Join us in this captivating episode as we delve into the world of Web3, artificial intelligence, and gaming innovations with On Yavin, the dynamic co-founder of Syndika, a cutting-edge consulting firm specializing in Web3 and AI technologies. With a background in angel investing, law, and entrepreneurship, On Yavin brings a unique perspective to the conversation. Discover his journey through various industries led him to the exciting intersection of blockchain, AI, and gaming. Hear about his insights on the transformative potential of Web3, the challenges facing the industry, and the role Syndika is playing in shaping its future. Learn about Syndika's visionary approach to building a comprehensive ecosystem that supports startups, corporations, and initiatives. Gain insights into the revolutionary concept of adaptable NFTs, the future of AI in gaming, and the transformative potential of the Metaverse. Whether you're an enthusiast of blockchain, gaming, or AI, this episode promises to expand your horizons and inspire you to embrace the dynamic landscape of emerging technologies. Tune in to explore the edge of innovation with our insightful guest!
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On Yavin Of Syndika — A Web3 Syndicate That Helps Startups With Web3 Architecture, Design And Startup Development, And More...
This is On Yavin from Syndika, a top-notch Web2, Web3, and AI consulting firm. You're tuning in to the Edge of NFT, a top-notch source for diving into all the fascinating things in Web3 and emerging tech. Keep tuned in.
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Stay tuned for this episode to learn how eighteen years of Angel investing and passion for out-of-the-box problem solving across many industries led our guests to build a vast blockchain ecosystem, how one of the rarest weapons in World of Warcraft impacted a desire to invest in Web3 gaming, and finally, how Utes NFT Collection is migrating to Ethereum after accepting a $3 million grant from Polygon.
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This sponsored episode as part of our media partnership features On Yavin, the dynamic co-founder of Syndika, a leading Web3 syndicate renowned for its comprehensive capabilities in supporting startups, corporates, and initiatives. A serial entrepreneur, lawyer, and Angel investor, On Yavin has been a cornerstone in establishing several successful companies and mentoring many others. He stepped into the blockchain industry in 2017 with the founding of Cointelligence, where he significantly contributed to research and education. In 2021, he launched Cointelligence Fund, an early-stage venture capital and crypto fund with a focus on metaverse and blockchain-based games serving as a managing partner.
More recently in 2023, he co-founded Syndika, bringing his premier expertise to the Web3 and AI syndicate. Syndika stands out as a top-tier Web3 syndicate, offering full-scale support to various business endeavors. With a robust team of over 50 members, they provide the highest level of Web3 technology consulting, architecture and development, Web3 economics and data science, and comprehensive venture studio capabilities. On, it’s a pleasure to have you.
Thank you very much. It’s great to be here.
It's exciting to be part of Syndika. Full disclosure for our audience, we recently did join the syndicate and we're excited to talk to you about not only what you're building but your perspective on the industry and what Syndika is all about. Let's face it, it takes a lot of grit to be successful in Web3 and you need to have friends around you that also can help accelerate you.
You've learned a lot about what makes companies thrive in this type of industry from your experience in building a fund and working with so many startups. It sparked my curiosity when I heard about Syndika. Before we go into that, I'd love to chat with you a little bit about your background. What were you doing before you got into blockchain and what compelled you to jump into the blockchain space, particularly gaming?
I am considered to be a serial entrepreneur. I started and developed companies in different industries. I will talk about two of them as examples. Before I joined the industry, I was managing and also working hands-on with my teams at my advertising agency. I specifically focused on everything related to SEO or Search Engine Optimization, PPC campaigns or pay-per-click campaigns, social media networks campaigns, and so on. I liked the hands-on work itself. As I mentioned, I was doing it with my team and I did it for a few good years.
A second example that I would like to give you is the real estate company that I established that's a very straightforward and very boring company that buys real estate, invests in real estate, and so on. These are just two examples, but I would say that the biggest thing besides these two examples is the fact that I have been an Angel investor for eighteen years. I've been investing in startups, advising, and mentoring a lot of the founders over the years.
