An Interview with Benny Giang on Blockchain, CryptoKitties and other Entrepreneurial Tools
This week in class I was tasked with finding a company that was using unique digital tools and technologies to help their business grow. I had the opportunity to interview Benny Giang, one of the founding members of CryptoKitties. Benny works for Axiom Zen, which is essentially a startup that builds startups. Axiom Zen focus on technologies such as machine learning, augmented and virtual reality, and blockchain, and have created five independent companies since establishing in 2012.
Upon getting some background information on Benny and how he got to working on CryptoKitties at Axiom Zen, I learned that he started out as a student at the Haskayne School of Business where he pursued a BA in commerce before changing his mind and chasing a BA in Psychology. In his third year at the age of 19, Benny decided to take a break from university and found work at a startup known as Glacier. At Glacier, Benny accomplished an amazing feat. of helping grow Glacier’s reoccurring revenue from $120k to over $1M in just a year and a half. He did this through successfully developing their logistics and supply chain network as well as launching a university matchmaking app.
On a trip to New York to photo document the events of Hurricane Sandy, Benny attended the Thiel Summit. It was at this summit that Benny claims he caught the startup bug and decided to start participating in case competitions known as Hackathons. A Hackathon is essentially a competition in which a group of people compete against one another to come up with a solution to a problem using technology, all within a specified time limit. After having tremendous success at these competitions Benny decided to take his skills to a different startup in Kamloops called Lightship Works. Lightship Works is a “comprehensive in-field and in-facility operations application that works to automate data capture, perform analysis and visualization, execute task completion and communication, all in one application.” With Lightships works, Benny developed content marketing strategy, and revamped their outbound sales funnel.
After his time with Lightship Works, Benny moved to Vancouver and joined Axiom Zen. At Axiom Zen, Benny played an integral part in launching one of their five independent companies known as TOBY. TOBY is a productivity tool for people who have to many tabs open. It works by centralizing all the most important tools/tabs you have open into one unison tab. Next, Benny jumped over to another independent company of Axiom Zen known as Dapper Labs.
Dapper Labs essentially means “decentralized app labs.” They focus on working with a technology called blockchain. Dapper Labs has three main components to it which include a Dapper wallet, Dapper studios and their own blockchain called Flow. Using blockchain, Dapper Labs has initially focused on creating games. This is where Benny has continuously been working on a game known as CryptoKitties.
Now, before we get into what CryptoKitties are, it is important to talk about and understand the blockchain technology behind it. Blockchain is essentially a public online ledger composed of blocks and nodes that allow users to send information and tokens of value to each other without the need of a centralized body. Data and information is stored in these blocks which link to other blocks that share the previous blocks information. This ensures that the information being shared is valid and legitimate, therefore helping eliminate any fraudulent activity such as tampering with data.
When discussing what blockchain was and why it was created, Benny had this to say about the technology, “blockchain is a fundamental technology that will introduce both people and businesses to new ways for people to collaborate. I believe that there are essentially six devices that will and already have, changed the world. The first four inventions include the invention of the silicon chip, computers, the internet (which connects people and their computers together), and AI Machine learning (generating data and creating tools that are changing how we interact). The fifth is blockchain which will be how people connect with each other and exchange value without a centralized governing body such as banks. Lastly, quantum computing.” Benny explained that as people use the internet to exchange currency through companies such as PayPal, a middleman, these companies can cause friction as they can block people’s transactions. People want to be able to send money instantaneously and some even have an anarchist perspective where they don’t trust banks and governments. This is one of the main reasons blockchain is so important and why crypto currency such as bitcoin will be integral in how people make transactions in the future. Financial access is a big part of crypto currency as it allows people who don’t have a form of ID and can’t create a loan or get interest to have financial freedom. This makes trading currency accessible to the world, no matter who you are.
