In this eye-opening episode, Animoca Brands co-founder & chairman Yat Siu joins host Constantin Kogan to unpack his extraordinary journey - from a 15-year-old Austrian kid coding MIDI software on Atari and getting paid via mailed checks, to building one of the first ISPs in Hong Kong, dominating early mobile gaming (200M+ downloads!), and getting deplatformed overnight by Apple in 2012.Yat Siu reveals:💸 How Apple "hacked" their own App Store rules and removed hundreds of their TOP 20 games despite market leadership💸 Why centralized platforms stole our data (and how Web3 gives it back via true digital property rights)💸 The VC model is broken - corporations with trillions in cash should build ecosystems, not extract💸 Growing up behind the Iron Curtain, witnessing real communism, Tiananmen Square on TV, and the fall of the Berlin Wall💸 From professional musician (piano, flute, cello) to accidental tech pioneer via CompuServe bulletin boards💸 Investing in 600+ Web3 projects (Sandbox, Axie Infinity, OpenSea, Dapper Labs) as the "ultimate altcoin bet"💸 Why NFTs = digital culture & status symbols💸 Launching Mocaverse & Mocha Debt - reputation systems, user-paid airdrops, and the end of $900B inefficient ads💡Why Watch?Yat reveals how digital property rights are the foundation of true online freedom. From dominating Apple’s charts in 2011 to betting everything on NFTs in 2018, this is the origin story of Web3 gaming — told by the man who invested early in Axie Infinity, OpenSea, Dapper Labs, Decentraland, and built The Sandbox."If you have a government that changes the rules on you all the time, you can't build consistently. The VC model will change or die. Web3 is the antidote." — Yat Siu💡 Subscribe for more Web3 deep dives🔔 Like if you believe in digital property rights************Follow Yat Siu:🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yatsiu/?originalSubdomain=hk🔗 X: https://x.com/ysiu?lang=en************ ✉️ For any business inquiries, email me here: [email protected] ************ Listen to the full podcast here! 🎧 https://anchor.fm/constantinkogan ************Subscribe to my channel: 🔗 https://www.youtube.com/@ConstantinKogan?sub_confirmation=1************ Follow me on socials: 🌐 Website: https://ckogan.com📲 Telegram: https://t.me/constantinkogan 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/constkogan💻 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/constantin-kogan/✖️ X: https://x.com/constkogan🎙️ Podcast: https://anchor.fm/constantinkogan ************Timestamps:0:00 - Intro01:15 – Who is Yat Siu? A "third culture kid" who lived through the fall of the Berlin Wall, Tiananmen Square, and the rise of China09:28 – From Philharmonic Musician to Atari Coder at Age 15 — writing MIDI software on CompuServe in the 1980s18:10 – Getting hired by Atari as a teenager via bulletin boards (pre-internet!)23:53 – Building Hong Kong’s first ISP, selling to IBM, and pioneering open-source email at global scale27:41 – The Pivot to Web3: Why decentralization was always the soul of the internet32:59 – The Night Apple Deleted 200+ Apps Overnight — the event that birthed Animoca’s Web3 mission40:21 – Deplatformed by the Australian Stock Exchange for "gaming + tokens" in 201943:21 – Acquiring The Sandbox in 2018 - building the decentralized Minecraft50:53 – Investing in 600+ Web3 projects: Why altcoins win Bitcoin long-term56:09 – Introducing Mocha Debt & Mochaverse - digital ID, reputation systems, and the future of airdrops59:58 – Are NFTs Dead? Why culture, scarcity, and community will make them multi-billion-dollar assets01:05:02 – Blitz Round: 1984, extortion during IBM sale, fatherhood, and tokenizing consciousness#Web3 #BlockchainGaming #NFTs #AnimocaBrands #CryptoInvesting #DigitalOwnership #TheSandbox #Mocaverse #ConstantinKogan #HolisticInvestments #YatSiu