I appreciate how someone with a cross-industry perspective can get attracted to blockchain. I come from food tech. I've met a lot of people that have come from real estate and traditional ventures, as well as serial entrepreneurs. It makes me wonder, what was that spark that made you go all in on blockchain having seen all these different industries and different technology use cases?
I still remember exactly how it happened when I got a phone call from a good friend of mine. He told me that he's going to start operating in the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry. We had a chat for about 25 minutes. In these 25 minutes, he managed to get across to me the fact that blockchain and cryptocurrency are the future of the financial markets and almost every industry out there. That's the thing that got me so excited about this.
The day later, I started freeing up my time to be able to completely focus on blockchain and cryptocurrency. That's what I did. I sat down and educated myself from 6:00 AM until midnight every single day for a couple of months. Every day, I got even more excited. I still think it's the same situation and it's still going to be the future of the financial markets and other industries. I can tell you that as much as I'm excited about the future, I can also tell you that following six years in this industry, it is probably the craziest industry to be in all aspects.
Never a dull moment. Plenty to do. Just like you, when I got in, there was so much information. It can feel like drinking from a fire hose, but when you're chopping it up and slowly integrating yourself into the space and breaking it down, the wheels start to turn and dots start to connect. A lot has happened in your six years of now being in this space. What is your current perspective on Web3 at this current moment in time?
First of all, I still think that Web3 is the evolution of the internet. Some would say revolution. Some would say evolution. I'm pretty sure that it's the future of the internet if you can say something like that. Besides that, with blockchain technology, we can achieve so many things that we could have not achieved before. Thanks to decentralization, things are possible. If we talk later on about gaming, that's a very good example in my opinion. There's a reason that I decided to focus our investment on gaming. Besides the positive notion, we are in a horrible situation right now.
Following all the bankruptcies and all the scams that happened in the industry, I know a thing or two about these scams considering the fact that I called out more than 100 different scams until now, personally. The situation is so horrible because not only the world is looking at us in a very negative way. Now, if you say to someone outside the industry that you're into blockchain or cryptocurrency, the first thing that they think is it’s a scam. It doesn't matter how you turn it around and it doesn't matter who you are. The situation is not that good, but I'm hoping that in the next few years, it's going to change a lot.
We share this passion for leading with education. That's the type of content that we create to shine a light on the real building happening and the real use cases. We'll go into that a little bit more. In terms of deciding to kick off Syndika, it was intriguing to me when I heard about it because we had talked many times before about your fund. Typically, fund managers go on to create bigger funds or they might do a venture studio model, but you chose something quite different. What is the impetus and story behind Syndika? How has it evolved since you originally came up with the idea?
First of all, I'm laughing because you made me remember the two people that I talked to when I decided to co-found Syndika, the response was, "On, what's wrong with you? You are already a fund manager now. That is not a lot of work. You're going to co-found a services company. That's huge and tons amounts of work. Why are you doing this to yourself?" That's why I'm laughing. It is a tons amount of work, but it's also very rewarding.
To answer your question, I would say the following. First of all, I had an opportunity. Tzahi Kanza who is my co-founder at Syndika reached out to me. He told me that there was an opportunity for me to buy his partner out, the partner that he had back then, and to join him at the previous company before Syndika. I agreed after considering it, and then we decided to completely rebrand the company and focus it much more on what Syndika is doing now. Besides what I said, one of the main reasons, and following what you asked me about my thoughts on the industry, that was a huge trigger for me to create Syndika in its current form.
I've seen so many scams. It's not just the scams of the projects that are stealing money from innocent mom-and-pop investors but I am also referring also to my portfolio companies at Cointelligence Fund. Almost half of them were scammed. It's either scammed by service providers that took their money and disappeared on them or scammed them in a way that they took their money but provided such poor services. It's not a matter of poor services, it's a scam. It doesn't matter how you turn it around. By the way, in our industry, "fake it until you make it" is the standard.
