Nicolas Julia: Sorare – Marrying Fantasy Sports and NFTs #420

Transcript

welcome to epicenter the podcast where we interview crypto founders builders and thought leaders i'm sebastian cuccio and i'm here with my co-host frederica ernst today we're speaking with nicod ajudia who is co-founder and ceo of silverware and i couldn't be more happy to have him on um but before we talk to nikola and uh get into solar and nfts and the gaming industry uh let's first talk about our sponsors this week dexter's are great but they're vulnerable to problems like mev failed transactions and high gas costs cow swap tackles these issues head on and offers a new kind of trading experience it's built by gnosis and cow swap is a meta dex aggregator i like to call it a

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basically uh cow swap is going um up and up so we've had 2.5 billion trading volume um since we launched eight months ago from 28 000 distinct traders and we have launched a co-affiliate program so basically if you want to learn more about how to get your friends into this and benefit both um go to cowswap.exchange great nicolas thanks for joining us today yeah i'm really excited to be here and thanks thanks so much for watching yeah for our listeners uh tell us about your background and how you got to where you are today um just for context so

nico and i worked together at stratham and i i still remember you know seeing him come into the office uh wide-eyed and you know wanting to learn about crypto and uh you know and so it's been a really fascinating journey for you since then so uh tell us a bit about that yeah yeah of course uh so yeah i'm the co-founder and ceo of sauron and i think that i've been very lucky a couple of years ago i think it was the end of 2015 uh to make to to meet in paris uh amazing people like you seb uh richard caitano who uh was the co-founder and ceo of stratum this company we were working together with seb and uh and

francois d'orleans and and stephan flocka and and so basically you um you got me in into this crypto so uh i was before uh working for a company one you know i've been working on this blockchain use cases for for four banks uh and uh so i met you guys i i wanted to you know to be operational to join a startup and to do something um and um so i was one of the first someplace in in stratum was like a b2b uh use case so basically you know trying to uh to help big corporates uh to better trace complex uh data and processes between them leveraging the bit conduction

so i was one of the first employees and i i spent two years and a half down uh like doing sales and marketing and operations uh and then uh it was uh yeah it was beginning of 2018 i saw uh the nfts uh popping up the popping up on the ethereum blockchain uh and i was like okay uh this is interesting technology uh and you know i was already like passionate about cryptocurrencies and i was like on crypto assets and i was like okay maybe uh this could be the vehicle to bring crypto assets in general like to hundreds of millions of people uh and nfcs are gonna change the way we own

something digital so um yeah i i i started being like uh passionate about it uh and and and i'm a massive sports fan so i was like why not you know bring the image of football players and clubs and fans on top of this technology so that it's not just a unique digital item but it's something that you can relate to emotionally uh that was the second pillar in in my thinking and then the third one was okay that could be massive there's officially licensed nfts but i want more i want people to engage with them every day i want i want people to do something i want i want to usage value not just collecting and trading uh and that's the third pillar the game

design uh the fantasy sports angle uh and with this three pillars the tech the partnerships so the ip the image and the and the you know the usage value the game design with my co-founder adrian was also like a next uh stratum employee uh we we we you know we started building so our uh in 2018 um so yeah that's that's the background uh and uh and um you know that's that's a very early days i would say so you guys had this idea um super early i mean like we're talking about 2018 when you know there are only been really like crypto punks and crypto kitties and you

know now now like everybody kind of gets the nft vision now that there's been kind of the nft summer and if these are everywhere and like snoop dogg is doing it nft and like everyone's mom is doing it nft but you guys saw this like super early like where where did this conviction come from that this was going to be huge so that's uh two two things i think uh so uh the the the first one is that um at the very beginning of an early technology of course you don't have millions you know of of people that know about it but you have an early community and from this early community you can try to

to measure your ortho gosh the level of love the level of passion uh that they have for it um and you know i spend time in the cryptokitties community i know know there's all these only projects and i mean i was just feeling that something something was going on here uh and that was not like the normal new tech or whatever this was like beyond that right um and uh and so that that's one thing uh i think the other thing is i have been passionate about crypto assets in general and what they can bring to the world uh and every time i was explaining bitcoin and cryptocurrencies

to my friends and even my friends some of them that are smarter than me i was i mean it's hard like you you need to go into you know like central banks and technology and game theory and politics and it's it's really hard and and i had this huge frustration in me then you know i love that but it's hard for me to to expand and and and yeah it's really and when i saw nfts i was like okay most of the properties are the same you know like digital scarcity true ownership like all these things that uh that that are shown by all the type of crypto assets are this the same it's much easier to understand right and um

and uh and so that that was a very powerful driver for me like to to start because uh because i was really feeling that i could um you know i could help the broader space um to to expand basically uh and uh and so that was a yeah very powerful driver for me to to to to get started um and um no to get back to your concept this yeah it's just this level of love and passion uh from this early community uh plus of course like the fundamental properties of an nfc like and always fundamentally different than a traditional digital item like true ownership portability digital scarcity traceability all those things um i was

like okay if i apply that to uh all games or video games i'll build today um it's just like putting everything upside down and and and in improving 10 times what exists today for the fans um and and so yeah so see i guess it's a combination of these three things like the fact that it's going to reshape industries for the best the fact that it's um it's a way to drive to bring crypto to a broader audience uh and this early passion from the only community all these three things they convinced me that uh i should definitely bet my career on that and build something around that you've alluded to all the pillars that kind of underpin so rare but um we

haven't really talked about what it actually is so maybe to get started in a nutshell what is rare yeah now this yeah it's a good question i should have started by that maybe but uh yeah so it's um you know it's a fantasy sports game uh where you can play with officially licensed nfts so the high level you know view of so on that is that uh and uh and uh we really sit at this intersection of fantasy sports uh and nft collectibles so basically if you start getting into the product you would collect a couple of nft collectibles like a team of of players and once you own five of them then you can fill a team

