Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably already heard of Axie Infinity. Chances are you might even know its creator, Sky Mavis. But there is a lot to Sky Mavis nowadays than Axie Infinity – even though Axie in itself is already a huge topic to unpack. In this episode of Edge of NFT, co-founder Jiho Zirlin joins the crew to talk about the latest projects they have been working on now that Axie is on its fifth year. The highlight of this discussion is Ronin, a rogue samurai-inspired network that the guys at Sky Mavis envision to be the go-to place for Web3 game developers to launch their products and games and to grow their communities. Jiho also gives us an update on the Axie universe, where there are now multiple Axie games to choose from. Plus, for our hot topics, we welcome Bob Ras, co-founder of Sologenic, who gives us a sneak peek of their newest project, Coreum, the first EGB blockchain providing fast, cost-efficient, and scalable infrastructure for enterprises. Tune in to learn more!
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Listen to the podcast here
Jiho Zirlin Of Sky Mavis, The Creators Of Axie Infinity And Other Decentralized Applications And Services
This is Jiho. I'm a Cofounder of Sky Mavis and I'm on the Edge of NFT.
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NFT curious readers, stay tuned for this episode to learn how Sky Mavis, the crew behind Axie Infinity, is taking their samurai-inspired network Ronin to new far-off regions of creativity, how our guest applies the concept of 100% responsibility and demonstrating it by personally connecting with this OG community and how the Core Mainnet launch will go off like a rocket ship at Outer Edge LA.
NFT LA 2022 was a blast. It was also a blast-off in a giant plume of bright burning rocket fuel Web3. NFTs, blockchain, decentralization and a suite of immersive new tech developments have exploded onto the cans of life. Outer Edge is the theme of the 2023 event, dedicated to those of you building with us at the outer edges making the future happen.
The community-centric gathering returns to LA on March 20th to 23rd, 2023 to uplift creators and technologists through interactive experiences, discussions and presentations and entertaining surprises that transport participants to the outer edge of what is possible when we co-create a new paradigm embracing the decentralized web, AI, extended reality and more. To register, attend or learn how to co-create an experience, head over to OuterEdge.live. The events are being organized by our edge of company and us Founders here at the Edge of NFT. We will see you there.
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This episode features Jiho, the Cofounder of Sky Mavis, the Creators of Axie Infinity, the largest NFT gaming ecosystem with over two million active Axie holders. As Chief Growth Officer, Jiho's mission is to grow both the community and economy of Axie, a community-led digital nation that invites gamers to learn Web3 technology while building a decentralized world together. Sky Mavis, the developer behind the hit NFT game Axie Infinity, is gamifying the blockchain. Jiho, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me. It is a pleasure.
It is an honor to finally have you on the show. We had you as one of our featured opening speakers for Outer Edge LA, formerly NFT LA, in 2022. It was nice to run into you at EatDenver and catch up a little bit on everything you guys have going on. It has been a wild year for all of us. Sky Mavis is an amazing game where people have the ability to build player-owned economies. There will be places where they can live, work, play and experience life in a digital format that feels very surreal through digital nations. How did this concept come into being?
A bunch of the Cofounders of Sky Mavis were CryptoKitties players. I met Trung and Aleksander playing CryptoKitties way back in 2017. A common element for us is that we were people that weren't interested in crypto or blockchain when it was about money and speculation. All of the Founders of Sky Mavis were all gamers. We grew up gaming and collecting. Aleksander is a big Magic: The Gathering player. I grew up collecting fossils, insects and Pokemon cards. Trung is the CEO. Masamune is the artist that gave life to Axie. They used to create card games and cards that they would give out to their classmate in Vietnam.
All of us are collectors and gamers. When we learned about NFTs, it was like, “This is something that speaks to the right part of our brain. It is speaking to the collector and gamer in us.” We are lucky to learn about CryptoKitties quite early on and start asking questions like, “What is next? What does the final form of this look like? What does a Web3 game or NFT game that is using the technology to its full potential look like?” This journey has been about trying to answer that question. What does a player-owned economy look like? What are the benefits of tokenizing in-game assets? How can you create a Web3 game that is scalable, fun and decentralized? These are the things we have been collectively working on and pushing forward.