We come up with these gentle words like "rug pull" to disguise situations where it's downright fraud.
It's fraud and it pains me so much. Going back to your question, that was a big trigger for me to establish Syndika. The last part of my answer is going to be the fact that I have seen in our industry, everybody keeps talking, especially in the last 2 to 3 years about DAOs. Everybody keeps talking about DAOs. DAO is the future. DAO is this, DAO is that. What I have seen until now is that most of these DAOs, besides the fact that they are clearly violating laws and regulations. The founders for some reason think that they are going to be protected because it's a DAO, which is exactly the opposite. I'm saying that as a lawyer who understands a thing or two about blockchain and cryptocurrency regulation or potential future regulation, which is another problem that we have at the moment in the industry.
What we are planning to do at Syndika is to try to establish a DAO model without being a DAO. I'm emphasizing that part. I don't want to mislead anyone by mistake. We're not a DAO. We're not going to be a DAO. We're not based on blockchain and we're not going to have the token governance. Just to clarify that when I say that I am calling it a DAO. We are working these days on the members' committees. The members' committees are going to be the decision-making mechanism of Syndika. That gets me very excited because it's not just another company that provides specific services. It's a company that provides all of the services that founders need, and some of the services are offered by the members and not by the core team members.
That's an interesting distinction because going back to your core challenge of why you started Syndika in the first place is scamming and people not delivering and executing on what was promised. By bringing these different people together that both of you vet and make sure that whoever is part of it is going to be able to deliver on what they're talking about. What are some of the other big visions of Syndika? What are some of those key concepts that you can talk about for our audience?
First of all, the basics of Syndika. I mentioned that Syndika is based on a previous company. The main service is blockchain and AI development. I'm referring to software development. Besides that, everything around economics is a core service. I'm referring to all types of economics from financial planning to crypto tokenomics and so on. The list goes on and on to legal, Web3 marketing, and so on.
Everything that I mentioned now is a part of the venture studio services. Besides the mechanism that I mentioned before, what we are planning to start considering next year is everything around the acceleration for the startups. Syndika and the previous company we did before are taking an idea and a concept that was made up by the founders and helping them build it from scratch until they do the exit. That's the big vision of Syndika, combined with everything that I mentioned already.
One thing that immediately caught my attention because we were in the middle of rolling out our newest sister-brother show Edge of AI, is that you also decided to include AI in your services. A lot of folks are jumping on the AI train. There's this general mixed feeling about anyone that's doing anything in AI that it's a little bit more hype than substance or AI has been around for a while. I think that we're at a critical moment with generative AI and the adoption of AI that makes this moment meaningful more than just hype. Why did you decide to include AI as part of the syndicate's core services?
It's not a decision that I made. The decision was made about two and a half years ago when the previous company started developing AI and it was a no-brainer for us to include that in the syndicate itself. You're right. It became a buzzword these days. When I tell people about Syndika and when I'm focused on the development part, I'm always mentioning what I just told you because it is obvious to everyone that it became a buzzword. All the serial entrepreneurs out there are into AI now. More specifically, all the blockchain crypto advisors and ICO advisors are now AI advisors, which is very ridiculous that they became experts within such a short time.
Speaking of experts, when I joined the industry and people started calling me a crypto expert, I didn't allow it. The only time that I didn't reject it and I stopped telling people to stop saying it is when I was in the industry for more than five years. That's a proper time for me to make someone potentially an expert. With regard to AI, we have done so much already. We have an AI CTO at Syndika, and he's in charge of AI developments. It's something that we've been doing for a while.