and based on the performance of the players in the physical world like in the real pitch uh you would score points uh that's the definition of fantasy uh and and and then at the end of the tournament we just add your points and you get ranked on leaderboards and you can end rewards that are is or nfcs or physical experiences or physical rewards so these are the three type of rewards you can win so that's that's the basic functioning of the product um so maybe let me um let me summarize this in my own words because i think this will be key to the interview and i am sure a lot of people don't know what fantasy sports are and i'm including

myself here so basically um you have um you basically it's a game where there is a collection of cards that um that represent football players and you have to you have to um you have to make up your own team from the cards that you own um and your scored on um the physical performance of the individual players that make up your team um in the basically based on the performance in the real games that they play with with them you know the real teams um and then basically you can compete against other people with also make believe teams made up from

you know real personas yeah no i i think you are doing a way better job than me uh that's uh that's a hundred percent uh correct that's exactly how it works so you are competing uh against you know different managers around the globe we are you know we we have managers from 170 countries around the globe we have different game modes so we have the global all-star where you can play with players from like japanese league french league premier league and so on and then we have like more specific gamers where you can only play with specific regions in the world but the functioning as you said is uh

this link with the real world you have this nft uh representing a football players and based on all he's doing on the pitch uh you're gonna score points uh and and progress in the game that's that's really how it works and and we have this bridge between the physical world uh and the nft world that is really at the core of what we are doing uh and in both ways like basically the performance of the players on the pitch impact your performance as a manager but the other way around if you are doing well as a manager you can uh earn prizes some of them could be nfts that are tickets uh to go enjoy experiences in the physical world like meet a player enter a stadium these kind of things so we are doing the bridge both ways

if you kind of look back on the history of fantasy sports this has been something that um has taken a hold mostly in jurisdictions where gambling itself is prohibited right but it's kind of it's spread from there yeah so fantasy comes from the us it is very popular you can think about fantasy there's two popular mods of fantasy uh before like the mod that we are introducing uh the free to play uh mod um like espn fantasy yo fantasy uh and in europe we have a lot of local players in fantasy soccer that are doing very well with this uh free to play mode and then

you have the gambling mod that i guess you mentioned in your question which is draftkings and fangirls so basically you put money at stake that you can lose you compose your team and if you do well you you take part of the pot right so that's the second model and our phone model is uh it's really different because it's this intersection between collectible nft collectibles and fantasy so you can think about it as a fantasy game with a real economy of a fantasy of nft collectible so you you own your team and you own your game in in in a way that is truly new and that is different from the old models of fantasy basically okay so basically um let's talk about

the nfts that are used as playing cards here so the players are represented through the nfts that you guys mint um how are these nfts distributed to the people who play yeah so we are um selling uh the the players on our marketplace through english auctions so the starting price is the same for all the players it only changed based on the scarcity so every year we would put on the market 1100 1111 editions of a certain player all players are treated the same way basically

so you have the unique version for instance of leonel messi the super edition is 10 the rare is 100 and the limited is 1 000 right all along the yarn we put them on the market little by little uh same starting price and then it's english auction uh and so basically it's the market that you know tells the price basically supply and demand of course and then we have a secondary market uh where users are free to resell their nft collectible if they want to do so uh of course they can also move it uh to like front page marketplaces like openc and so on um so what's the difference between the different tiers that you mentioned so basically you said

rare super and so on yeah yeah definitely so again our our product our game is that um you know this intersection of collectibles uh and fantasy game uh and so uh when you think about this two important aspects one is the collectible and so uh these different quantities um they hold different collectible value uh like the 101 of lionel messi you know like to the for the fans of pakistan messi has more value than the one that is minted at 1000 editions for instance so you have a collectible value here

and then you have some value in the fantasy game as well because owning one of those scarcest edition uh could help to enter different gamers as well so that's i guess these are the two important things is that does it impact performance at all so like if you're playing with like a unique card does it somehow imply a multiplier on the performance of the player or is it just sort of more access to certain types of games yeah you can think of you can think about it more like access uh than than multiplayer yeah it's yeah it's yeah and generally speaking uh i like to think about nfts um as a way to access you know uh so of course they you have this collectible

aspect right and there's some projects that are really successful uh in that like bronx and so on uh and and then um when you when you mix it with access i find it cool uh like because you own an ft you are part of a club and you can you can access this you know gaming experience you can access this physical experience uh and um and and that's yeah that's a way to unlock things right like uh uh because you're on this nft you can unlock this kind these type of things that could be social like gaming experiences and so on and so that's how i like to think about it cool i'd like to just so much here that i'd like to unpack um but

i want to talk about the licenses a little bit uh fedex and i were talking about this earlier and and what what bounds you to these licenses why did you choose to go the license route and what are some of the complexities there because i mean you there there's nfts out there right now like i think there's one called like uh rocks and there's another one that that just did like a bunch of sports players and i mean they did basically that kind of caricature avatars of these players i don't think they have licenses for that because it's their own artwork um yeah why did you choose to go this route and what are some of the maybe complexities of working with licenses yeah for sure it was not the easy road but

i think that um first if you if you relate to our vision which is like help bringing crypto assets in the in the hands of hundreds of millions of people uh we had a choice to make early on like do you want to tap into an existing audience of people and leverage it and if if the answer is yes then it's easier to use the image of real football or basketball or whatever type of players right uh you can then you have another road which is you use like fake players so you try you know to to do things without this this link to the real world but we found it like uh maybe less powerful

and less you know impactful in terms of relating to our vision so uh when you decide to go the road of yes i want to have this link with the real players and the real clubs and so on then uh you have two choice one is uh you don't get the license and then you can start and you can do art and so on and like uh but in at some point you're gonna be in big big trouble so i i want so like uh because like the licensors have big legal teams that would go after you even if you do an artwork of a player that is even like somewhere close to a player that exists you're going to be in trouble right uh and then you have the other road which

