Benzinga - Investor and entrepreneur Alexis Ohanian is one of the many supporters of the growth of Web3 and non-fungible tokens. In an interview, Ohanian shared details about several of his favorite projects and the difference that Web3 could be solving.
What Happened: Ohanian has backed NFT projects including Moonbirds, Doodles and Yuga Labs, the parent company of Bored Ape Yacht Club.
Ohanian named Yuga Labs as one of the companies looking to solve problems in Web3 and launch a game.
“As long as folks are building on crypto, as long as they’re spinning up nodes, as long as they’re looking for ways to solve problems, they’re gonna need the picks and shovels to do it,” Ohanian said in a CNBC interview.
Ohanian said Yuga Labs would not have been able to bring on Daniel Alegre from Activision Blizzard Inc (NASDAQ: ATVI) and take him away from hit titles such as World of Warcraft if it didn’t look like there was an opportunity in Web3 gaming.
“What we’re seeing in the communities and cultures and the creativity is something that could very likely play out to be a new forefront of gaming and culture.”
Several Yuga Labs projects, Moonbirds and Doodles all ranked in the top 10 collections by sales in 2022 and are among the most popular Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH)-based NFT collections of all time.
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The Web3 Difference: Ohanian named Doodles as an NFT company looking to solve the future of intellectual property and ownership using Web3.
“Doodles wants to build the next generation of Disney and a whole world of IP that is, you know, giving people a stake, a sense of ownership,” Ohanian said.
Ohanian compared investing in NFTs today to being able to invest in a company like Walt Disney Co (NYSE: DIS) years ago and not just invest in the company but also in its individual characters.
“The way I described it as if you know 100 years ago you could have bought shares in Disney, you’d have been happy to do that, but if you could have bought some of the original drawings of Mickey Mouse, you would’ve been really happy with that too.”
Ohanian said before people could find auctions of old Mickey Mouse drawings but weren’t able to invest in or own the characters from media companies.
“That’s the difference Web3 at the end of the day,” he said.
When it was announced that Ohanian’s Seven Seven Six was investing in Doodles, Ohanian said he has a proud history of being early in the space of cryptocurrency with over a decade of investments.
“I’ve never been more optimistic than I am now,” he said.
Ohanian added that builders are building and the technology of the future is exciting.
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