To keep adding onto that, I think it was not just timely but wise of you to continue to explore all the innovations of AI. I even think there's going to be a cool crossover between the world of AI bridging into Web3 and building things on the blockchain, making things more efficient and faster, and everything else. Something earlier you mentioned that I want to go back and touch on because I do think it's important to get more information on, which is how you talked about the unique membership model. Can you expand on how Syndika's members can benefit from the ecosystem and work with each other in the various unique ways that they can?
By the way, regarding what you just mentioned, I don't think I'm sure that AI and blockchain are going to be mixed together. For me, it's very straightforward because if you take the gaming industry, it's already happening. You have games that are being built on the blockchain these days. You already have the gaming giants that started discussing AI and how AI is going to be used for the NPCs or the Non-Player Characters in the games. It's already happening. It's not even the future. It's happening right now. I am sure that by the end of 2024, I'm going to be able to try at least 1 or 2 games that are going to implement AI for the NPCs.
To answer your question about the membership model, first of all, the most unique part about Syndika's membership is the fact that it doesn't cost money to join as a member. That's the biggest thing. Whenever you hear about the membership club, I never saw a membership club that doesn't ask its members to pay. The reason that we decided not to ask for payment is because we truly believe in real partnerships and we want the members to join and become real members. Not someone that paid for it and was able to get through the door by a payment. The members are being chosen very carefully and vetted very carefully.
The membership model itself allows the members to contribute to Syndika. When they contribute to Syndika and if they contributed to Syndika, they are being rewarded with equity shares. That's the biggest thing about the membership model because right now, Syndika is a profitable company. We're not profitable by millions per month, we're on the border of breakeven.
We're using most of the profit for marketing purposes and so on, but we are profitable with 31 paid employees. We are offering equity shares from a profitable company, which is completely different if you compare it to a startup offering equity. I know a thing or two about that because I have equity in about 2,000 startups considering I've been doing this for more than 18 years now. They are worth absolutely zero besides the ones that succeeded, which is only a few of them. That's a huge difference between what we are offering and what the others are offering.
I would like to also add to that the fact that there are different ways to contribute. You don't have to do just one specific thing to contribute to Syndika. Members can be onboarded to help Syndika with biz dev, marketing, and with sales. They can also join Syndika and help by providing services to Syndika itself and then being offered equity shares or a mix of cash payments and equity shares together. Lastly, one of the biggest things that I would like to see happening is when members are taking part in the members' committees. It means that they are taking part in the decision-making of Syndika, they will also be rewarded with either cash or equity shares. In my opinion, that's the most exciting part about Syndika.
Let's get into some of the nuts and bolts. You've got this team of devs cranking away here. Are there any specific projects that you're allowed to disclose that either the company's working on or has worked on? To go beyond that, what are the types of projects that are on your roadmap? I can envision all these fun intersections with gaming, AI, and blockchain infrastructure. Part of the fun of being on the dev side of the house is that you get to be seeing the trends and thinking about what's the next use cases for this technology. Maybe you could talk about that too.
The first case study that I can give you is a project that Syndika has been developing for a while, and that's called ALTI. It is the world's first Web3 community chatbot and cross-chain crypto wallet. It's a very interesting concept and project in general, in my opinion. Going back to what I mentioned before, this is a good example of a project that Syndika has been developing for a while and was helping the founders to establish everything almost from scratch.
The second example is gaming. We already provided services to Web3 gaming projects. More specifically, we used to be very focused on everything related to economics. This specific service for this project that I'm referring to was building the whole crypto tokenomics from scratch and making sure that it's potentially viable. The last example that I would like to give you, and it's not just one specific example because it is important to mention that Syndika is all about Web3 and AI, but I have to tell you that it already has experience with hundreds of different projects for Web2. It's not just limited to Web3 and AI, but that's the focus.
Those are some cool products. I think there's going to be a huge evolution in the world of gaming and it's going to continue to go in this direction. Since you have thousands of companies that you've heard about through the years, also involved in Syndika and outside of Syndika. What are some of the projects that you've been following in the Web3 and blockchain space that you've been finding pretty interesting that is outside of Syndika?