is you go to them and you you just explain it's going to take years but you explain that you you're just creating like a new market a new product um it's going to be beneficial to them because you're going to pay them a part of your revenue and it's gonna expand their brand to new agencies crypto enthusiasts and new markets and so on and that's the road we we we decided to go and to be honest like i mean if i knew like early like in 2008 you know complex it you know it was going to be like i'm not sure like because it has been then a lot of education and time to explain that uh uh and you know to yeah to to really like um yeah explain the benefits and you

know why why it's important for them as leagues and so on and i think yeah we we put a lot of effort um on that uh and uh i know they get it because you know it's uh it's a new stream for them uh again it's um it's you know more like helping them to increase their audience um and developing a cool product for the fans so um no we are in a better place i i ca can i just um so i'm very much not a lawyer i'm a physicist by training um so bear with me can you explain the ip background behind this a little bit because in principle the players they're public figures right so

basically they they don't have a right to say you can't use my picture if you take a picture of them or if you draw a picture of them you can use it whatever way you please right and also the game statistics they're also in the in the public domain right they're not they're not ip protected so what what exactly is it you need the license for so i understand that that basically it gives you an in um with the clubs and that they can also co-promote and so on um because they also have a financial interest but you're not prohibited from so basically if i as a private person um make an nft with thomas miller on it that kind of tracks to mars miller's

performance this is fine right not really but i will dive into that so basically you you you we get two things uh uh when we deal with the league so one thing as you mentioned that is uh yeah totally right is the marketing element so there's no ip here it's just you know having the league support uh us in our mission to bring it to to to to to mainstream agencies so like uh post on instagram on twitter and so on so that that's one element uh we're gonna start activating these things in the coming months um and then the second element is the ip and so for the ip you need different

things you need the image of players you need that is owned so players themselves can use it independently from the clubs but clubs can use it uh under a certain scope like if you put all the players in the market like there's certain criteria that we need to meet but so you have the image of players then you have the image of the club logo this is owned by the clubs and you need the happy and the and and the jersey and so on um and so to go back to your example of thomas muller like if you want to make a profit uh as an individual person from thomas miller image if you do it without the jersey

basically like the the national team just there or the club jensey um like thomas could go after you uh and and and and tell you that you cannot profit from his individual image because uh you don't have the rights to do so if you do it uh with like a reproduction of uh jersey even if it's not like a picture of the jose but just an artwork around the jersey you could also have the national team or the club going after you because you are using club or national team ip uh so yeah this is yeah this is really touchy to do so i mean not touching it's not possible actually

so so i mean this is kind of that's kind of going off on a tangent but say i'm i'm a professional photographer i'm i'm a paparazzi and i kind of follow thomas muller around his village in the south of germany wherever he lives um and i take pictures of him and i'm allowed to do this obsessed with thomas miller i guess yeah sorry i i know like five players um so i can i can i can uh say i go after griezmann um and uh so i i don't know where he lives live so basically i kind of i find out i find out which supermarket supermarket he goes to and i take pictures of him and i'm allowed to do so because he's a public persona right and i can i can

sell these pictures to hello uh people magazine or i don't know what whatever this is very different yeah this is um so if if um if you want to use um uh the the the image uh for information uh information like uh like basically for newspapers and this kind of things this is really different like uh that's uh and and i'm not uh i don't have any legal background i'm not a legal person so i cannot explain why it's different but this is uh because i mean when i started the company i was like approaching the topic the same way you are approaching it and i was like wait i mean i saw they see this image in uh the

sports newspaper every day like why it's different right uh but the reality is that the newspapers are not selling then these images they are using them for informational purposes and so uh this is this is yeah this is a different setup from uh okay so so i can take a paparazzi picture of thomas miller but i can't put it on a mug and sell the mug as you know a 2 mug that's correct that's correct okay i get it yeah uh so yeah that's yeah that's a and i guess that's um it has been um there's been very few uh so-called games uh that managed to do that well at scale so you have one

example that is fifa published by electronic arts and then you are in the physical world you have panini collectibles so these are the two companies that you know manage to secure all the all this rights uh but but but then there's very few examples of companies that that manage to do it and uh so that's why also it's it's a long process i want to talk about fifa in a few seconds um but i i want to ask you like what is it like working with essentially you know football cartels uh what are the biggest challenges for you and and you know your team and working with massive global organizations like this no like i learned i learned a lot

because at the beginning you want to explain nfcs and then you realize you don't want to explain nfcs uh not because they cannot understand it just because it's not um you know like you you need to tell them the benefits right so uh and and and in the beginning i was like they were asking a lot of questions about blockchain and so on and then you get you get kind of uh dragging to something that is not that's not the question right like the question is why are we doing that and what's gonna bring to you what are we bringing to you right uh and um and so yeah to answer maybe your question more directly uh for them it's quite kind of easy now because we give them money uh we give them

access to new agents and we just ask for the ip rights and marketing support so we we tell them look we just need the image uh of the player we we need the right we need the rights of course and we need your marketing support but we're going to provide all the assets right we're not going to do anything so um so now i would say that um it's um no it's it's really smooth uh at the very beginning it was hard to convince the first one you know it's always the same like the first deal the you know the always defense thing is the most difficult right and and then little by little there's a kind of reinsurance effects where you have oh okay this big club is coming into sora so maybe and then the second one and then this one and then you know they they get reaction

because they see that you know all the big names are coming uh you as a company you are growing uh you have like investors backing you that are known and blah blah blah and so then then it gets easier um and then yeah in the model again it smooths because it's not yeah it's it's it's simple for them right we try to make the life really simple did it help that andrei schuler is one of the early investors yeah andre charles is an early investor in germany we also have uh oliver bierhoff who's the manager of the national team uh and uh yeah we have like many soccer players that invested in the company we really try to be inclusive of uh the best in the sports world like the