You mentioned that CryptoKitties was a moment for you. It is a moment for Jeff and I. Zach, our Head of Outer Edge LA, was hosting a casual meetup with Mack, one of the Founders of CryptoKitties, at one of those dive bars in Venice, California, around that time. This was after CryptoKitties blew up the internet and Ethereum.
This is a group of guys having fun. They were still figuring out what they wanted to be when they grew up. It is interesting to think about how your and our journey went down, where we are like, “This is exciting stuff.” We want to talk about this stuff all the time. Axie Infinity comes up. We started this show in March of 2021 and the journey continues.
We have talked about Axie quite a bit on the show. It has been a shining example of some of the most innovative things going on in Web3 and NFTs. Kudos on achieving that from a state of curiosity and fun, which is cool. Can you tell us a little bit more about Sky Mavis features of the platform in addition to being the user-first platform that it is?
Everything that we build, we build with the intention of being able to introduce the world to crypto through something fun, nostalgic and user-friendly. Axie is the number one NFT project by all-time trading volume, at $4.2 billion and we have onboarded millions of people to Web3. For 50% of Axie players, Axie was the first thing they have ever done within crypto.
We also have started building out the infrastructure needed to make a game like Axie. That has been realized through the Ronin Network. In the early days, we were building on Ethereum. It is like CryptoKitties and a lot of the projects you see. Transaction fees were quite high. Anytime there was a lot of excitement on the network and Web3, you have gas fees that started to spike. We are pricing out a lot of the types of activities that are needed for a game.
We have built our infrastructure called Ronin. The idea is that we use this infrastructure to scale Axie to millions of players. It is battle-tested and proven to work so we can also use Ronin and provide it to game developers that also want to leverage this technology and scale their games. Not only can we provide the infrastructure but we also have this audience on the Ronin Network that is excited about other experiences they can interact and get started with.
We have onboarded people interested in trying out these games. A key differentiator with what we have built is we have this super active community that understands Web3 gaming and has already onboarded people to this technology. Fifty-five percent of our players were onboarded by friends and family. This is a community that understands how to explain the benefits of Web3 to people. When we talk to game developers, they are interested in having this commingling or cross-pollination of our community with the community around the games they are looking to build.
You keep using the word Ronin. I had to google it. I want to break down what Ronin is in your world. This sounds like something I have heard before. It is a wandering samurai who has no lord or master. Is that related to what Ronin Saigon Testnet is all about? Tell us about the migration to DPoS and how all these things fit together.
Ronin is a samurai without a master. It represents how Ronin has allowed us to take the destiny of our products into our hands. That is also what we are looking to provide to other game developers and builders through the platform.
Who needs a master? We should all be free to do what we want and live our future destinies. That is a cool concept.
There is this aspect of rebellion against the existing systems and structures inherent to Web3. The naming of Ronin is a nod toward that.
Can you tell us a little bit more about the update of the Saigon Testnet migrating to DPoS and a little bit more about what those are and why that is important?
Ronin is officially migrating to DPoS and we are launching RON Staking. The Ronin community has been asking for two main things. They have been looking forward to RON Staking, which is the ability to lock up or stake your tokens to help validate the network in return for rewards. They have also been asking for new games on Ronin. Finally, we are launching RON Staking and simultaneously announcing these new game studio partners that are being onboarded onto the network.
Users first is always a good way to develop and progress. It is much appreciated on that. In terms of this going on, you said, “It is a response to user demands.” Any other reasons why this is important, that this is a direction maybe internally or for the long-term growth of everything you are working on?
There hasn't been this clear, obvious leader or winner when it comes to, “Is there an obvious place for me to come and launch my Web3 game? Where can I launch my game? What blockchain can I launch my game on that is going to allow me to get this golden cohort of users?” We think there is a huge opportunity to be seized where we can make Ronin the facto go-to chain of choice for game developers looking to launch, bootstrap and get an initial community.
We know that this can work. We have used it for Axie. We have hundreds of thousands of players looking for new products and experiences to interact with. The Axie IP might not be for everyone who is even in our ecosystem. There may be players within our ecosystem who are better fits for other types of IP. One analogy I like to make is, if Axie is our Mario, what will be our Donkey Kong or Zelda? What does Super Smash Bros. look like? Mario would never have gotten as large as it got or grew to be if there weren't other IPs adding right to this universe and adding new player archetypes into this ecosystem.
