W3GS: Kids Ask Yat Siu Their Big Questions About the Metaverse
At W3GS, Animoca Brands Executive Chairman Yat Siu answered kids’ burning questions about crypto, NFTs, digital identity, and more, by relating these web3 concepts to the games they enjoy today.
At YGG Web3 Games Summit (W3GS), Animoca Brands co-founder and Executive Chairman Yat Siu connected with young minds in a unique fireside chat featuring video clips from curious kids asking Yat their questions about games and virtual worlds. Providing a fresh perspective on web3 concepts as he related them to the biggest mainstream games today, the Metaverse thought leader demonstrated how web3 can benefit all generations.
Yat simplified complex web3 topics for children's understanding, addressing concerns surrounding play-to-earn mechanics, digital safety, and best practices for securing online assets. He also explored the potential for more iterations of the web, unveiling challenges within the existing system, such as the lack of data ownership and self-sovereign rights.
In the following excerpt from this special Q&A, Yat explains how games like Roblox and Fortnite are foundational for understanding the Metaverse. He then details how the Metaverse extends far beyond a particular game, enabling people to truly own their assets and make a living from their activities on-chain. Additionally, Yat answers a question from Sevi, an 11-year-old NFT artist with autism, telling him about how web3 can help people find like-minded communities that perceive the world in a similar way. Lastly, Yat shares his thoughts on how online avatars help people express themselves freely and discover who they are without the physical barriers present in real life.
Watch the full recording on Facebook.
W3GS - The Chairman and the Children: Yat Siu Gets Grilled
Sebastian (1:05:51): How can you explain crypto to a kid like me?
Yat (1:06:01): Hi, Sebastian. The fact that you are six years old and you’re asking me about crypto is already quite unusual, so you’re quite a special kid. But I would say, imagine you play a game like Roblox or Fortnite, and you earn these things called Robux and those are virtual currency, and you can use this currency today only inside the game.
But imagine if you can use that currency to buy your favorite ice cream or your toys or anything in the real world or outside. Or even use them in other games. Well, that is kind of crypto, but it’s only possible because it’s powered by this thing called the blockchain. So crypto is the way.
Rocko (1:06:49): I love playing Roblox games. Are there games in the Metaverse?
Yat (1:06:58): Hi, Rocco. The Metaverse, as you may have heard in this conference, many people talk about the Metaverse as this new nation, as this new world, this new universe as it were, where people can have economic opportunities and play and have jobs and so on. And there's also a famous saying that says, “Life is like a game.” In many ways, that's actually what the Metaverse provides for, which is basically a virtual plane where you have other types of games in which you can make money or you can live in or exist in.
And so, in this sense, you playing Roblox games is a way of training in the Metaverse, but I would also say that Roblox is not the real Metaverse. The real Metaverse is powered by blockchain and web3. It is the kind of place where you can actually make a living, have an income, and build an existence based on your ownership of things.
Sevi (1:07:56): Hi Yat, my name is Sevi. I'm 11 years old, and I'm in the fourth grade. How can web3 help people with disabilities and let them earn and save up for their future?
Yat (1:06:58): Hi Sevi, thank you for your question. So I would say first, don't have anyone ever tell you that you have a disability. People on the spectrum see things differently. You're able to visualize the world in a way that others can't. So commonly, we might learn to refer to it as maybe a learning difference. And if you think about web3, what was one of the foundations of web3? It’s Ethereum. And who was one of the most prolific founders of Ethereum? It's Vitalik Buterin. And Vitalik, maybe decades ago, would have been considered a person who had a disability. But actually, he's a hero, because he saw the world differently.
Because he was able to connect to a group of people around the world in the way that nobody else could at the time, to build the community, to build his original 1,000 true fans, and build from that, effectively, the foundations of Ethereum and what we might define broadly as the web3 movement today. And if you're now already an NFT artist, you're already connecting to your community. You're connecting to the very people who see the world as you do in different ways. And web3 provides the ability to connect with those who share that. So I would say, web3 definitely helps people who think differently, not think of it as disabilities but just have them sort of enable the kind of superpower that you have that others don't see yet.
Trey (1:09:46): Hi Yat, do you think it's possible to turn into an avatar you created in real life?
Yat (1:09:55): Hi, Trey. So if you ask my mom, who's almost 80, about how we look like today, she would say we all look like avatars anyway. We didn't use to have tattoos, red hair or colored hair, we would dress very conservatively, we wouldn't have funky outfits, there would be no such thing as cosplay, we wouldn't be worshiping superheroes. So I would say we've already evolved ourselves into becoming avatars anyway.
But what does it really mean? It means that, ultimately, as humans, we all just want to live our own self-expression, we want to be identified for who we truly are. And in the beginning, we couldn't really do that. Because we had limitations. We had physical restrictions. We also had different values. But today, you can actually exercise that, initially, online. Through an avatar, you can experience what you may or may not want to be, and eventually realize that it's a form of a physical expression. And this will just become bigger, through other forms of fashion, outfits, tattoos, or whatever it may be. So I would say that in the virtual world, being an avatar is really the first step to help find who you are.
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