soccer players the leagues the clubs also in the crypto world uh having you know like some some some key people helping us uh and in the gaming so basically there's three plans like gaming crypto and sports we yeah try to be to be inclusive and having the you know some of the best minds um helping us to develop the company uh so yeah i mean regarding licenses do the assets have perpetual licenses because like if sorey are ceases to exist i mean these not that it will at this point but if story ceases to exist in some distant universe and um and the assets continue to exist on the ethereum blockchain the the licenses are they perpetual for those nfts and um yeah how does that like

fit into your business model no it's it's a good question um so two two level of answers um so first of all uh one of the big progress i guess we made for the fans and for the gamers is that they can use the game item the nft the player across the seasons so if you think about the existing video games you buy an item that you don't own at all actually you can use it during a specific season and then the next season you need to buy again right so basically you you kind of lose the ride to use something but you cannot resell it you cannot choose it next season you cannot move it bubble bath so you don't own it right

um and so and and so we we did a lot of work to explain the leaks that that's not normal uh you should use a digital item the same way that you use a physical one meaning that you truly own it uh and if you want to do it right you need to to have an nfc so that's the first part of the answer and then the second part is maybe more related to your question uh is yes you you truly own it uh independently from the league independently from the company uh and and so i think that's yeah that's creating a connection uh with the fans that is that is new this is different because they they own part of the game right and and and they own this digital item the same way they would own something physical

so the entire crypto angle kind of um hinges on the collectibility of those nfts right um so can you tell us about people and their collections and what they do with them and whether they display them and so on so basically how how is that leveraged how um what value add is it to the players um that this is a web three and not a web two company yeah yeah so um i think that first of all uh you have the digital scarcity component so uh you can tell with certainty then okay we're gonna mint 100 edition of display on this constitute it cannot be one more uh this is backed you know by

by the technology uh so this is the first big thing like just the fact that you can trust the technology for the digital scarcity is huge for collectors and then on uh oh you can use it as a collector so first um yeah we are seeing a lot of really fun behaviors like we have people you know um collecting all the several numbers uh with a specific like number seven out of ten this kind of thing so we have all these kind of behaviors that are really cool to see on the platform and we also have new behaviors because um one of the cool features of nfcs is that you can track the digital uh like the audit trail of ownership um we have some users that uh you know like

pay a premium to earn an ft that has been owned uh by a public figure like antoine griezmann or oliver berhoff or so on and this is kind of new because in the physical collectible world this is not as simple uh to leverage this kind of thing and in the nft world it's much easier to do it uh and and so we find this yeah this this really cool um and then in the like another um you know like powerful uh uh psychological uh reason why we collect is showing off like the social status thing uh uh and uh and this is something that is more at the beginning for us like we have people that are proud of uh you know buying or winning some of these

nfts uh of players they love and then they show it on social networks um we don't have yet um you know like um like very strong ways to to do it but we are coming to it hopefully at some point you would put your profile like your the nfc you want in your twitter profile picture and so on and we know there's some initiatives around it uh i guess that would increase the collectible value of our uh uh ecosystem at some point maybe you could move your crypto punk uh uh to be your profile picture in in the solar ecosystem as well uh in the other you know the other way around um and um

and so yeah that's uh all this uh all these things so maybe to sum it up the digital scarcity all the collectible attributes like serial number design and so on and then showing off uh your nft uh on like social network or virtual awards this kind of things there were rumors that twitter was was adding a feature that um verifies whether you actually own an nft that you use as your profile picture right kind of like the blue blue check mark kind of that you get check mark so basically i could i could uh take my thomas muller nfd and put it as my my face on twitter and be uh nft verified

correct that that's what i i was mentioning uh in indiana and this is something that of course we we are really excited about like because uh it's it's all about uh uh portability and and and showing uh your your nfts to your friends people you care and you know just showing who you are uh uh in the external world and um and uh yeah this is this is something we are we are very very excited very excited about um that there's also a way uh to show your nfts it's not the collectible but it's also the usage value outside of our fantasy game so part of our vision is

uh is to really to be this this platform for sports fan and not only they can use and have fun in our fantasy but also in different games that are built on top of us and so there's already many of them that are being built by gaming giants like ubisoft or smaller you know like organizations two or three engineers and designers and this is really cool because you know it proves the portability effect of of these nfts the fact that you can move them away and it increases the usage value uh for the fund so that's also really powerful so there there's voices that kind of speak um of a new business model in that context so basically status as a service

um how do you feel about this do you think this is something that um is uh gonna carry or do you think this is something um that is a fad and will kind of die down uh you mean the fact that uh nfts are like a kind of statue thing you mean yes yeah i mean i think that you know it it is something that's uh we can as human beings right and if you look back like last centuries like showing who you are because of what you own in the physical one is the thing i mean you may like or not like it but that's that's the thing right uh and now if you believe that and all the metrics um show that we are

spending more and more time in the digital world then i mean it's going to be same you want like people are going to uh want to show who they are uh in in in this world um so i guess that's yes it's it's going to be a thing yeah so i want to come back to this this idea that like people are building stuff on top so rare because i think that's really fascinating and i think we should definitely get into like how nfts kind of turned the gaming business model on its head um but just before like can you give me some numbers like how big is the solar community how many what's the dollar value of the assets that you guys have minted

give us a sense of like how much value there is here totally so um so to to date uh the soil community is uh roughly half a million users out of them uh roughly 50 000 are pay active paying users so that they bought real nft's and not not playing with the free to play version while you you don't have nfts we we did that without any paid marketing so far it has only been organic uh gross our friends talking to france and so on uh and this year we gonna end up uh yeah and it's that was a good uh good start and you know like

this organic thing is really what i was looking for only because in the early days if you buy the users i mean you can do it and many companies are successfully but i wanted something organic before like starting doing some paid marketing um and uh and yeah we we're gonna end up the year with 250 million in uh overall sales uh on the primary and secondary market so there's a lot of engagement and uh maybe the most important and and for us at least and and most exciting metric is retention um like we have retention metrics that are very high it's about 70 percent at most three so it's equivalent that like comparable to what netflix has um and that's what we really try to

