The theme of this year’s TED conference was “possibility.” Yat Siu, the co-founder and executive chairman of Animoca Brands, did not expect to receive an invitation to speak. After all, Animoca Brands is a blockchain gaming and venture capital company focused on Web3 – and 2023 is one of the more volatile periods in crypto history.
But Siu was invited.
On April 20, he took to the famous TED stage for 12 minutes to discuss digital property rights with an audience that Siu said was finally experiencing their “lightbulb” moment. “It was like performing Shakespeare,” Siu said of the talk, referring to the difference between the informal atmosphere of most Web3 conferences and the structured format of TED Talks. “TED is a great stage,” he now told nft.
The pressure rises
Siu was optimistic about the use cases of blockchain technology long before turning over Amonica Brands in 2018 to focus on Web3. However, this Web3 bullishness made Siu an anomaly among the other TED speakers – to say the least.
While he’s not usually phased by public speaking, Siu says he felt an added responsibility on stage in Vancouver. He was the only TED presenter who dared to address the controversial topics of crypto and digital assets. That’s really not too surprising, given that crypto has built a notorious reputation over the past year, thanks in large part to the fateful FTX crash and ensuing contagion (not to mention rampant scams and carpet-pulling).
Being a Web3 spokesperson in the midst of a “normie” crowd is no small feat even on the best of days. The pressure was immense, Siu said. “There’s a small cohort of people at TED – a very, very small minority, like single digit percentile – who want to continue the conversation on Web3. They were looking for people who could interpret,” he added.
Acting as an interpreter
To serve as the unofficial Web3 interpreter of TED 2023, Siu started with a basic definition of ownership. He wanted to demonstrate that property has always been a virtual construct, despite historical associations with physical assets such as real estate, cars and collectibles.
“When you buy a house, it’s not the physical house that gives you ownership; it’s a certificate,” Siu explained. Ultimately, NFTs are just the digital versions of these certificates.
It is true that in certain places in the world the definition of property is slightly different. After all, not all cultures and nations rely on certificates to confer ownership. However, Siu says this particular explanation is appropriate that many audiences can relate to. As such, it allows them to more easily understand the utility and purpose of NFTs and thus get on board with digital property rights.
Siu continued his speech by highlighting why digital property rights are so important, arguing that you cannot have freedom without property rights before extending the logic to digital spheres. an absolutely underlying threat to the democratic institution,” said Siu.
As Siu noted in his presentation, centralized platforms and artificial intelligence (AI) collect data collected through our participation in the Internet. Such data and digital assets generally include a person’s browser activity and cookies, along with original words, images, and illustrations that make up large AI learning datasets. Still, because society doesn’t recognize it yet digital property rights like us physically proprietary rights, consumers have no share in or ownership of the profits generated from this data.
To that end, Siu concluded by arguing that we need the digital infrastructure to protect these materials as digital assets, saying Web3 solutions provide the infrastructure we need for a freer and fairer internet by ensuring robust digital property rights.
The plan to get a big one tomorrow
With an impressive portfolio of over 380 companies, Animoca Brands has no intention of slowing down on its mission to advance digital property rights and build the open metaverse. But the current demographic focus may surprise many in Web3. Instead of targeting investors or individuals in the financial world, the company has set its sights elsewhere.
“Educators and teachers are perhaps one of the most important segments,” Siu said. Animoca is currently focusing heavily on an initiative called Open Campus, a community-led educational alliance that uses blockchain to build additional, maker-driven opportunities for decentralized learning. “Open Campus is a token for education. This is money to help teachers and build a different kind of creative classroom,” explains Siu.
To further bolster these efforts, the company pledged on May 15 to contribute $10 million to a global fund set up by Open Campus to complement standard education curricula through the use of Web3 technologies and communities.
And last June, Animoca acquired an educational platform called Tiny Tap in a bullish play to enable educators to create user-generated educational content on a no-code platform. “Teachers create content tailored to their specific classes,” Siu said. “That is valuable. That should be NFTs.
Siu explained that Tiny Tap’s first group of teachers earned what he describes as “life-changing money” by viewing their content as digital assets with ongoing resale value.
“[NFTs are] a way of transferring intellectual property (IP) rights from one educator to another. There’s something very fascinating there,’ Siu said. “Education is an area that, among the gaming things we already do, is a big area of focus for us right now.”