The cryptocurrency industry is rapidly changing. There’s no doubt about it. From a field reserved only for cypherpunks and heavily tech-oriented people to a global phenomenon that’s now ventured into the mainstream, blockchain is no longer a topic that’s raising as many eyebrows as it used to, and Web3 became mainstream in talks.

Those who’ve been following the latest gaming and NFT developments have surely heard of Animoca Brands: one of the most prominent gaming studios and VC, boasting a tremendous investment portfolio, including names like The Sandbox, Axie Infinity, Atari, Alien Worlds, Aurory, and many more.

Animoca Brands has been one of the driving forces of the blockchain gaming niche – a use case touted by many as the most prolific and powerful when it comes to implementing the technology.

During EthCC 2023, CryptoPotato sat down with Yat Siu – Animoca Brands’ co-founder and executive chairman. In an eye-opening interview, he shared his thoughts on the latest rise in popularity of crypto in Asian countries, or even a China 2.0 wave (“they see an opportunity to break away from the US”), why he is sure that there will be a second wave of NFTs and why Ripple’s win over the SEC is a breakthrough for the industry, where the next big trend will come from and when.

What made you believe in the emerging blockchain industry, and when did you first hear about Bitcoin?

I heard about Bitcoin over 10 years ago, but my interest in it wasn’t really that big. I experimented. It was more intellectual interest.

What really got me into crypto was non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which are basically CryptoKitties in 2017. One of our subsidiaries was based in Vancouver, and it was involved in building CryptoKitties. And the co-founder of that business ended up becoming a co-founder of Dapper Labs, and we became investors in that business.

Since you’re talking about Bitcoin, I find that the conversation that happened with CryptoKitties back in 2017 is very similar to NFTs, with the ERC-721 standard being very similar to what we’re seeing today with Ordinals and Inscriptions.

It almost feels like history repeating itself.

What really excited us wasn’t so much about the financial aspect of it; although that’s a ke