to do well like uh the game design and having this call loop working well and having people not only collect but play the game still like very early days and very rough in terms of gameplay but um we have something a call-up that is working very well um so yeah that's uh that's that's for some some some metrics and on the club side we have more than 200 clubs uh soccer clubs on bond and yeah we want to unbottle the top 20 licks in the coming weeks so we we made some good progress too cool and so you know there's there's a couple of startups i think that are building um some products on top of

solar so it's also like solar data and then there's other games being built on top of store and i'd like to kind of separate those two because i think the games is like that's like the game and market i think evolving but with regards to like the the like solar data types um do you have any plans to um you know fund some of these initiative like fund some of these companies or perhaps even acquire them at some point because it seems like having all this information all this data and like all these services built into the company would be valuable no totally so um so what we want to do uh uh is incentivize

the creation of this ecosystem because it brings value to the to the to the fans and uh uh and there's you know a lot of these initiatives that we cannot execute with the highest level of quality right now because the company needs to be lesser focused on improving the current product and i know onboarding these leaks and so on and so on and um and like oh are we going to incentivize the creation of this ecosystem so it has been organic so far with all these applications like sara data and site games and so on uh for sure we're gonna we're gonna invest in in some of them and actually we already did we saw our data so they raised uh uh a siege round

and and so our the company uh was part of it uh so we are minority investor uh in uh in solar data we we definitely you know like will explore order of this uh minority investments uh we want to help them also with resources like you know having a team in the company helping them from a technical standpoint from a product standpoint and so on uh so this is uh this is also something we're gonna do uh and uh and yeah that's that's definitely part of our our vision like in helping you know the creation development of this uh ecosystem and uh and uh you know

it goes beyond even um side applications like sora data or site games uh it's it's also all the content creators like you know there's dozens of uh youtube content creators and twitch uh creators and so on um and that's also part of our plans um like um you know helping them to to develop a and you know to bring fun and to bring usage value to to our community that's cool um so yeah i'd like to take a step back now and like talk about the gaming industry because there's so much to discuss here and uh you know shout out to my buddy sergio who works at ubisoft who's my uh my go-to guy whenever i have anything that asks about

gaming i call him and so you know all of the big gaming companies like ubisoft and 2k and ea like they're all they're all getting into the nfd space in one way or another um like ubisoft just down the road from here like they have a blockchain lab um which i think you guys were part of like early on or somehow like affiliated with and you know they're all entering the space um i the way i see things is like if you look back in history if you look back at like the disruption that's happened in the you know that the internet has brought over the last 20 or 30 years whether it's you know publishing um video distribution uh taxis you know

hospitality all these disruptions happened from startups and basically like you know either annihilated or like very much uh you know damaged existing industries or disrupted them if you if you will if you want to be nicer about it uh do you think that like game the gaming industry is next on the chopping block with regards to disruption that like these big companies that are immensely powerful i mean like ea you know with their fifa license like i mean they're they're immensely powerful and they're they're um huge profit generating companies uh do you think that in like 10 15 years from now perhaps even less that these companies will still be so powerful it's a very interesting question um i'm

not sure it's a zero-sum game so there's there's a wall where uh we co-exist right and we just create a new market like a new way of building games uh where you know like gamers have you know truly skinny in the game and truly own their game so what is for sure is that we are doing everything uh differently uh and if you take you know the business model the way we build product the way gamers own the game items like everything in is turned upside down like uh if you look yeah if you look at the the the current games when you buy a game item uh being uh skin or whatever

you cannot resell it for real money you cannot move it to a different game you cannot use it next season you don't truly own it so if the game disappears you lose everything all your money at the time the emotions that you invested so and it's basically everything we are doing it differently um and uh and it's so radically different that yeah you know i i in the we may have a world where like uh traditional uh game studios and uh and blockchain base or nft based game studio coexist um but again what is function is that we are we are doing everything different my take of course is that we are doing it to the benefit of the gamers because now

they can truly own the the game items and do whatever they like with it uh uh with you know total control and freedom which was not possible before so um that's a totally yeah it's total shift in terms of this relationship that you have with your community the way that i'm starting to sort of form my thinking around this is the following so you know before games were constructed around like strong game design of course like that's super important if you want engagement but then also there's like the ip around the game and the protections there like so you can't use it like seasons over seasons and it's like all these

restrictions maybe you can't sell a license or whatever but i think that where nfts kind of shift this model it's games will be asset centric so what's valuable is the asset and then you'll have game designers sort of competing over competing for dominance over essentially interfaces to interact with these assets and you know like we had we had uh jerome of cometh on a couple weeks ago and like you can kind of see this there where like all of the underlying infrastructure that exists in the common ecosystem it's mostly all like d5 primitives and you could just build you know games sort of uh interacting with these

different primitives and like with with soccer nfcs it's like a little bit different but it still hints at the same um trend i think totally uh yeah it's a very yeah clever way to to look at it like like like games becoming asset centrics um and i think it doesn't mean that you you you don't want to be exceptional at gameplay uh and i think that the the companies that will uh be true to this dna of being uh asset centric and bringing power back to the gamers in the form of nfcs but at the same time will deliver super strong gameplay will be the big winners right uh but but yeah i

totally shared this analysis um and um i think that the collectible aspect uh is um is is also super important for us because of if you are moving to a world uh where uh the assets is central uh then you you know you you you want to to you know you want to take care of it in a different way uh and you want to you want to collect it uh in a different way and uh and that's where we sit like at this intersection of this nft collectibles at the center of the game and the fantasy or the gameplay run the fantasy right can i ask whether this kind of um how this fits in with the way that you've chosen your investors so basically

