Primer: Sillytuna is the OG of OGs — he entered the crypto space in 2012. In this episode of the Zima Red Podcast, he shares his entire journey with us. Do not miss out on his interesting firsthand experience.
Background
Was originally a game developer. Ran a game studio for between 15-20 years
Got into crypto in 2012 when someone wrote to them asking if they could purchase their game using Bitcoin
Got his first Bitcoin between $4-9
Realized he was bad at trading
Was amazed by the technology and started looking at various ideas
Realized that supply chain was interesting. It led him towards NFTs
His Game Development Journey
Was programming 8-bit computers since he was 9
Have always made games since he was a kid
Went to university for Cognitive Science. Was offered game dev jobs while at university, but he did not take any of them
Started his own company after that. A year after, he started his second company
Was hurt badly by the 2008 recession
Did not feel fulfilled. Contemplated going back to AI, except that crypto was the better move
The Games His Company Made
Made all kinds of games
Created lots of well-known mobile games
First game they made was Ghosts ‘N Goblins
Also made Road Rash
How Did He Solve Coding Issues In A Pre-Google Era?
Had to solve it himself or to go to the library
Still have all the computing books he bought when he was a child
At that time, console work is private and confidential and he had to do it himself
Programmers who were brought up in that domain is ideally suited to smart contract work as they understand everything at a low level
In those days, devs cannot patch their games. Once games were released, they have to work
His Experience As An OG
Is not only an OG, but one of the old people in crypto
Was around when the world wide web came out
When he was at uni, he was doing web pages to help pay the bills at one point. Regretted not taking advantage of that. Promised himself when another opportunity arises, he would go all-in
When crypto arrived, he risked everything and couldn’t pay rent at one point
“My parents like you're mad, why don't you sell your Bitcoin? You've got no money like, yeah, because if I sell it now, it was all pointless. There was no way I was going to do it. And you just stick through it. And you find a way through, you take on little jobs here and there. And so that's what I did.”
- Sillytuna
It was really tough but he was pleased that it turned out well in the end
Diving Into Bitcoin
Bought his first Bitcoin in March 2013
Started trading Bitcoin on Mt. Gox. Realized he was not good at trading
At that time, Vitalik was working for Bitcoin Magazine. Met him in summer 2013 at a crypto event in London
Vitalik was interviewing him for some gaming stuff he did
What Made Him Excited About Bitcoin?
There was a number of factors:
Financial motivation aspect to it
Interest in the tech
Within 6 months, he became mostly interested in the tech
Was learning something new everyday and meeting incredibly smart people
He was never a libertarian. Never thought of Bitcoin as something that could break the banks and demolish fiat currencies
Where Did He Get His Information About Bitcoin And Other Cryptocurrencies?
Initially, it was from the Bitcoin Talk forum
Subsequently, it was the Bitcoin subreddit
Both places were extremely colourful — full of abuse, frauds, and nonsense as well as very smart people and great discussions
As the abuse increased, people started drifting away
When Ethereum came out, people started going to the Ethereum subreddit
Bitcoin Bundle
In 2013, he created a product called the Bitcoin Bundle
It’s similar to the Humble Indie Bundle — putting a number of games together and setting the price to a minimum of $5 or more
He wanted to test out what game devs and communities thought of Bitcoin
Tried it as a one-off. Each developer earned 1.4 Bitcoins
They learned a lot of new things from doing so
The gaming communities either didn’t like it or understand how exchange rates work
Surviving The 2014/2015 Bear Market
Had absolute conviction even though he does not know where Bitcoin was going
Had listened to a talk by Mike Hearn, one of the Bitcoin devs, about smart contracts
Took him awhile to understand smart contracts
When Ethereum was coming out, there were Ethereum meetups in London. Got a flat in London to split between crypto meetups
The pre-Ethereum Foundation was having money issues related to its fundraising
None of them were ever put off by crypto, except from theft and fraud. Some of his friends lost all of their crypto and couldn’t go back to it
Had his money stolen too. Placed 75 Bitcoin in some trading platform, realized they had a problem, and was not able to withdraw his money
That 75 BTC was meant for the Ethereum crowdfunder. It would have gotten him 200,000 ETH
“Like, even in the autumn of 2013, friends of mine were saying if we wrote down all of the stuff that happened, someone can make a film. Because it's insane, literally insane.”
- Sillytuna
Participating In The Ethereum Crowdsale
It was a website where you send your money to
When Did He Understand Smart Contracts?