One more thing I wanted to add with regard to what we mentioned before about the different services of Syndika, and that's something very important to me personally, is the advisory service. Going back to what we discussed before at the beginning, another thing that I've noticed in our industry is the fact that there are so many scammy advisors and non-professional advisors. They are providing their advisory.
Some of the times that I had the pleasure of going on conference calls with them, I was completely shocked by the advice that they provided. In some cases, they advised founders to violate laws and regulations. In some cases, I've seen advisors advising on how to do all kinds of shady stuff in order to do marketing for the project. Everybody in the industry is very well aware of the bots issue and it doesn't end up with the bots only.
Lastly, in some cases, the advisors are joining as advisors and they're not doing anything. I mean absolutely zero, nothing. I talked to one of our portfolio companies about two months ago, and the founder told me that he decided to remove all of the advisors. He had 6 or 7 advisors back then and he decided to remove all of them. Two of them are very high-level names in our industry, just to clarify. They didn't do anything.
With Syndika advisory service, that's something that I'm going to be completely focused on the member's advisory capabilities because we do have amazing members at Syndika already, and that's something that I wanted to highlight as well. With regards to examples, absolutely. One example that I would like to give you is a portfolio company of Cointelligence Fund called Cradles. Cradles is an open-space game that I am very excited about because I'm a gamer myself. I've been a gamer all my life. We didn't mention that in my bio because I edited it recently because it’s part of my day-to-day job these days. I am a huge fan of open-space, MMO, and RPG types of games.
This excites me personally. Besides the personal excitement, the reason that I'm telling you about this project is the fact that what the founders decided to do with NFTs is something incredible in my opinion. One of the biggest problems that I have seen is the fact that most NFTs are based on specific mechanisms that do not allow them to be changed. You have this NFT and that's it. It's for a lifetime. It's registered on the blockchain. It's never going to be changed, which is also great in many cases.
In the case of games, and more specifically in the case of in-game items, let's say that I'm playing a game and I looted a sword from a boss. That sword in the new types of blockchain-based games should be an NFT. That NFT is supposed to be owned by the same player that achieved that weapon. Cradles found a way to make NFTs change, which means that's the example of the sword. When you play with a sword, you're supposed to fix it from time to time. It doesn't stay the way that it is. I'm talking about real life. If you had a sword in real life and you were going out to fight with that sword, you will have to take care of it as you take care of any tool out there. You need to make it sharp and you need to make sure that it continues to remain sharp.
In virtual reality weapons, it doesn't happen and it doesn't make sense. I'm not talking about traditional games because in traditional games it does happen. I'm talking about the new generation of blockchain-based games. That's why I get very excited about this specific project. The second example that I would like to give you is a completely different type of project that the Cointelligence Fund invested in. It's not a game. It's going to have mini-games in it, but that project is called Ethereum Towers. I had a catch-up call with the founders, and I was extremely impressed by their progress and what they managed to achieve, especially during these difficult times in our industry.
I get very excited about Ethereum Towers because everybody who is talking about the metaverse, the future of the metaverse, and so on. By the way, as a side note, in my opinion, the metaverse has been around for many years. I'm referring to the big games out there, the open-space games, but that's beside the point. With Ethereum Towers, you are going to be able to buy your own apartment at the virtual reality towers. You will be able to do everything that you are doing in real life in that space, which means that you're going to have furniture. You're going to be able to practically use thousands of different items, buy them, sell them, build them, and so on. That gets me very much excited and I'm hoping that the launch will be successful which is planned to happen in a few months.
I'm checking out the website. It looks cool. I think we have some new games to put on our playlist.
Go check it out.
Speaking of sharp swords, I hope your sharp mind is ready for Edge Quick Hitters. This is a fun quick way to get to know you a little better. There are ten questions and we're looking for a short single-word or a few-word response, but feel free to expand if you get the urge. Are you ready, On?
Let's do it.