you've done a series a um a while ago and the vcs that backed you were by and large blockchain vcs and you've done a series b earlier this year um at a post money valuation of 4.4.3 billion congratulations that's uh that's a huge success um and the lead investor this time was softbank um who who basically softbank is not known um for um its role in the blockchain space so how how does how does that um fit into the overall strategy in terms of where uh where where you want to take

uh sora i i see it as um you know like um first of all like uh for the very first uh the president round uh only crypto people could make a bet on such a crazy idea so it was not like a deliberate choice from me like going after like crypto business angels and not like they they they were the only believers let's be honest right because you know the the the the very early days the holy community there was this people that god understood like at a deep level the technology and why it's going to be important for the future of digital ownership and gaming and so on uh and so

we got them first like the the crypto people and then uh when we raised the step second rounds we were like okay we sit at this intersection of crypto gaming and sports so we have the some of the brightest minds uh in the world of crypto how do we um get the support of the best of the best in the world of gaming and sports uh and so that's so that's how i built uh the you know the the investor base that we have today uh trying to you know to be inclusive of um all these people uh and uh also having people helping us build companies that can reach like a big big scale that's also where softbank um

you know sits uh but not not only that but also the fact that you know the the person that we have at the board from southbound marcelo claude who runs softback international is a massive soccer fan he owns free soccer clubs uh and so he was like bringing more than money like basically connections uh and an understanding of uh the world of spawn business uh which is very important uh for us uh and um yeah so it's it's uh it's you know different different uh um things that that you need at different stages um of your company i would say just before we um

we move on to the next topic because i want to talk a little bit about the regulatory aspect here yeah i know yeah i know that's that's you're gonna like that um you know we talked about fifa a little bit earlier the the licensing model here seems to be shifting a little bit so i think you're probably familiar with like the whole like fifa ea uh renegotiation right now where as i understand it essentially fifa ea had exclusive license for like any sort of like gaming thing that had to do with with with fifa so like exclusive license across all of the gaming industry and now fifa wants

to renegotiate that license so that it no longer has exclusivity which is the case already in other sports like i think like the nba for instance there's like several gaming manufacturers or gaming developers that make uh nba games um what do you think this comes from and do you think that it reflects sort of a general shift in the gaming industry where you know we used to have very sort of like monolithic places where people went to game it was either like console or pc and now there's mobile gaming there's nfts there's like all these different ways that people interact with brands through gaming yeah what what's your general kind of feeling on how this is heading

no totally i think that you can look at it at uh with two different angles the first one is for the fans i think it's a positive because uh you know when when you when when you have only one player uh at some at some point or like i mean one company publishing uh games of a certain category maybe at some point you know the innovation is not that hair anymore because you have this kind of monopolist position uh and and i'm not sure that's the best for the fans and then you can look at it from a business perspective uh for like so you mentioned fifa as an organization and so maybe they maybe they are thinking look uh we could we could have three or four different partners uh and

the addition of this licensing fees or partnership fees could be higher than what we get uh today with one partner so i mean i'm not i don't have any insider info about it but uh you could imagine that they are thinking this way uh and so if it's of benefits for the fans and if it's of the benefits of you know the fifa members then maybe they that's the reason why they you know they they want to to expand to several providers as you mentioned that's already the case for existing leagues like the nba and so on yeah no i think that's yeah i think it's true that it does it is better for the players and for the fans like for the game players like the fans yeah for the fans for the fans for sure because they i mean it's just more more

opportunities and uh again like you stimulate innovation like if you don't have a monopolist in the place right are are you going to stimulate stimulate innovation by sort of encouraging uh other gaming platforms to use your nfts and like you know like if i don't know ea decides that like they want to plop so rare like give so rare nft holders an advantage uh in the game i mean i i don't i don't think you can really prevent them from doing that technically was this something you would encourage and yeah i mean again i'm i'm big on the on this platform vision uh i think that's one of the you know the key aspects of uh nfts like this portability thing and

uh we're gonna incentivize the development of this ecosystem we're gonna invest in it uh that's for sure uh i mean you you put it very uh in in a very smart way it's becoming asset centric right so uh game game item centric so uh if if we we create these assets and if there's more usage value because you know there's different ways you can collect them and show them different ways you can use them i mean it's also good for us let's be honest it's good for us as a company so uh the the interests are well aligned here like uh you would have an ecosystem of organizations that are leveraging our audience our ip um and

that's also that's for the benefits of the funds and that's to the benefits of us as a company so i think that you are well aligned yeah so let's talk about the fun regulatory stuff because uh there's some interesting things here i think that i'd like to get your your thoughts on so you you guys sort of came under fire in the uk recently and you know there were some i think the the gambling regulator was saying that you guys should you know work should be qualified as gambling and like you know you've always maintained that sore rare isn't gambling i think you've done a really good job at defending why it isn't gambling um i know that you've also i think you've also been in touch with the gambling

regulator uh here in france and i i've heard whispers that the french financial markets regulators also um has you in their sights um you know i i personally think that sore rare isn't gambling i think it's pretty clear but i think that regulators will make the case that play to earn um you know it's existed for years like i mean you people have been selling gaming assets for years but nfts just makes it more open and liquid and accessible to a much broader audience do you think that there will be sort of a regulatory crackdown on play to earn type games

because it entails people like spending money on assets and there is an expectation of say future returns because like these assets can appreciate in value and financial you know regulators will frame it as like we need people protected you know especially like kids because like kids are into football and all this like or into sports you do you think that these there's going to be a crackdown at some point here because i think there is i i think that uh you know when you are creating uh a new market or new category uh and and really like you don't fit uh into you know anything from a a radiation standpoint

um i think that you have two ways uh you have one way where uh you know like you are the builders all right and you you keep on developing and you don't uh you don't take care of it right uh and you have another way which is proactive where you get in touch with the regulator so you mentioned some of them you get in touch with them and you explain what you are doing you explain what you are what you are not uh and and then you you try to be constructive right you try to open a dialogue and to see okay what's the best what's a balanced approach for our kind of product as you said to protect the consumers so i think that's exactly where we are in terms of philosophy i would say and also in terms