To give you a better idea of how the process works, imagine that you want to trade a digital trading card in an online marketplace. In order to secure the trade from you to another person in the marketplace, the distributed ledger would record the transaction in a block that is time-stamped and includes a digital signature associated with the creators of the block so that we know that the transfer has been made. Because this transaction has been made on the public ledger, it is completely transparent to the community participating in the marketplace and will include a hash (a digital code) that will link that block to any future blocks so that the information on the previous block is saved and accounted for. By using a community of nodes the transaction is completely decentralized as it does not pass through a central governing body, making the transaction efficient, secure, and completely transparent.
This is essentially the premise behind CryptoKitties and what Benny has been working on. CryptoKitties is the worlds first blockchain game, is the #1 DAPP in the world, and has over $28M in sales. CryptoKitties is a game that allows individuals to collect digital kitties and trade them in a marketplace where they can then breed new kitties that have a unique design, some being ultra rare and being worth upwards of $100k. These kitties have genetics and recessive and dominant traits, just like humans that give them their unique characteristics. People play this game for many different reasons ranging from educational purposes and collecting cute digital kitties, all the way investment opportunities. So, what does this have to do with blockchain?
All of this is made possible thanks to blockchain. CryptoKitties use Ethereum’s smart contracts which allows companies to program centralized apps on top of the blockchain. Smart contracts are just like any other legal contract with negotiation terms included in them, minus the cost and need of a lawyer. By using Ethereum’s smart contracts CryptoKitties users can make safe and automated transactions with other players in the marketplace.
Furthermore, the kitties are coded by using tokens. Tokens are all on chains and have genetics associated with them and when you breed two kitties, the coding uses those tokens to generate a new token, which is a new kitty. These tokens are all stored in one of Dapper Labs three components, the Dapper Waller. The wallet is unique to everyone that owns one and can be accessed using a username and password. Remember how we discussed how the blockchain ledger accounts for every single transaction that takes places within the community? What the wallet does is help save your computer from having to continuously update all that information. The wallet will hold your tokens and essentially remember the last transaction made before putting your token inside, and update once that token has been put back into the marketplace.
The success of CryptoKitties has been phenomenal and opened the door to many more game ideas from Dapper Labs. A major DAPP that Benny is working on is in association with the NBA. This game is known as NBA Top Shot. According to the NBA’s website, “NBA Top Shot will feature a social experience built around digital collectibles as well as a complementary head-to-head game designed to create a fun, authentic and accessible fan engagement on blockchain. Like other sports games or fantasy brackets, fans who play the game are tasked with creating their ideal squad, but in this game, their rosters are built by acquiring live in-game moments from the NBA season.” This is a great example of how startups like Dapper Labs are using blockchain technology to create innovative and exciting opportunities for people around the world.
As far as other entrepreneurial tools the Benny talked about using on the daily, he mentioned easy to use services such as Notion, Google Drive, Photoshop, TypeForm, and Campaign Monitor to get analytics and insights on Dapper Labs email marketing.
To grow the community Benny uses social media channels such as Facebook, Telegram, and Medium, however, most of the community lives on Discord.
After speaking with Benny about the uses of blockchain technology it is easy to see how diverse the different applications of blockchain can be, leading to easier and better ways for people to transfer information in both business and their personal life.
Resources Used:
AxiomZen. (2020). About: Benny. Retrieved from https://www.axiomzen.co/about/benny
DapperLabs. (2020). Products. Retrieved from https://www.dapperlabs.com/#products
Toby. (2020). Product. Retrieved from https://www.gettoby.com/product
NBA Communication. (July 31, 2019). NBA, NBPA, and Dapper Labs Bring First-of-Its-Kind Blockchain Game to NBA Fans Around the Globe. Retrieved from https://pr.nba.com/nba-nbpa-dapper-labs-blockchain-game/
Lisk. (2020). What is Blockchain. Retrieved from https://lisk.io/what-is-blockchain
Rosic, A. (February, 2017). Smart Contracts: The Blockchain Technology that will Replace Lawyers. Retrieved from https://blockgeeks.com/guides/smart-contracts/
EthHub. (2020) Smart Contract Wallets. Retrieved from https://docs.ethhub.io/using-ethereum/wallets/smart-contract-wallets/
LinkedIn. (February, 2020). Benny Giang. Retrieved from https://www.linkedin.com/in/bennygiang/
