Animoca Brands CEO: In Web3, Content Will Win Over Distribution

As Web3 expands, content creators will have more opportunities to cut out intermediaries, according to the company’s CEO

article-image

Blockworks exclusive art by Axel Rangel

share

key takeaways

  • “Blockchain offers us capabilities the internet couldn’t,” Animoca’s CEO said
  • The company raised $359 million earlier this month in a round led by Liberty City Ventures

Making a break from centralized platforms and connecting directly with creators is key to carving out Animoca Brands’ niche in the metaverse, the startup’s CEO told Blockworks.

“We believe that in the battle between content and distribution, content is king,” CEO Robby Yung said. “In the world of Web3, content will win out over distribution because we will see content itself becoming the platform.”

Yung pointed to the company’s recent nine-digit fundraise as providing resources to build out its vision for the metaverse and enable digital ownership. 

In Yung’s view, nurturing the development of alt-chains and building toward a multi-chain future are key considerations for an open metaverse. Animoca — which incubates and backs NFT, blockchain gaming and metaverse projects — has supported development on blockchains including Flow and Polygon. 

“[The metaverse] is attributable to openness, the multi-chain interoperable world, a diversity of platforms — many layer-1 and layer-2 chains that people can build on top of,” he said. “[The] last thing blockchain needs is ‘winners,’ and when we all coalesce around Ethereum, for example, that may not be good for innovation.” 

And the market for individual ownership of virtual items will only grow as the metaverse expands, Yung said. 

“Blockchain offers us capabilities the internet couldn’t,” Yung said. “There’s digital ownership of digital goods, which we feel is a game changer in how we conduct our lives online.”

Platforms now have too much power over the dissemination of copyrighted content, the CEO said. 

“They were renting from platforms [like Netflix],” he said. “While it works for copyright holders, it doesn’t provide value to customers or return to creators of the content, either. Most of the value is taken by platforms distributing it.”.

In the pioneering phase

As Animoca eyes new investments, it’s paramount for the company to key in on transparent businesses, Yung said. 

It has previously backed over 150 NFT and metaverse-related companies, including OpenSea, Dapper Labs, Axie Infinity and Yield Guild Games. The firm is also the parent company of The Sandbox.

“We’re still in the pioneering phase of building out content verticals and technology platforms,” Yung saud. 

Though it’s matured a great deal, the metaverse and the entire idea of digital ownership remains nascent, Yung said. 

“The products out in the market aren’t indicative of where this industry will be 3 years from now,” Yung said. “Now that we have matured, you’re going to see products reflective of what the future holds, compared to last year and the year before because those were built on shoe strings.”

Tags

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Unlocked by Template (10).png

Research

Innovations on Aptos’ technical design through Raptr, Shardines, and Zaptos approach near-optimal latency and throughput by unlocking 100% utilization of network resources, with the capacity to settle 260k transactions per second with latencies less than 800ms. The original Move language was revamped with the launch of Move 2, supporting more expressivity in smart contract logic and a scalable ability to interact with high volume datasets. The ecosystem has benefitted from strong asset inflows, now hosting over $1.3B in stablecoins, $450M in bridged BTC, and $530M in RWAs. Activity in the Aptos ecosystem has grown notably over the past year, with monthly application revenue reaching ~$835k and monthly DEX volumes growing to over $5B, both at new all time highs.

article-image

Asset allocator says fee compression could be a challenge as Grayscale converts more crypto funds to ETFs

article-image

The Stripe-acquired firm has big plans for a streamlined, multi-wallet future

article-image

Both founders of the former crypto lender have now landed in new crypto industry roles

article-image

Bitcoin’s recent peak is a victory lap for curvers left and right

article-image

Securitize CEO Carlos Domingo says institutions are eager to get exposure to tokenization