When Ethereum went live, he wrote a Magic the Gathering NFT as a smart contract
He hardcoded the data and the URI to the image
Realized that he could put every single Magic the Gathering card on the blockchain for $20,000
Made a web interface that can be used to view the cards
He set up his first crypto startup called Ownage in autumn 2015
Ownage
Realizing The Value Of Blockchain Tech In The Gaming Industry
💡 In his blog post, Sillytuna said the following: It wasn’t until I started writing smart contracts using Ethereum that I realised the true value of blockchain technology for the gaming industry. The technology allows digital ownership to be every bit as real as physical ownership — and the implications that has for gaming is quite astonishing.
How did he realize this all the way back then?
It was obvious to him, even though he doesn’t know the details
In his talks, which are on YouTube, he spoke a lot about NFTs without using the term NFTs (e.g. how they can be used for ticketing, for Nike, for non-game things, for marketing, etc.)
“If you follow my Twitter, I still find it infuriating when people cannot see what's absolutely obvious, it's obvious, they are brilliant, brilliant tools for anyone creating content or marketing content, like end of story, whether the content is a game or artwork or music or tickets, irrelevant, they are just fantastic. Fantastic assets.”
- Sillytuna
Why Did NFTs Get Everyone So Pumped This Year?
Thinks that there’s 2 answers:
COVID, because people did not have much else to do
DeFi
Thought that crypto games will hit the market faster than crypto art
Realized he was wrong because art is much quicker to create than games. Games can take years to get them right
When people get rich, the first things they buy are a car and a house. After that, they spent on art. This is what the DeFi-rich spend on if they did not take their money out
Thoughts On DAOs In 2016
💡 Sillytuna wrote multiple blog posts on The DAO. In his first post, he was very excited. In a subsequent post, he highlighted potential security flaws in The DAO. In yet another post, he mentioned that $150 million was stolen from Ethereum itself and must be returned.
What are his thoughts through that journey?
Had a very smart colleague who was grumpy about The DAO because they are releasing it too fast and did not check the smart contracts properly
They were warned but still they proceeded with it
Was working with Emin Gün Sirer, the founder of Avalanche, in finding problems with the code
Ethereum was supposed to go through a soft fork, when he realized that there was going to be another problem
He stopped the soft fork and pushed for a hard fork instead
There was a split into Ethereum and Ethereum Classic
There was a certain group of people who planned to profit from the fork. Hence, they pushed for it
What Are His Thoughts After The DAO Hack?
Felt that everyone will now be happy and that they can move on with other things
In hindsight, it was a good thing as it lets each community run things how they wanted to
The event made people take security a lot more seriously
Price Action Towards The End Of 2016
Was on holiday with his family at Thailand
Felt very surreal to see the price going up
What Was He Building In 2017?
Was running Ownage
Ended up trying to make something too big and too complicated. Realized that they should have done 1% of what they were planning to do
In 2017, everyone was getting rich and no one wants to work
Was a bad time to be doing a startup
Always thought that it was a bubble. Did a bit of cashing out. Wished he sold more in hindsight
ICOs were insane and there wasn’t true utility
Ethereum got product-market fit for raising money
They sold out to a US publisher in early 2018 but it was complicated — they also invested in the publisher. Ownage got shut down by the publisher in autumn 2018
Thoughts When The Market Started Turning In Feb/Mar 2018?
Thought that they would have 18 months of downtime
Ethereum went and stayed a lot lower than he expected
Bitcoin didn’t did too bad
When DeFi started, there was a market there, but it’s mainly speculative
Blockchain Game Alliance
Was a founding member for Blockchain Game Alliance
Felt that there should be a body that could represent game devs in front of different organizations and to help people connect with one another
Everyone was struggling because the ICO boom had ended
Sebastian from Sandbox Game became the new chairman
Has become a larger organization that is very active
When Did DeFi Click For Him?
Doesn’t think that there was any one moment. It was a constant learning process for him
Got involved in SushiSwap, which was a stressful and magical moment for him
Saw the beginnings of the DAO movement at that point
Got so tired and broken from seeing people losing money from the SushiSwap rug pull that he left the Discord. He is still supportive of the project
Lost a bit of money trading in DeFi
“There's something about it [SushiSwap], that was magic, absolutely magical. The idea of just cloning a project, an open source project, in the way that they did was, whatever you say about the person who did it, it was absolutely unbelievable. And the community that came around that was also unbelievable. So I could see it was a movement.”