of approach there's no regulation like i'm as long as i know anyone in the world like when we say uh well that says nfts should be under this or that uh you know like constraints um probably there will be some in the coming years um which one to be honest i don't know uh but as you said uh yes it's it's gonna take shape in certain form uh all over the world i expected that uh that response from you it's uh you your approach to building things constructively with regulators i think uh is um it's really the philosophy i mean you you got to know me a bit uh

personally as well uh so i guess it's also a personality trait right uh and um um i i think that's yeah that's how we build things here like that's how we interact with human beings that yeah it's it's it's just opening a dialogue i mean sometimes we're not going to agree and sometimes they're going to be friction maybe but uh but i think yeah the process should be a gel a great and uh we are we are in the middle of it and um yeah let's see what uh like what's the outcome nico i know you that you're not the technology person at sora am i permitted to ask one technology question though yeah yeah yeah i would try to to be as

uh as uh as precise as possible right cool fantastic so um so rare um in the early days was built on loom and then you moved to ethereum mainnet and um i mean then you move to um uh the zk roll up um from star wars dark x um can you talk about um the motivation behind each of these moves and what you were looking for on the platform you build on um because i mean obviously um moving your application over to a different platform this sounds easy but as someone who builds i know

this really is really painful so yeah so can you talk about um the the drivers behind these moves yeah of course so you it's it's uh it's it's first of all it's never easy um decisions because there's always trade-offs right and between user experience and what you want for the for the fans uh and security and decentralization and so on and so um so far we started with loom uh because you know we've we found it as a you know a good scaling solution on top

of ethereum and uh uh and uh and so we we started down um then it ended up i guess for them as a team as a company not doing so well uh so that was very painful for us because um i mean we yeah to be to be to be candid here like we knew about this their decision not to you know keep on running like really a matter of weeks and days before uh and so we had to really like move uh down to ethereum very quickly so so we we did that uh it was painful uh and then uh so we we we stayed in a in italian for a while

uh and it was uh at some point um you know we we were paying literally like millions of euros a month uh because one of our kids decisions and i thought hunt for this with the investors as well uh was to pay gas fees like all gases we always sponsored uh on the platform uh and because i wanted uh smooth experience for the for the new commerce that come from a non-crypto world but at some point like it became really crazy for us um and so we started uh uh i think nine months ago um you know looking at other potential solutions so we we had a look

at odell a1 solutions we had a look at um several layer 2 solutions uh with the aim of finding a solution that is scalable uh that is sustainable uh and that you know it could help us you know fit the the needs we have in terms of user experience uh and so we went into this analysis that is maybe close to what uh you know oh an investor look at the company what is the best team what is the best technology what is the best vision what is uh the best traction like uh who is live who's not live uh all those things uh and what are the trade-offs for the main criteria like decentralization security user experience and so on

um and so we uh at the end i think the short lists was optimistic roll-ups and zika roll-ups and so we found that for optimistic roll-ups uh like the user experience was not that good when you move from layer 1 and layer 2 for nft it's like you know i think seven days or something like that so a couple of things in terms of ux we're not really happy uh good fit for d5 projects probably but not that much for nfc products at this stage of the you know the technology uh zikr roll ups better uh and then we had a look at different uh companies building uh with that uh and so we ended up with tarqua and yeah we are happy

with it um we are happy to you know stay in the ethereum ecosystem for many many reasons um not maximalists at all like pretty much agnostic again like what's the best for the users well uh at this stage yeah probably it was the best decision uh and uh and yeah let's see let's see for the future so yeah yeah that makes perfect sense and i think actually uh stockx was a really good choice on your part thanks will you bridge to other uh other blockchains do you think that you'll have like a a solana bridge at some point or something like i'd love to i for me the ultimate so you know true

ownership is a key feature of nfts and um when you think about true ownership in this world like in this blockchain world like bri you know bringing your asset from solana to ethereum to other blockchains is what true ownership says you can really move it uh in in in different worlds and maybe you're going to have different experiences built in in different blockchains um is it for um you know like short term i'm not sure i'm not even sure the technology is here to you know to make it in a smooth way um is it something i'm excited about for the future yes what's what's the like defy play here like what do you make of

you know funds that are now holding nfts like blackpool and um how does that play into the kind of long-term strategy for so rare it's it's a very interesting product and strategy question for us um you can think about what we are building with you know this uh you you could you could very much move into like uh something uh financial uh and at the opposite of the spectrum you could uh go after the gaming and the fan and the usage uh play right uh and the decision we made is to be more like to to to to build a lot of features and to develop the product in a way that is more fun that

we develop the collectible element that you know the progression uh uh in the game is is again more fun uh and that we have we we add more social features so that you can uh chat with your fans and meet new friends uh within the platform so that's more the direction we have uh there's plenty of features that we could have developed around landing around you know like uh uh same kind of features that taxi infinity is doing like basically giving your account to some people that play for you this kind of stuff uh but that's that's not part of our uh um short-term priorities uh we believe you know like the right way to

really penetrate a sports fan and go big with them uh is to provide to them like more fun uh and to protect provide them more social features uh and that's what we're gonna try to do in the coming months cool yeah i could spend another 30 40 minutes just talking about this one thing but um you know i'm very grateful for all the time you spent with us today and i i want to close this with like i want to come back to your entrepreneurial journey and i want to know if i want to try to get like a five-minute master class um so i i know that you left stratum with uh lots of sort of lessons right and like important

learnings and [Music] you know i i keep telling myself that you must have like had this list of like things not to do ever again um if if you were to start a company i will open sources at some point i would you should make it into an nfg [Laughter] yeah yes do something yeah i mean i'd love to see it uh and maybe we could cross you know and we could we could we could share like where you know see if there's any overlap there but um you know what what are the what were the biggest entrepreneurial lessons for you like after leaving stratum and what are the things that like you