There is a RON Staking component to this. Can you break that down for us? As you think about the future of a lower-risk environment, we can be more defensive towards hacking. How are you thinking about staking in this ecosystem?
RON Staking is a big upgrade to the network because it allows for this migration to delegate proof-of-stake, which allows for there to be actual tokens locked up, securing the network, allowing for there to be more validators and a more decentralized network, which makes the network more secure. That is the main point behind delivering on RON Staking.
It is similar to CZ and a lot of folks in the industry. There is a strong push for decentralization whenever possible.
It needs to be very purposeful and methodical. Ethereum is the most decentralized possible but there are gradations or different levels of decentralization that make sense for different types of products.
Can you tell us a little bit more about your roadmaps moving forward, maybe some big news and how it is developing?
It makes sense to break this question up into two sections. There is the Axie side and the Ronin side. Let's talk about Ronin first. On Ronin, we want to make it the go-to place for Web3 game developers to launch their products and games and to grow their communities. We are focused on being able to build out the capabilities to launch these games on Ronin and have them scale their communities. That means having an in-house NFT marketplace. We have launched RON Staking and we are announcing these different game studios. A lot of it on the Ronin side is like, “What are all the tools? What are all the products we need on Ronin for these game developers to be able to launch and grow their games?”
On the Axie side, one thing that may be surprising to the viewers is there are multiple Axie games you can play. We have Axie Infinity Origins, which is the latest version of the card battler. That is what everyone knows about when they think about Axie. We also have Axie Infinity Homeland. It is a land-based game where you can build up a city or a village and harvest resources, that type of experience, which you can access by owning land. In 2023, we are looking to open it up to non-landholders through a delegation creature. It would allow people to lend out their land. We are improving those core experiences.
We also have Axie games that are being built out by third-party developers, such as Axie Infinity Raylights, which is being built by Quick Save, a finished game studio. We have experiences like Axie Doll, which is built by the community. It is a lot like Survivor.io if you are familiar with that but Axie based. If you go to App.AxieInfinity.com/games, you will be able to see this entire library of content that is starting to fill out around the Axie Universe.
There is a lot to build. We are focused on expanding and flushing out the infrastructure side of things while continuously adding content to this universe we are developing on the Axie side. They go hand in hand. More content and users also provide more of an incentive or reason for game developers to launch their IP on Ronin to build on top of Axie but also to launch other IP on Ronin to tap into that experience or community.
That is exciting when you think about the potential of all the games. In my head, I'm like, “Is there an NFL version of Axie where you can start throwing touchdowns to your characters.” In all honesty, there is a lot of lore that goes into building a universe like this and a lot of co-creation. How do you look at Axie from an IP perspective? How people are branching off to it? It must be exciting, like a dad having grandchildren.
2023 is the fifth year of Axie. Every year, it gets crazier. It has been amazing to start to see the community become more independent and responsible for the success of the universe.
A bunch of Ronins hanging out and doing their thing.
Last question of this segment and we are looking forward to the next one to have a little bit of fun getting to know you better. Is anything else in the Web3 space beyond the Axie Infinity ecosystem that has captured your attention? You mentioned CryptoKitties. Is anything else you are keeping your eye on, taking a nod from or inspired by movements you find particularly interesting?
Something that we are interested in is the idea of upgradable or dynamic NFTs. One of the things that are important for the future of the Axie Universe is people can look at NFTs and tell how rich someone is or how expensive an NFT is. People should be able to look at an NFT and learn about what the owner has accomplished to learn aspects of their identity. That isn't the case.
I'm excited about NFTs that can be upgraded over time. We are going to be doing a lot of experimentation with that in the Axie Universe. A lot of those learnings can also be applied to the games we are onboarding onto Ronin. We created this model, where for the first time, people were able to earn ERC-20 tokens with an ERC-721 non-fungible token. That was a net new invention.
What are the next net new inventions we will come up with that get NFTs and Web3 gaming to the next level? It seems like it will be up to us to create net new things that add zeros to the amount of traction that is out there. There has still never been an NFT that is notable with millions of users other than Axie. The space looks to us to provide guidance in terms of what are the new mechanics that projects should be playing around with.
