Tariffs will push people deeper into digital worlds, says Animoca co-founder
With the wrapping up of TOKEN2049 Dubai, one thing was clear that Web3’s next chapter is imminent. In an interview with Cryptopolitan, Animoca Brands co-founder Yat Siu laid out how digital property rights, AI agents, and decentralized identities will shape the internet’s future and why the next crypto cycle is about more than just price action.
If you think Animoca Brands is just a gaming company or a venture capital firm, you’re not thinking big enough. According to Yat Siu, Animoca’s true identity is as an ecosystem builder, one on a mission to make digital property rights a global standard.
“Basically, if you think of us as an ecosystem builder, our mission is to make digital property rights standard in the world,” Siu explains. “We do this through gaming. We also do some investments. But if you want to make the whole world accept digital property, you can’t do it alone.”
Since its entrance into the blockchain space in 2017, Animoca has deployed capital into over 570 projects, with more than 165 of those directly tied to gaming. When asked why Animoca has invested so broadly, from games to infrastructure, Siu emphasized that the company is not a traditional VC.
“All of our investments come from our balance sheet. We don’t run a fund. It’s more like how Apple should be operating,” he explained. “Apple has $300 billion in cash. Do they have a VC fund? No. Should they? Yes, If they put even 1% of that into building apps for the App Store, they would build a bigger ecosystem.”
What was the spark that ignited Animoca’s Web3 gaming ambitions? We asked. He highlighted that it was CryptoKitties, the collectible cat NFTs that first hinted at a programmable, ownable internet in 2017. Siu compares it to the early mobile gaming boom. “It wasn’t really a game. It was NFTs you could breed. Was it a great game? No. But it was the moment we understood this was big.”
Even after hundreds of investments, not everything has gone smoothly. Siu acknowledges some missteps, especially during crypto bear markets. Token launches—such as Gunzilla’s Off The Grid and other projects—underwhelmed, often because of macro conditions rather than product quality. “Gaming macro was bad. All gaming tokens were doing badly,” Siu notes. Still, he remains optimistic.
He believes gaming and metaverse tokens like SAND (from Animoca-backed The Sandbox) are primed for a strong comeback by the end of the year, driven by renewed mainstream attention thanks to events like GTA VI’s release and new Nintendo hardware. “We believe existing gaming projects that are already listed have an opportunity because they’re underpriced. They’re currently priced relative to utility, not sentiment.”
As bullish as he is on gaming, Siu is placing major bets on two less-hyped areas: digital identity and education. He sees digital identity, specifically Animoca’s Mocaverse project as crucial to building a robust, reputation-based Web3 economy. “Digital identity with multiples is a huge bet we’re taking. We think it’ll create a mass market in terms of digital reputation and make a huge impact.”
He also sees education as fertile ground for Web3 applications, though details on Animoca’s approach remain under wraps.
Meanwhile, the rise of AI has only strengthened his thesis. Far from a threat, Siu sees AI as a catalyst for Web3 mass adoption. “Your wallet won’t be MetaMask. It’ll be an AI agent that does MetaMask for you, the kind of wallet I can give my grandma,” he says. AI will also unlock explosive growth in user-generated content, composable NFTs, and autonomous agents transacting in crypto. “The native currency of AI agents is crypto. It’s nothing else.”
Despite all the futuristic visions, Siu remains grounded in gaming culture. A self-professed first-person shooter fan, he acknowledges the massive appeal of hyper-casual and idle games but doesn’t view them as competition in the traditional sense. “The competitor of idle games isn’t other games, it’s TikTok. It’s all about attention,” he said.
For Siu, the magic of gaming lies in its cultural universality, whether it’s Prince of Persia sparking curiosity about Persia or modern Chinese games finding global audiences. “Gaming is culture. You have to hit something that fits into the cultural narrative.”
Turning to geopolitics, when asked about the impact of rising US-China tariffs and trade tensions, Siu offered a surprising take. “Tariffs are positive for digital industries. If people can’t buy goods as easily, they turn to entertainment and games, and remember, there’s no tariff on software or Bitcoin,” he noted.
As physical goods become pricier, Siu expects people to spend more time in digital spaces, where tariffs don’t apply. “Games are neutral, I can play Fortnite, The Sandbox, or Axie Infinity without worrying about tariffs,” he said. Even when it comes to crypto, the borderless nature of digital assets stands out. “If I send you Bitcoin from China, there’s no tariff on that,” Siu added.
Wrapping up the conversation, I asked Yat Siu whether he believes most gaming-related tokens are fundamentally overvalued. His response was clear: “No, I think they’re fundamentally undervalued.” Siu explained that gaming tokens reflect much more than just current speculation, they mirror the broader macro trends within the digital economy.
“If we believe, as we do, that gaming’s role in the global economy will grow by the end of the year, then these tokens are undervalued,” he said confidently.
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Is It Too Late to Buy Bitcoin? Michael Saylor Offers Perspective on Long-Term Value
Michael Saylor, Executive Chairman of Strategy, recently addressed whether buying Bitcoin today still presents long-term value.
