, for now, is that it’s a virtual space where people, a community, can gather in the same space and time to interact with each other. And that’s what Sagaverse does. It allows creators — fans — general end users to come together in the same app environment sharing space and time and hopefully bringing joy to everyone as they experience each other’s creativity.
Don’t tell anyone but I snuck off from booth duty to see a panel discussion on gaming in the metaverse. What I heard loud and clear in this session was that games need to be fundamentally fun. Stop making blockchain games just for the sake of making blockchain games. The panelists also suggested that blockchain game developers should dig deeper into interoperability, composability, and multichain compatibility. Also, the panelists unanimously said “play to earn” needs to be called “play and earn” because playing games felt like work under the aforementioned verbiage. One panelist even suggested: “play and own”.
Final Thoughts
If I had to compile my thoughts and summarize my three trips, I would say that there is an emphasis on community and ownership.
What I love about web3 is that communities are coming together to hoist the building blocks for the future which involves ownership by either tokens, NFTs, coins, or even virtual land and assets in the metaverse. I love the fact that regular folks can play games, consume content, create digital assets, and be rewarded for their efforts.
There will be an alternative to publishing content so that our efforts will be rewarded in an equitable way so that we can earn our fair share and take ownership of what we create. We no longer have to give up our rights and assets to some goliathic platform that will earn most, if not all, from our creative efforts. It will be a digital space where communities will help raise the tide and where new platforms will give back to the community and provide true ownership to the rightful owners, to the first-class citizens of web3.
p.s. Elgin and our CEO Lars-Erik Ravn will be attending the Korea Blockchain Week 2022, from the 7th until the 14th of August. So if you are there do not hesitate to connect with us by reaching out to us on Discord.
Join our Discord