Dynamic NFTs are an exciting area. We talked about it a little bit on the show. The autographs did something for one season with Tom Brady as his performance scaled. This is something we will be talking about at Outer Edge. No pressure at all but I do think the industry has looked towards what you guys are doing for inspiration and guidance as we all co-create together. I'm super excited about all these developments in your ecosystem. I will be watching closely to see what is next. I appreciate you sharing all this alpha with us.
Josh, did you get one of those? I feel like that is right up your alley but we are busy. You always get a chance to get that NFT.
I do own multiple Tom Brady NFTs.
Thanks a lot, Jiho, for all the intel and what has been going on with Axie. We finally got you on the show, which is cool. We have been talking about Axie since day one. The next segment is Edge Quick Hitters. We get a chance to get to know you a little bit better and a bit of your background, which has already been fun hearing the gamer background. There are ten questions we are looking for a short single or few-word response but you can feel free to expand if you get the urge. First question, what is the first thing you remember purchasing in your life?
Godzilla toy. I had to save up. I remember selling my toys as a kid to be able to buy a Godzilla toy I wanted at Toys R Us.
What was appealing about Godzilla? Was it the monster aspect?
I was always into dinosaurs growing up. I loved dinosaurs. Godzilla was this super dinosaur. I loved it. I watched the Godzilla movies in Japanese without subtitles. It was something I loved as a 4 or 5-year-old.
We took my five-year-old to a dinosaur museum in Kenosha, Wisconsin. It is right up our alley. They say, “There are two small groups of humans that know the most about dinosaurs on the planet. Those are 4 to 5-year-olds and the actual paleontologist that studied dinosaurs. Everybody else in between knows nothing.” You may have answered the second question. The second question is, what is the first thing you ever remember selling in your life?
Both of my parents are artists. I looked at art as a way to potentially make money. I used to make drawings of myself or war scenes. I would sell them to people in my class, school, teachers and tutors. I used to sell drawings when I was super young.
You had a large market. You didn't sell them back to your parents, which is awesome. You are able to expand your market size there.
I also used to sell shark teeth. I used to collect fossils. When Pokemon came out, I used to level up my classmate's Pokemon for money. I was making a lot of money as a child, to be honest.
It is all coming together. I see the path to Axie Infinity. What is the most recent thing you purchased?
The most recent thing I purchased is coffee.
I'm an almond milk latte guy.
I’m cold brew, no milk and sugar.
What is the most recent thing you sold?
I sold my USDC for ETH.
A lot of us made some conversions.
It was still at $1 but I was starting to see these potential issues.
I wasn't so lucky but hopefully, things will be back on track.
It is back to $1.
I got out quickly to be safe. We are all a little bit more hypersensitive.
Next question. What is your most prized possession?
It is got to be one of my Axies, probably Axie #707, which is a Mystic Axie Candy Babylonia, 1 of only 35-something. It is something I would never dream of selling.
If you could buy anything in the world, digital, physical, service or experience, that is for sale, what would that be?
These questions are all about buying and selling stuff.
Jeff came up with these, who is not present. You can thank him for these questions.
It would be some NFT. I'm not sure. I'm not someone who buys anything, to be honest. I rarely buy things. That is part of why I'm interested in this space.
Is there a particular OG collection of NFTs you are fond of besides your NFTs?
I used to want to buy CryptoPunk, 1 of the 8 ones. If you go to the CryptoPunk discord, you will see I used to try to buy one of those in 2019 but I haven't been interested. I would want to buy a house on Jeju Island. There is a place where my wife and I like to hang out in Korea that is nice, tranquil and peaceful. Every time we go there, something amazing happens for Web3, Axie or Ronin, in general.
I was in South Korea for Metacon a while back. My girlfriend loved it there. She got to explore for a while. I was at the conference the whole time but with the monk temple, food and all the beautiful places around South Korea, I want to go back. I'm going to put Jeju Island on my bucket list next time I'm in Korea.
The coastline is amazing. My happy place is a nice cafe with nobody in it, overlooking the water and writing.
