How tech entrepreneur Yat Siu rides wave of creation to help reshape the digital space
- If given HK$8 million to spend, Yat says he would invest in digital assets such as non-fungible tokens
- As co-founder of Hong Kong company Animoca Brands, he is at the forefront of creating digital property rights for gamers using blockchain technology
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Yat Siu of Animoca Brands answers the question of how to spend HK$8 million
Asked the question of how he would spend HK$8 million (about US$1 million), tech entrepreneur Yat Siu says he would invest in alternative assets such as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) – digital assets that exist on the internet, such as videos, artworks or photos, that have been authenticated using blockchain technology.
“I think of them as stores of digital culture; things that are used to describe fashion and art. Some of them are worth millions of dollars,” Yat says. “[An NFT] speaks to who I am and speaks to the kind of culture that I want to promote; it speaks to my identity.”
Yat is the executive chairman and co-founder of Animoca Brands, a unicorn-status company he established in Hong Kong in 2014 as an app for mobile game developers.
Today the company is at the forefront of creating digital property rights for gamers using blockchain technology, giving individuals full possession of their assets, equity and, significantly, ownership of their data.
“Life actually is a game in itself, it’s just not very well designed for most of us,” he says. “But in the metaverse you can create new types of experiences that actually mimic life itself, with perhaps better or fairer rules for all.”
Yat grew up in Austria, and trained as a classical musician before landing a job with Atari, a German company leading the video game market in the 1970s and ’80s. “My journey really started in the 1980s,” he says.
