Waking up Wednesday
SAND, HARMONY ONE and AXIE INFINITY
Wednesdays are the day that we focus on projects and who is behind them.
Today I want to focus on three people in the crypto world that I have decided to invest my coin in.
Sebastien Borget - The Sandbox
Stephen Tse - Harmony One
Trung Nguyen - Axie Infinity
Who are they and what are they saying about their work?
How will this impact my investment decisions in 2022?
Person 1 Sebastien Borget
How did I pick Sebastien Borget to kick off What’s up Wednesday? Three key reasons.
My interest in NFT’s
The Sandbox is easy to purchase on Binance and other platforms
The Sandbox has a relative track record of performance in the crypto world.
Copied from https://twitter.com/borgetsebastien
My own journey with The Sandbox
The Sandbox was first launched in 2011 by Pixowl. It took me 10 years to hear about it! Why was this? There was a sudden hype in discussion about NFT’s in the media and I bought $14 in a bundle pack of NFT coins in May 2021. For months, this $14 did nothing much and in the end I swapped it for another crypto coin. By the end of 2021, The Sandbox had risen in percentage terms dramatically.
What has Borget being doing to develop the coin recently?
Looking at the articles, it has been an amazing 3 years whereby Borget and his team have built the groundwork to enable players and creators with 100 percent ownership of NFTs.
The Sandbox is one of the largest independent user generated content and gaming platforms. They have over 1 million monthly active users.
Notwithstanding after Sandbox raised $93m in an investment round it sent the token price soaring to its all-time high of $3.45 on 3 November - it then moved again,150% to hit a peak finally at of $8.51 on 25 November. But just so you are aware, they have big partners, such as Snoop Dogg and Adidas, that contribute to the fundamental value of the coin.
What I like about Sandbox ?
It can be used in different ways. Players can spend Sand in order to play games. Sand is a governance token which allows holders to exercise voting rights. Investors like me can stake Sand - and I have done. Most importantly, there is a Foundation to support the generation of content and game creation. I like the idea that Borget and his team want to give back to help support their community and ecosystem grow.
Plans for Sandbox in my own portfolio through 2022.
I will add to my own holdings of SAND but I am aware that the coin has received a lot of attention recently and that it is at an all time high. Thus, I will be looking to drip feed my money into this coin and if there are further opportunities to stake through the year, I will do so.
Copied from Price Prediction https://priceprediction.net/en/price-prediction/the-sandbox/2022
Person 2 Stephen Tse
Stephen Tse and Harmony One
My own journey with Harmony One
I am writing about Harmony One because it is a coin I know nothing about. Unlike The Sandbox, which I have loosely followed through 2021, Harmony One is a project that I need to dig deep into to offer some thoughts to you on this post.
I figure that since I have been trialling staking with SAND, I should probably try it with Harmony too. This is because Harmony made history on May 16, 2020 when it launched staking, making it the very first sharded blockchain to offer staking. Staking was considered necessary in order to create trust for network participants.
This system of staking is one that Stephen Tse talks about in his interview on Youtube by Aaron Watson.
What I like about Stephen Tse?
When you watch Stephen in the video, it is plain to see the passion for his project. The bookcase behind him is not fancy not carefully organised but rather he looks like he has just arrived to talk quickly and deeply about something he really cares about.
The team behind Harmony is combined of experts in building lasting companies, engineering, and academic research. They come from the likes of Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and a number of successful startups. And they’ve worked on some of the largest systems in the world such as the AWS infrastructure, Apple’s Siri, and Google Maps.
While the team remains small, with just 20 full-time members and an additional 4 collaborators, they bring to the table experience in software development, machine learning, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and blockchain technology.
The CEO and leader of the team is Stephen Tse, an avid coder who has spent his life studying and working on compilers and security protocols. He graduated with a doctoral degree in security protocols and compiler verification from the University of Pennsylvania.
What has Tse being doing to develop the coin recently?
Stephen Tse who graduated with a doctoral degree in security protocols and compiler verification from the University of Pennsylvania, leads a small team of experts that have experience from the likes of Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and a number of successful startups. (They have worked on some of the largest systems in the world -Apple’s Siri, and Google Maps are just two of these projects)
Plans for Harmony One in my own portfolio through 2022.
I have added Harmony One to my coin wallet today and have joined the Harmony Community on Telegram.
Person 3 - Trung Nguyen
My snapshot of Trung Nguyen.
My own journey with Axie Infinity
A simple one - I liked the name! I purchased the coin first and then began my research. This is not something that I advise my readers to do. Moreover, I probably did not wait to buy the dip, rather I saw a massive price rise and jumped in on the trend. With hindsight, I should have been quicker to research more about Trung Nguyen’s busy decade in the digital space. His story is quite amazing.
What I like about Trung Nguyen?
To me, Nguyen has seen opportunity and through hard work, passion and the ability to lead teams of people around a project that makes sense, has catapulted from one great success to the next!
In 2012, at the age of 20, Trung Nguyen was the chief technical officer and a co-founder of aspiring startup Lozi. At the time, Lozi was a social network for food bloggers. At one point, it had 8 million users and in 2015, it received a seven-figure investment led by Golden Gate Ventures.
Trung Nguyen moved on to work as a software engineer for Anduin Transactions which makes investment deals faster and more efficient. This is perhaps where he was first introduced to the idea of blockchain. And as a gamer, he also saw the use of blockchain based games with the idea of Crypto kitties.
What emerged from Nguyen’s experiences during this time, was the realisation that he could make a block-chain game of his own. With a team effort, Axie Infinity began to take shape. Players were able to control Axies and these Axies lived in an environment called the Terrarium. They could be cared for by the players and like crypto kitties they could breed and directly engage in battles. There was also a marketplace to buy and sell Axies. (Yes, Axie Infinity is inspired by Pokemon)
About eighteen months after the first players started caring for Axies, the team realised that an international community had grown with a sudden and dramatic power. Axie Infinity thus became one of the highest grossing block chain games in the world! By the way, it is estimated that each user spends about US$400 on the platform.
Plans for Axie Infinity in my own portfolio through 2022.
To accumulate and stake.