I'm there with you. I'm thinking about life after Outer Edge LA. I'm going to do that. I'm copying that idea. If you could pass on one of your personality traits to the next generation, what would it be?
I'm relentless. I keep pushing forward. That is one of my best attributes and something I would want to pass on to the next generation or my kids.
If you could eliminate one of your personality traits from the next generation, what would it be?
I'm rebellious. That might be difficult to have in a child.
It is the ultimate shadow of your personality. It comes with pros and cons.
My five-year-old, it is a thing where you get in the car and you got to put him in the car seat, which involves he is got to sit in there and you got to put the seatbelt on to be secure and safe. I realized it is fun for him to make it difficult. He changes his body position. It is extra difficult. I'm like, “That is what it is like when you are rebellious and people are getting annoyed with you as an adult,” but he is having fun with it. You could tell it is a bit entertaining but I thought about that. I was like, “That is a little bit of my rebellious coming right back at me.”
That is what happens when you create a world of Ronins. You have a lot of rebellion but it is also a fun and exciting place to be.
Next two questions and we will be done here. Number nine, what did you do before joining us on the show?
I was in a coaching session with one of my teammates, giving them feedback on something they were working on. One of the things that are important in this digital environment is sometimes you might look at someone's work and comment or say a couple of notes. It is important, as if you are in person, to work together on something so they can absorb your preferences without having to infer a lot of different things about the feedback you are giving. It is a lot easier to work on something together.
The final question is the flip side of that. What are you planning to do next after the show?
I'm doing user interviews. I'm going to be talking to one of our Mystic Axie holders. I'm doing user interviews with the Mystic Axie owners. I do these systematic user interviews where you don't just send them a survey. This is something that we started doing early on. Rather than sending out surveys, top on a call with them, ask them questions and record their answers. That is important.
I did that with my prior food tech company. It is such a cool part of the process you have to keep doing forever. It doesn't stop with the first build. Does this user know they are going to get you on the other side of the interview or is that going to be a surprise to them?
Yes, we scheduled. I believe in taking 100% responsibility for my work. The Mystic Axie holders don't want to talk to someone who has been delegated to talk to them. They want to talk to the people whom they see as ultimately 100% responsible for something.
That was Edge Quick Hitters. Thanks, Jiho, for playing along. There are a lot of informative answers and I appreciate your thoughts there.
The next segment is called Hot Topics. We are going to bring on a special guest here for that. He can jump on here momentarily. Without further ado, I will give an intro to what we are going to talk about. Our hot topic features Bob Ras, the Cofounder of Sologenic. Bob is a serial entrepreneur in manufacturing, tech and blockchain and a keynote speaker at blockchain summits. Sologenic offers tokenized securities crypto assets, including stocks, ETFs and NFTs, in a decentralized ecosystem. Coreum is the first EGB blockchain providing fast, cost-efficient and scalable infrastructure for enterprises. Bob, welcome to the show.
Thank you for having me on your show.
It is great to have you, Bob. We are excited about our upcoming collaboration. We will talk a little bit more about it but can you start with what the core idea is behind Coreum?
Before Coreum was born, we had been working on a security tokenization ecosystem, which is called Sologenic. That technology is a layer 2 technology that has been built on XRP Ledger. XRP Ledger does not have a smart contract and there are some limitations. To expand, create a better product and offer a better user experience for Sologenic, we came up with the idea of creating our layer 1, which allows us to implement the Sologenic technology based on that. That is how Coreum idea was for.
Coreum is a blockchain that has been designed for financial institutions, enterprises and companies. It has a few unique features, which I can elaborate on a little bit more. The good news is that the Mainnet is going to launch on March 24th, 2023, through an event we are hosting in Los Angeles. You folks are aware of that. Perhaps we are going to see you there. That is how the Coreum layer 1 idea was born.
We are going to be in Los Angeles. It happens around the same time. I live in Chicago. Josh lives in Los Angeles.
I already RCP for that Mainnet event. I'm excited about it.
Tell us a little bit more about the project roadmap going forward and the strategy.
Let me start from the beginning. Before we started getting into the development of the Coreum blockchain, we had done a few years of R&D. A team of around ten people spent several years doing research and development. It was the end of 2021. We put a separate team, the development team, together. We start to get into the development of the blockchain. We move forward. The technology was available on the test net in September 2022.
