The Animoca co-founder, a big investor in NFTs, GameFi and memecoins, wants to make on-chain capitalism secure so that digital democracy can flourish.

Dec 10, 2024, 2:29 p.m. UTC

In the late 19th century, an Australian statesman named Sir Richard Torrens created a government-backed, centralized registry that guaranteed land titles. Property rights had existed before then. But they were captured in complex chains of historical deeds. Torrens’s innovation, which eventually became known as the Torrens System, provided clear, government-guaranteed ownership rights which is credited as creating the financialization of real estate by making it a secure and tradable asset.

Fast forward to the 2020s, and Animoca's Brands – a Web3 culture VC that primarily incubates NFTs and GameFi – is looking for the “Torrens moment” in digital property rights. Leading the charge is CEO Yat Siu.

"Digital property rights can provide the basis for a fairer society," Siu told CoinDesk recently, building on an argument he made in an interview with CoinDesk last year that "property rights and capitalism are the foundation that allows for democracy to happen."

This profile is part of CoinDesk's Most Influential 2024 package. For all of this year's nominees, click here [UPDATE WHEN PUBLISHING].

“The roots of communism came from feelings of inequality. There’s a correlation between this, Web3 and financial literacy,” he told CoinDesk in February. “Web3 can save the capitalist narrative by turning users into stakeholders and co-owners.”

Animoca’s Return

Animoca didn’t have an easy go of it during the bear market of 2022-2023, when crypto was barely hanging on and it looked like NFTs and GameFi would be a thing of the past. As the bear market thawed, however, the sector came back to life, and 2024 has been a different year entirely, with Animoca's impressive returns once again making it and Yat Siu some of the most influential stakeholders in crypto.

The CoinDesk Metaverse Select Index (MTVS), a measure of the health of the sector, is up 192% in the last three months, outperforming the CoinDesk 20, an index of the largest digital assets, by 74 percentage points.

CryptoRank data shows that Animoca portfolio companies have a collective market cap of $35.6 billion, up almost 37% in the past 30 days alone.

Siu and Animoca are approaching the coming year with newfound confidence, doubling down on Hong Kong with a new 28,000-square-foot office.

By the end of the next year, Siu expects substantial progress will be made around the world in establishing regulations governing digital asset ownership. This, he explained, "will empower users by providing them with explicit rights over their digital property — rights that are currently already available via blockchain technology, but poorly understood in many jurisdictions."

The incoming Trump administration is said to be considering known pro-crypto personalities to run the country’s top commodities regulators. And regulators around Asia, including Hong Kong, are consulting with the industry to build better digital asset rules — the first step in codifying crypto property rights.

What’s Next

Siu is working on more than property rights. Next up is what Siu calls the utility-driven memecoin.

"Memecoins will increasingly become more interconnected with NFTs and launch their own games," he said, envisioning a world where IP crosses over between crypto properties in much the same way that comics become movies and games in the traditional world.

Memecoins, Siu argues, will begin transitioning from products of mere internet notoriety to utility-driven experiences, which will “enhance the intrinsic value of NFTs within our cultural framework," he said, also predicting that NFT's will again be a major narrative in 2025.

Siu said that this shift underscores the growing importance of the intersection of community, culture and technology.

And with the market eyeing this intersection with more confidence, Animoca may be in search of more HK real estate as 2025 comes to a close.