What is the first thing you remember ever purchasing in your life?
The book The Hobbit.
Classic one. Relates to your proclivity for adventures and mysterious lands, physical, digital, and all of the above. What is the first thing you remember ever selling in your life?
That's a good one. I was born and raised in Tel Aviv, Israel. In Israel, I had one of the first CD-ROM burners. The reason I'm mentioning Israel is because, back then and we're talking about 35 years ago or something like that. It wasn't that advanced, as much as Israel is very well-known to be a startup nation, it's a third-world country in many ways. People don't get that it advances much slower.
I'm explaining that because to say something like this that I had one of the first CD burners in the US is going to sound very weird because there probably have been tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands as soon as they were launched. In Israel, it wasn't the case. Anyways, I had one of the first, and I remember that I was burning on the CDs different things and selling them to my classmates. I'm not sure if it's the first thing that I ever sold in my life, but it's the first thing that I remember. That became my first business.
I have a lot of blanks. I have that idea, but that market got pretty saturated in the US pretty quickly. I noticed you said things. We won't pry into what those things are on this show. We'll leave it at that and create a little bit of mystery there.
You have the mystery part. I have to tell you that in reality, it wasn't that interesting. The interesting part, I already said.
I got to ask you on the flip side of it. What was the most recent thing that you purchased?
How surprising, cryptocurrency. I had to think about it because I wasn't sure if I bought something afterward. I wasn't sure if I bought that cryptocurrency, and then I bought my lunch together or if it was afterward.
Not financial advice, but can you share which one?
Absolutely not, because I'm not doing any financial advice ever. I don't want to make anyone buy it.
We'll save it for the green room.
What is the most recent thing you've sold?
On flipped, the same cryptocurrency. That's why I got confused.
No, I'm not a flipper. When I buy cryptocurrency, it's at least for a couple of days or more. The thing that I sold recently, I don't remember. Pass. Sorry.
Not a seller, more of a buyer. Got it. What is your most prized possession?
This is going to sound like a big cliche, but my knowledge and experience. I mean it.
Life is packed with lessons learned. That's the juice of life. If you could buy anything in the world, digital, physical, service, or experience that’s currently for sale, what would it be?
If I can buy it and own it, not buy it pretend, because what I'm going to say now is impossible to buy, but I'm hoping to change that. There is a legendary weapon in World of Warcraft that is called The Glazer. It's in The Burning Crusade version. It's the most beautiful virtual weapon that I ever saw in my life. I was almost ready to pay about $10,000, which is an unrealistic amount for something like this when the classic version was launched, which happened a few years ago. The reason that I didn't buy it is because I can't own it. It's as simple as that.
That is a very unique one. That's a wonderful answer I've heard on this show. I'll have to go check that out so I can look up what that is. If you could pass on one of your personality traits to the next generation, what would it be?
I'm not sure if you can call that a trait, but one of the things that are most important for me in life is to have justice. I would say that's something I would like to pass on.
A sense of justice and ensuring that justice is served. That is a unique one. If you could eliminate one of your personality traits for the next generation, what would it be?
It's getting much better over the years when I get older, but I would say that I can get upset emotionally too quickly. That's something that I would prefer not to have.
Your passion for justice can get the best of you perhaps. That's always the flip side of having any kind of strong instinct and I can certainly appreciate that. Two more questions for you, On. What did you do before joining us on the show?
I competed in the World of Warcraft Arena.
The gamer in you is coming out on this show. Have you tried the new app game, NFL Rivals by Mythical Games yet?
Not yet, but it's definitely on my list.
Check it out. I've gotten pretty addicted to it. The gameplay is good. I used to be a big Madden fan. I think I'm a convert. It's a blockchain game. What they've done seamlessly is cool. They've come on the show. They've been part of Outer Edge. They did a big raise. I'm a fan. Last question. What are you going to do next after the show?
I'm going to have dinner with my family.
At home or heading out?
No, at home.