Since September 2022, we have done a lot of testing. We hire some third-party auditors to do the testing to make sure there is no security spot and the blockchain is going to function properly. On the 24th of March, 2023, it is going live. Mainnet already comes with a lot of features but within the next six months, we are going to keep adding more new features to the blockchain.
Some of the features I like are unchained KYC and AML features. Coreum is the only blockchain that provides unchained KYC and AML. It is an optional feature. As a default, it is always off. We have that feature as an optional feature. In case financial institutions or regulated companies like to work within the regulatory framework, we give them the power.
The way it works is every transaction that is transferred from one wallet to the other phone wallet from the same financial institution account is going to have some metadata encrypted with that transaction. For example, the beneficiary name, the beneficiary address and data. It works similarly to Swift. These metadata are encrypted inside the transaction. The receiver is going to decrypt it and see all the data.
We are also giving the financial institution the ability to freeze a wallet if there is any regulatory concern. On the Coreum blockchain itself, these features are off. We don't have that. It works in any other blockchain but if the companies and the financial institution like to utilize Coreum technology and build their products, they can always turn it on to make sure they are using blockchain technology while they are 100% in compliance with a framework.
That is something that we are going to be adding. Besides that, Coreum has an interoperability bridge. On March 24th, 2023, we are going to be going live with XRP Ledger and Coreum network bridge. By the end of Q2 of 2023, we are going to be launching IBC, which is going to open a lot of doors to other blockchains that are already integrated with IBC. After that, we are going to be creating a decentralized bridge between the Bitcoin network and the Coreum network.
Sometime in Q3 of 2023, we are going to launch a decentralized exchange capability. We are not going to be putting a UI on it. We are not going to be launching a decentralized action but the technology is there. A company should step forward and create a UI using the decentralized capability of Coreum. To be clear here, when we are designing that decentralized exchange capability, we have two ideas.
Number one is user experience. We would like to create a decentralized exchange that gives a centralized experience to the users. It means that there is an order book. It is not like the stuff you don't see in the orders. They are going to be advanced order types. You can put a limit order and a stop loss. We are going to be supporting professional charting tools. This is one side of it. The other side is automated market imaging. We like to create a great tool, an SDK for market makers so they can easily do market-making on the Coreum decentralized exchange. We are extremely excited.
We talked on the show about decentralizing gaming as we know it now. You guys are decentralizing finance. These are exciting things that get me pumped up about where we are going in 2023 and beyond. I'm also pumped up about the party on March 24th, 2023. It is one of our official after-parties for Outer Edge LA. I heard about a renowned DJ, Ian Asher, live performance by Stivs Productions. Anything else that you want to drop about the party?
Our team has been working on this party and event for several months. We work with a few third-party service providers. About 350 guests are going to be there. A lot of influencers, tech executives and some celebrities are going to be there. The team scheduled some performances. We are going to surprise everyone. It is an entertaining performance when we are going to launch the Mainnet. That is scheduled to happen around 10:30 PM.
Outer Edge LA is going to be officially over at that point. I will have my life back. I will be a pure gentleman at that point, having a great time with you. I’m excited about that. Jiho, if you can't make it in person, feel free to send someone to your place. You are welcome as well. I appreciate you joining us, Bob. Where can readers learn more information about Coreum?
The official website is Coreum.com. If they go to the website, they can see all the information right there. Develop developers can start building their DeFi products on our test net. Once the Mainnet is live, they can make the product live officially.
Thanks again for taking a moment to come by. We appreciate the opportunity to partner with you like this. We are excited about the launch.
Thank you very much. It is my pleasure.
We will get to you later, Bob.
Thank you. Bye.
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We have reached the outer limit. Thanks to everyone for exploring with us. We have got space for more adventures on the starship. Invite your friends and recruit some cool strangers that will make this journey also much better. How can you do that? Go to Spotify or iTunes, rate us and say something awesome. Go to EdgeOfNFT.com to dive further down to rabbit hole. Look us up on all major social platforms by typing @EdgeOfNFT with no spaces and start a fun conversation with us online. Lastly, be sure to tune in next time for more great NFT content. Thanks again for sharing this time with us.
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