Introducing: YGG Advisory Board
Yield Guild Games (YGG) is pleased to announce the formation of their advisory board, which includes Anil Lulla, Aleksander Larsen, Joe Mahon and Eric Arsenault. Drawing from a wealth of collective experience with digital assets and DAO development, the advisors will oversee the design and implementation of an effective DAO architecture for YGG.
Anil Lulla
Anil is COO of Delphi Digital, a pioneering digital assets research firm that also designed the YGG DAO tokenomics system. He comes from a corporate finance background and has worked as an associate and analyst at institutions including Deutsche Bank, Bloomberg LP, and BlueMountain Capital. As an advisor, Anil will help YGG to expand its role in the NFT gaming ecosystem, encouraging the formation of partnerships and raising project awareness.
Anil hit it off as an early collaborator with YGG co-founders, Gabby Dizon, Beryl Li and Owl of Moistness, bonded by a mutual interest in the possibilities unlocked by blockchain gaming. “Almost immediately, I fell in love with their vision and mission,” Anil says of the YGG team. “Together we were able to light the fire and spear the move forward with Yield Guild Games.”
According to Anil, NFT gaming platforms are being used not just for entertainment, but education as well. He recognizes cryptocurrency’s power to allow anyone to become an investor — a feature he believes will be massively impactful for decades to come, particularly for people in developing nations where access to financial opportunity has traditionally been limited.
Aleksander Larsen
Aleksander is the COO and co-founder of Sky Mavis, the company behind Axie Infinity. He serves on the board of directors for the Blockchain Games Alliance and has been developing the dynamics of blockchain game economies since 2017. Prior to Sky Mavis, Aleksander represented his home country of Norway as a professional eSports player, ranked among the world’s best players of Warcraft 3 and Dota 2. As an advisor, Aleksander will help expand the YGG community, using his years of industry experience to increase brand awareness and engagement.
Aleksander saw the potential in professional gaming early in his career. Unlike professional eSports leagues, which are highly competitive and exclusive, he wants to extend the availability of “play-to-earn” gaming from a select few elite players, to all players. He would also like to see the “Nordic model” of economics employed in the play-to-earn movement, which is a mixture of capitalism and social democracy.
Aleksander says that Scandinavian countries, such as Norway, tend to have a well-formed sense of community, and as a result, the government is largely successful in providing care for the less fortunate. He believes YGG’s adoption of the core beliefs of this model will encourage a culture which “provides for everyone in a profit-making manner.”
Joe Mahon
Joe has advised several notable DeFi projects and currently plays an active role in the yearn.finance governance protocol. He will advise YGG on a structural level, specifically addressing problems related to scaling and decentralization.
Prior to his involvement with cryptocurrency, Joe worked with Tony Hsieh of Zappos fame on Downtown Project, a $350 million venture dedicated to revitalizing Las Vegas’ downtown core through investments in small business, education, residential developments and the arts. The experience influenced the development of Joe’s approach to problem solving and it was through his work with Hsieh that he was introduced to Holacracy, a patented system for decentralized management and organizational governance. Since then, Joe has explored the practice of changing behavior at a fundamental level to create a more effective work environment.
Joe recognizes the importance of universality when introducing a governance structure that crosses borders. “Historically, games have done pretty well, crossing boundaries in terms of language barriers and playability,” he says. “When you’re talking from a bottom-up community level and bring in elements of governance, it can make things very difficult, because all of a sudden, a proposal for freedoms may have to be put up in three or four different languages for it to truly be fair.” It is these types of considerations that Joe keeps top of mind in his role as an advisor to YGG.
Eric Arsenault
Having worked with DAOs since their earliest inception, Eric serves on multiple DAO advisory boards and is Head of Ecosystem at NFT marketplace Rarible. He led the design of Genesis DAO, and helped grow the DAOstack ecosystem to over $80 million in treasury during his employment. Eric’s years of experience in DAO development will help ensure that YGG’s own governance structure is built with fairness and efficiency in mind.
Rather than assigning all infrastructure-related tasks to a single DAO, Eric envisions a future where YGG is governed by several subDAOs, each one of them fulfilling a unique role in the YGG ecosystem. He sees a bigger picture for play-to-earn gaming: one where opportunities go beyond the cryptocurrency element to involve sponsorships, investments, and brand marketing.
“One of the things I think is super exciting about YGG is that it brings together people who are passionate about what they do and committed to excellence,” says Eric. “They are incentivized to take an actual role in their community and be part of the forum.” This is not always the case with DAOs in Eric’s experience, but he is encouraged by the amount of participation and willingness to engage that has already been demonstrated by the YGG community.
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