Do you do any cooking?
I hate cooking. You will never catch me cooking. My wife decided to cook after a while because we had a newborn a few months ago, so it's been a while since she was cooking. I'm very excited about tonight's dinner.
Congrats. Mazel tov. Looks like Richard has a bonus question for you.
We always like to finish with a bonus question. My bonus question for you, which I think I might know the answer but curiosity's still here anyway. What is your favorite game of all time? You can't play any other game. This is the only game that you can play from now on. What is that game?
I already mentioned it. It's World of Warcraft. By far, nothing comes close to it. I have to say that I cannot stand the way that Blizzard, the company behind World of Warcraft is managing the operations. There are so many problems, so many issues, so many bugs, and other issues in the game, but it is by far the best game ever created for that genre. Nothing can come close to it until now. I'm very hopeful that one of my portfolio companies is going to replace World of Warcraft for me and allow me to change it.
That concludes Edge Quick Hitters. I think we have a little time for some hot topics if you guys are down for that.
Sure.
Let's do it.
The first one hits home because Richard and I already have our tickets and our flights booked. We'll be a media partner at Korea blockchain week in 2023, which is Asia's Premier Blockchain Event, uniting industry leaders, investors, and enthusiasts from across the globe to explore the latest trends and developments. It's organized by FactBlock, co-hosted by Hash, and offers a rich agenda with the usual speeches and panel discussions by blockchain experts. Also, there are some unique networking opportunities and collaboration with both the Korean and the international community within the blockchain.
It's going to be from September 4th through the 10th at the Shilo, which is a beautiful hotel we've been to before. That's going to be September 5th and 6th. There's also going to be an NFT Expo called The Gateway, which has been hosted in the past in Miami, and that's hosted by FactBlock, as well as NFT Now. That's going to be in the Seongsu-dong, Seoul region, which is in the other part of town. Last but not least, it's going to culminate with an NFT Web3 theme music festival, Seoul Bound. That's going to run on the 9th and 10th. We'll be hitting the road to Singapore. Richard, it sounds like we've got a busy few days.
We do. I'm excited about this. This is personally my first time spending some quality time in Korea. I'm excited to see how the Web3 community is happening on that side of the world. We've been to, even at our event Outer Edge, going to other events across the country, and a good bit of the community from Asia will fly in. I've gotten to connect with quite a few. Now, it's cool to be able to go directly over on that side of the world and connect, find people who are building business over there, and find ways to collaborate. I’m excited about the culture, excited about meeting amazing people and finding ways to keep building these international bridges so we can keep bringing the world of Web3 together.
On, have you had a chance to spend any time in Seoul?
I've never been there. I need to do an Asia tour because I've been all over the world. I have to tell you that in Asia, I've been to only two countries until now. I need to extend on that and considering the fact that it's one of the biggest, if not the biggest, blockchain and crypto hubs in the world, I'm referring to the entire Asia. I need to start visiting more often.
You're welcome to come join us for some Korean barbecue in Seoul if your schedule allows. It should be a fun time. Let's do one more hot topic. What do you say, guys?
Sure.
This is interesting. The Utes NFT collection is migrating to Ethereum after accepting a $3 million grant from Polygon. A little bit of a switcheroo. I've been running into Frank a lot lately. I didn't ask him about this, but here's the gist. Utes is a collection that was among the top projects on Solana and they had announced that they were migrating to Polygon. Previously, they would return the $3 million grant received from Ethereum earlier in 2023. Instead, it's going straight to Ethereum to unite the Degas and youths communities. They had already completed their migration plan to use the grant to fund the team expansion and continue to grow as a project. Polygon is now going to redeploy $1 million of the refund grant to empower its native network of builders and creators.