Using historical and economic analogies, he compared the cryptocurrency’s growth to major financial hubs like New York City, drawing parallels to how smart capital consolidates around dominant networks. His argument centers on Bitcoin’s evolving position as the central economic infrastructure of cyberspace.
Saylor explained that throughout history, economic empires have consolidated around specific cities, Carthage, Rome, Venice, London, and New York, each serving as central hubs for financial and trade activities. In the digital age, he claimed that Bitcoin holds a similar position in cyberspace. According to Saylor, Bitcoin is becoming the main network for digital applications and money transfers across global jurisdictions, including Singapore, Paris, and China.
He emphasized that the value of Bitcoin lies not in its price, but in the strength of the network it supports. With a fixed supply of 21 million coins and a structure backed by over 400 exahashes of computational power, Bitcoin is now considered the most secure and resilient computer network.
Related: Bitcoin Price Surge Drives Solana Memecoin Deployments
Saylor then noted that approximately $950 trillion in global assets, including real estate, bonds, equities, and gold, carry a large monetary premium. He argued that much of this capital is stored in inefficient assets that store value.
Gold, for instance, has underperformed relative to Bitcoin over the past two years. From his view, as investors recognize this underperformance, a shift away from these traditional assets may accelerate Bitcoin adoption.
Citing historical trends, he observed that investment in New York real estate would have been valuable even a century after the city’s economic rise. Applying that same logic, he suggested that Bitcoin remains a viable long-term acquisition, even for new participants entering the market today.
Saylor also compared Bitcoin to physical real estate, arguing that just as investors prefer premium property in major cities, Bitcoin represents digital real estate in the most established and secure part of cyberspace.
Related: A heated debate is underway in crypto: Is Bitcoin destined to remain king, or will altcoins prevail?
In this context, he likened most speculative altcoins to penny stocks—appealing perhaps for their low cost but, in his assessment, lacking in long-term value and fundamental network integrity when compared to Bitcoin.
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Leadership Under Fire Ethereum’s Answer To Critics
At Consensus 2025 in Toronto, Ethereum broke its silence. Facing criticisms about its governance, technical roadmap, and talent drain, Paul Brody (EY) and Josh Stark (Ethereum Foundation) defended a clear vision: that of a complex but fundamentally robust network. While the ETH price stagnates and competition intensifies, Ethereum’s leaders bet on the long term and remind that markets will eventually catch up with the technology, not the other way around.
While recent Ethereum news is dominated by a prolonged drop in the ETH price and a visible decline in developer engagement, criticisms focus on a sensitive point: the governance of the Ethereum Foundation.
Josh Stark, panelist at Consensus 2025 from May 14 to 16, openly acknowledged the community’s expectations :
The ecosystem needs stronger leadership […] on the roadmap, its execution, and the coordination of efforts to address major challenges.
This partial self-criticism, however, did not prevent the speakers from defending the work already accomplished.
Paul Brody, president of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance and a key figure at EY, took the opportunity to praise Aya Miyaguchi’s work, former executive director of the Foundation: “Looking objectively at the results of her term, I give her an A+“, he stated.
Here are the main points raised regarding the governance of the Ethereum network :
This institutional clarification aims to stabilize a sprawling project often seen as lacking clarity since its transition to proof-of-stake.
While the effects of this reorganization on the ETH price or community dynamics remain to be proven, it nonetheless signals a stated intent to regain narrative and strategic control within a sometimes divided ecosystem.
Beyond organizational aspects, representatives of Ethereum defended the network’s technological direction, particularly the deliberate choice of a “rollup-centric” model.
Paul Brody reminded that Ethereum is now a proof-of-stake blockchain supporting more than 120 layer 2 solutions, with a daily capacity between “300 and 450 million transactions“.
He emphasized that on these L2s, transaction fees have been below one cent for three months. Facing criticisms denouncing excessive fragmentation or loss of network coherence, Brody did not back down: “I am delighted“, he asserted regarding the current roadmap.
Josh Stark defended this modularity as a visionary choice, stating that “no ecosystem will be able to avoid this type of structure long term“.
This technical positioning is not without consequence. While it allows a drastic reduction of usage costs and unprecedented scalability, it also introduces new vulnerabilities.
Rollups raise complex questions about security, cross-chain trust, and user experience, sometimes creating counterproductive silo effects.
However, for Stark, these obstacles are normal in a deep innovation process: “We are the ones who have advanced furthest on this path, and we face the turns and challenges“, he explained.
The implications of this debate go far beyond Ethereum. They touch on a fundamental question: is technical complexity a barrier or an asset in building a long-term infrastructure network? While Bitcoin benefits from a simplified narrative around being a store of value, Ethereum claims a more sophisticated vision, less readable for short-term markets but potentially more fertile. Josh Stark is convinced: “markets always end up reflecting value. And Ethereum is the most important project in crypto history“.