really set out not to reproduce and not to do again and um and one of the things that you really felt that you you know really important uh this is kind of a personal question yeah i don't know if it makes sense to our listeners but yeah no no it's no it's i mean it's uh for me like like let's see the main three points right um so one is hiring uh uh oh oh do you hire what like what what you know what what is all do you think about hiring what what are your processes so that hiring is something that is um it's not subjective like okay i like this person but something that you can rationalize a bit uh okay i'm not making

a decision because this person is close to me from a cultural cultural standpoint or shared the same background like you know how do you try um to to build a team uh where you you you have diversity and you have you know like an objective criteria and not subjective criteria this is something um that i think is really important that i personally did some mistakes in the past because lack of process lack of method and no i try to be yeah you know really focused and precise in the way behind like having a process like having a way to evaluate the candidates you know all

this all these things are really important because your company is only worth the quality of the people you're gonna hire like it's just human things right so if you do a single mistake on this on the five to ten first half that you make you kill your company right uh so uh because if you hire someone that ends up being toxic for the company or you know like you kill the company right so um so this is this is this is one very important thing to to me uh the second one is uh it's about uh uh you know you know product uh and listening uh to the to the community and and trying to be really really close to them and to iterate based on what they say right uh and and uh and and again trying

to be objective here listen to your users uh and okay they uh they maybe they don't have the solutions but they know the problem they have so you're going to imagine the solution but listen to them uh and and iterate on on what they say every day uh i i say it's really important uh and the third point is focus uh because again at the beginning is you know like very few people in the company uh the only thing that matters is hiring building products and growing the community and if you don't have the focus uh in the way you you ship product um then you end up a lot of stuff that are not

exceptional like but yeah the the for me the only way to to to to to to build something myself is to have this absolute focus this is the priority this is the priority and and and also like having this shift between this is the priority for the next three years and then um being able to go down to this is a priority for next month and next week and next day right so you know having this link between the big vision and uh and and the smaller tasks that you need to achieve and be being ultra focused is i think it's really important so um so yeah these are yeah three yeah points where i'm i think i i did some mistakes in the

past in terms of hiring in terms of listening uh to the community and in terms of being focused and well yeah no i i try to just do better i jump on this bandwagon of entrepreneurial advice um so there's a bunch of companies in the crypto ecosystem that are successful in the crypto ecosystem um but that are kind of hitting a wool when trying to grow with their products out of the crypto niche into the mainstream what's your advice for them asking for a friend now i think that first of all and uh i've been advocating that to invest for

a while i think that the crypto niche at some point won't be a crypto niche but would be like a movement right uh so like and i mean we see it growing right so uh so i because you know when i was raising money at the beginning you know all the investors yeah but you know you are targeting crypto reach and blah blah blah and i was like yes okay but i mean this is going to be big at some point right and uh and uh and it's it's not bad you know to target these people right i mean they have needs as well and so on so so that i mean that's first part uh and uh and then the second point is um like moving then um

from crypto niche to i mean crypto uh audience i would say to non-crypto audience um one mistake i did at the beginning was to try to educate uh like explaining what is the technology explain what is the philosophy and so on and when i moved from okay i want to teach to um i want to show them the benefits uh without explaining what's behind then that was the that was the click right so show them digital scarcity by telling stories and and design and copywriting showed them portability by having um you know cool side experiences on top of the game so basically show them the benefits of

nfcs what they bring to this gaming industry in general by have them fill them rather than having it somewhere in the faq where you explain that an nft is digitally scarce and blah blah blah that nobody cares nobody read the fx nobody is gonna listen to that they want to feel it right uh and so when i realized that then um you know i moved from like yeah trying to you know like tweak the words to make it work to okay build the right the right product and make them feel that so hide the right product designers hide the right copy right that's hard to write blah blah blah so that they can fit it so yeah that's that's all i yeah i've been thinking

about it cool um uh this has been so terrific nico i mean thanks so much for spending the time here no but i mean i know you're you're very focused and you you choose your interviews well and so i'm honored that you know we could be uh on your priority list um so you know before before we wrap up here um what are you gonna do with all this money what's what's on the road map uh and what's your sort of like five to ten year vision no build build build uh so you know like um it's uh i i want to make it big i want to put crypto assets in in the hands of you know hundreds of millions of people so

it's very early here um we with this money we're going to hire the best hopefully in you know all the domains uh marketing product design and hiring and so on um we're gonna we're gonna acquire more rights uh and go after more sports so this is costly because we created this new market and now we inflated the price of uh the stuff we buy uh so uh so this is the second big thing uh and then yes we're going to keep building products and improving it making it more simple more accessible in terms of price as well and shipping a mobile app so yeah we

have so much to do um you know to to raise the the the product experience to the level we want so i guess those are the main areas of focus hiring uh licensing uh and more rights and um improving drastically the product experience fantastic well uh thanks again for being on hopefully we'll have you on uh after your next big milestone maybe once you've raised like two billion dollars and or something in a couple of years um yeah it's it's been terrific and you know just you know speak you know i richard and i are still close friends and you know and we we often sort of see see you you know succeeding and and we're just always uh very much like

very pleased and very proud of like what you've accomplished um so yeah just want you to know that like we're we're very happy to see the strata mafia succeeding thank you so much now you've been you have been like instrumental in my you know like just helping me get this world uh and you know like elevate me to uh to this world and uh so yeah i'm forever grateful for for that and everything i learned at your side so again like absolute pleasure pleasure and and thank you frederick for for the for the amazing conversation too it was uh it was great to be here thank you nico where can people go to find out more about zura so i guess that our community is really

active on twitter so our handle is surreal very simple we have a very active discount community uh as well uh so yeah those are today the the the two main places where the communities perfect thank you so much for joining us and uh uh good good success um over the coming years same for you thank you so much