A switcheroo. I will say I do respect the Degas for promptly returning the funds. I can appreciate that these are not easy decisions around interoperability and where to live. Ethereum is still the grand poobah. After they did some due diligence, that made sense that that was more of their home base to unite all their NFTs. They're thinking long-term. The Degas has been a consistent winner in the space. They've held their value very creatively with a lot of community engagement. The newest collection they launched changes the existing artwork. It includes females as representatives of the Degas community. Overall, more power to them. It shows the complexity of making these types of decisions. Do you guys have any other thoughts?
I'm not aware of the details, but from what you mentioned, it's pretty admirable in considering our industry returning the funds like that unless they were completely obligated by the agreement to do it. I say kudos to them.
As you said, a lot of projects are being built on Ethereum. The fact that they decided to go straight to Solana and then after being on Solana and accounting for 70% of the trade volume, almost being a monopoly over there for a while, decided to pivot and go onto another chain. It shows the investment that Polygon is willing to make to bring on the community, that they see the value in and see people actively engaging in. Kudos to Polygon for going directly to them and doing that. As I already mentioned, to be able to say, "I'm willing to return your funds. I appreciate you wanting to work with us, but we're going to go in this direction." It probably took a ton of time. It probably wasn't taken lightly and was very strategic.
I am very bullish in my way of what Polygon is doing. They are constantly investing in projects and communities that keep showing up, growing, building, and putting their money where their mouth is, but also furthering what Web3 is by also bridging a lot of Web2 companies into where things are headed between NFTs, gaming, etc. I think that Polygon is doing a lot of the right things. Their change keeps coming up in a lot of different new stuff. I want to take acknowledge that I think Polygon is continuing to set the bar high.
We're almost done. We do have a fun segment called a shout-out. You are building an ecosystem and there's a lot going on in your world. Is there anyone in particular that you want to shout out and give a little bit of TLC that maybe doesn't always get as much airtime as you speak around the world?
I would like to shout out to three people. One is going to be very obvious. That's the person that I mentioned before, Tzahi, my co-founder at Syndika. The second person that I'd like to shout out is my second co-founder at Syndika who is Alex Cucer. He is doing an unbelievable job every single day. When I talk to him, I get impressed all over again. The last person that I would like to shout out is my wife. I don't talk about her too much during professional engagements, but this is the right time and the place for me to say how much I appreciate everything that she's doing and the fact that she needs to suffer my entrepreneurship all these years. It's not easy.
That is true. My girlfriend is also guilty of that. I do shout her out from time to time. I know Richard's wife is very understanding as well.
That's super important.
On, it's been such a pleasure. Where can our audience go to learn more about you and the projects that you're working on?
Finding me is very easy. I'm the only one in the world with my full name. If you search on social media, On Yavin, you will find me. I'm mainly on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. Besides that, you can visit Cointelligence.fund to see everything about Cointelligence Fund and the portfolio companies. More importantly, Syndika.co, you can learn a lot about Syndika on the website. We have a lot of educational content as well that is worth checking out.
Speaking of education, we came up with a pretty fun campaign together that supports that. I appreciate your generosity. Five members of our audience and your community, actually everyone can apply. We'll have an opportunity for a one-hour consultation with Syndika about whatever technology projects they are building. I guess these could be the very infancy, beginning, and idea to something more developed that needs some refinement. Thanks for that. I'm sure no matter what from having those conversations, folks will get some real value as they're evolving their projects. I appreciate that, On.
It’s my pleasure. I'm looking forward to it.
Don't be shy, guys. Apply for that campaign. We've reached the outer limit at the Edge of NFTs for today. Thanks for exploring with us. We've got space for more adventures on the Starship, so invite your friends and recruit some cool strangers that will make this journey so much better. How? Go to iTunes or Spotify, rate us and say something awesome. Go to EdgeOfNFT.com to dive further down the rabbit hole. Look us up on all major social platforms by typing EdgeOfNFT 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.
Important Links
- Syndika
- Cointelligence Academy
- Cointelligence Fund
- The Hobbit
- LinkedIn – On Yavin
- Twitter – On Yavin
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