- Sillytuna
His Purchase Of Baus From Neon District
Spent 141 ETH on Baus
It was around $23,000 at that time
At that time, he was taking time out after Ownage finished and was tired and burnt out
Spoke with someone from Pocket Gamer who wanted advice on her projects
Ended up staying in the space. Spoke with Marguerite and Ben from Neon District
When the opportunity to buy Baus came, he went for it. The purchase was classified as a business expense
Bought it not as an investment but as a branding opportunity for both himself and Neon District
His Purchase Of Almace
Have played Axie a bit
Had spoken to Gabby Dizon and Jiho before
Jiho reminded him of himself, just that he is in tech while Jiho is doing marketing
Was at a game developers conference in 2018/2019. Was asked by a ConsenSys member about his thoughts on Axie Infinity. They came to the same positive conclusion about Axie Infinity
“My gut feeling is this is a team [Axie Infinity] who you need to give the money to, and they'll go on and do amazing things. And you have to trust them and not interfere with them. And he said that they just spent about six months coming to the same conclusion. And to me, it was just painfully obvious.”
- Sillytuna
Gabby Dizon approached him and said that he would like to buy Almace, but he couldn’t afford it
Went 50/50 with Gabby
When Niftex launched, they saw an opportunity to fractionalize Almace. Learned a lot about how a marketplace and liquidity works
Almace was a very big deal to Gabby
Thoughts On The Current NFT Market
Seeing a glut of PFP projects that are deeply unoriginal
Have spoken to a number of people with mental health issues because they are monitoring social media to make it into each drop
Impact Of NFTs On Culture
NFTs are a culture in its own right
The first bit of culture and the terms we use will end up becoming enmeshed in all other cultures that come later
What NFT Sector Is He Most Excited About?
Interested in how all the different sectors interoperate with one another
The whole point of NFTs is interoperability
Explaining The Metaverse To People
The metaverse is essentially using lots of different applications and being able to control one’s identity across those applications
It replicates the physical world where you are in charge of who you are
The Metaverse is not one thing, a virtual reality, or a virtual world, but any of these things can be part of the Metaverse
For a true Metaverse, one has to own their identity and their own stuff
Selling His COVID Alien Punk
Had sold some art to someone and realized that they have that alien
Saw the opportunity and bought it with the intention to either flip it or keep it for 10 years
Wanted to promote NFTs to the wider world and he felt that selling the Punk was a really good way to do it
What Is He Working On Today?
Running a couple of game projects. One of them is called Eufloria and another is called Clodhoppers
Have Eufloria generative artwork. Trying to get them on Art Blocks
Clodhoppers is a Smash Brothers combined with Worm type game
Both games are on Steam
Most of his time is spent on Sploot, which is a community-run, sports parody project
Has a commercial startup called Soulcast, a platform for 3D artists. They are creating a gamified platform for 2D and 3D artists to work together on customizable 3D NFTs
There will be a base model (e.g. sneakers, skateboards, etc.) and accessories, stickers, etc. that could be used to customized the base model. The accessories, stickers, etc. are all NFTs
Originally, Soulcast was started as a sneaker project. They will be opening it up to third parties to create their own artwork as a curated platform
First version of Soulcast will be launched in the next few weeks
Will be doing 3D representations of Loot footwear
At launch, they will be giving away/selling mint passes for people to experiment with their system. The mint pass can be exchanged for the NFT of the footwear itself
If He Has Unlimited Resources, What Would He Build?
A high quality, open virtual world that’s decentralized as possible
It should not be on a web browser, but as a download on a PC/Mac
It should be able to run on consoles and phones and have a really good UX
Grand Vision For Everything He’s Working On
Still feels that he has a little bit of a gap on what he hasn’t achieved yet
Would like to see some of his ideas through far enough
Most Controversial Thought On NFTs
Is quite moderate on his views on NFTs
Doesn’t have anything massively controversial
If He Could Improve One Thing In The Space
Completely redo how crypto wallets work
Have to create a cross-blockchain wallet standard
Make it easier for people to do standard username/password entries
Make it easier to recover from and to protect users in various ways
Who Does He Look Up To And Why?
Looks up to a lot of people
At the moment, it is Dom, the founder of Loot. He has his hands on Loot, Nouns, arcade game projects, and pixel projects
He seems to be someone who really gets it
NFT Ecosystem In 3 Years
A little bit more stable
Wants to see NFTs to be more accepted in society
All information presented above is for educational purposes only and should not be taken as investment advice. Summaries are prepared by The Reading Ape. While reasonable efforts are made to provide accurate content, any errors in interpreting and summarizing the source material are ours alone. We disclaim any liability associated with the use of our content.