Step into the immersive world of blockchain gaming and the Metaverse as we welcome a true visionary, Juan Ibagon Hdez, CEO of Elfin Kingdom Games.

In this exciting episode, we delve deep into the heart of the decentralized gaming ecosystem on the Binance Smart Chain and explore how Elfin Kingdom Games is powering the next generation of Web3 games and metaverse projects.

Discover their mission and the incredible potential they see in the convergence of blockchain technology and gaming. Whether you're a gaming enthusiast or simply curious about the future of digital entertainment, this episode is not to be missed. Tune in now and explore the limitless possibilities of the Decentralized Gameverse.

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Visit our website at Website .

Connect with your host Nadja's LinkedIn .

Follow AdLunam on Twitter and LinkedIn to stay updated, as you engage with us on a daily basis.

Elfin - Navigating the Decentralized Gameverse

Participants:

• Nadja Bester (Co-founder of AdLunam)

• Juan Ibagon (CEO of Elfin Kingdom Games)

00:23

Nadja

01:27

Nadja

As for Elfin Kingdom Games, built on Binance smart chain, it is designed to be a haven for gaming and metaverse projects to leverage the power of Web3 tech. They are not just building games, they are building the future of decentralized interactive experiences. So that piques your interest then definitely stay tuned as we speak to Juan about, well, a whole bunch of things, especially as it relates to GameFi, the future of all of the different Web3 technologies that play into GameFi and also what the current market is like for this segment of the industry. So with that, Juan, welcome and I would love for you to really just I mean, you've been in crypto for years and years now. What was the vision behind Elfin Kingdom and why are you so intent on creating it this way in order to really revolutionize the decentralized gaming ecosystem?

02:28

Nadja

Maybe also tell us what is the decentralized gaming ecosystem? What does it involve?

02:35

Juan

Hello Nadja, thank you very much for that introduction. I think it's one of the few and amazing introductions, better than my own introductions, but yeah, let me tell you a little bit about Elfin Kingdom Games and thank you very much for everyone who is listening. Let's say that after a few years of being in crypto, I think many people jumps into crypto, of course with the premises of making some money, but at the same time, some of us besides that, we want to create a change and make different things with this technology and in the world some impact. In my case, I had the opportunities to create other things that were more I will say I had the opportunity to create wallets, to create exchanges and other similar business model. But they were not just the right fit for me at that moment I just didn't want to do something for the sake of doing something.

03:38

Juan

I think it's more powerful when you do something that passionate. You and I've been always a big gamer. That's something that I always liked and when I was little I always say that when I was a kid I would say that probably too young to be an Esports player and maybe too old to go back to those days. Now, however, I think building on top of something that is passionated. This passion for me is where this started. After seeing the craze of the play to earn happen and we came with this idea of creating Elfin Kingdom. Initially as a game, we started being as a game. A game very similar to Pokémon, the version of 98 and little by little we started to pivot in sense that after having this success with the game were seeing that not only was necessary like having a game and that's the maximum we could do.

04:40

Juan

We actually saw or I discovered during all this experience that there were many pain points inside of the gaming ecosystem itself and that creating a decentralized gaming platform could be like the best way to go creating this infrastructure for the Web3. And of course that meaning that you will have a platform where you will have access to different libraries of games, different type of games that you would like to play. You will have access to your own NFTs. I think Play to Earn has evolved to play and own mostly which of course the decentralizing platform doesn't belong to anyone at least in the beginning. Of course, it starts centralized. But the future of the vision is it becomes decentralized, where, through governance, people can really decide what's going to be the future for this, what new features are coming, what can we do? The marketplaces, which projects are coming, and all these kind of different aspects that decentralization or the promise of decentralization will break those and at the same time allowing Esports.

05:56

Juan

I think the Esports become the biggest promise for Web3 gaming.

06:07

Nadja

That is quite a journey. I love how you say how you come into Web3, perhaps with the idea of this is where a lot of money is to be made. But very quickly the technology is something that you realize is something that is a game changer and then that kind of starts asking the question but what are you going to contribute to making this change? And I love also your own passion as a gamer. I think it's very difficult for founders to build something that they are not truly passionate about themselves because startups are hard and if you don't 100% believe in what it is you are doing, especially at a time like this, in a market like this, it can really be tricky to keep going. Now, I'm curious because you mentioned the pain points that you recognized in the overall gaming ecosystem because this is of course something that a lot of people talk about is the fact that web3 gaming or GameFi has huge promise for the future of gaming.

07:10

Nadja

However, it is so early and we don't find a lot of actual players playing web3 games. A lot of this is because of just the way that these games are built or the fact of course that they are not ready just yet but are still in production. So what are some of the pain points that you feel is still in the ecosystem even today with all of the different companies that are working on different solutions and if applicable what Elfin is doing in order to address these issues?

07:43

Juan

Yes, very good question. I think personally I believe that play two I mean the web3 gaming space has probably find a bottleneck and many people they don't really realize what's necessary or what are the real pain points because we always discuss about the same issues all the time. Like ownership. The NFTs. You can sell your assets, you can have this and that, but it's always around the same topic, and I think it's a little bit deeper than that. Of course, the ownership is very important aspect and I think most of web3 gaming builders can agree on that. I think that's a topic that we already assimilate and it's a must inside of the platform. I think the part where the main pain point comes is the Play and Earn. Because after Axie Infinity, there was this misconception in which the first version of web3 gaming is the premise of you can sit in your sofa and you literally can make money from pushing some buttons.

08:58

Juan

It's very easy. And I think the next pain point is just solving and really passing the message about it's not play to earn, really, it's not play to earn, it is play and own. So in this sense, when I talk about exactly owning is when you have these NFTs, you will have to think about them such as I do, always a comparison with football because it's the thing I'm more familiar with. And you can think about them as players if you want. You have this player who can join that team or you can sell it and you transfer it and you can make money from this. You really sell those assets and that's how you really make money selling those assets that they belong to you and you put them maybe even you can rent those assets for people to play tournaments. You can see the different aspects inside of the Esports because the real way of earning in gaming is through Esports competitions.

09:57

Juan

Not because you just sit down and I click and I just do the minimum possible and I am entitled to 400, 500 USD a month. That's actually really not very valuable. And the way these games can really make money is if they have viewers through advertisement, through all this competition. So I think addressing that point is something that we're working on in which we want to transmit exactly. The NFTs are mostly the assets that are the value, mostly just getting some pennies. And of course, the other part and a pain point that maybe some people do not see is the reality of gaming or Web2 is evolving to the cloud gaming. I refer to the cloud gaming. It's just I have I can take the comparison with Netflix. I have an account in Elfin and similar to Netflix, you just go and open and you pay a subscription fee.

10:54

Juan

And with this subscription fee, you actually get access to a library where you don't need to download the game, you just get it streamed. So I think infrastructure for these streaming services, GPU streaming services to do all these renderings and all these things of graphics is going to be something that some companies and I cannot tell you which company right now because we are working one of them, they are working on making this kind of decentralized GPU technology available for gaming streaming services. And I think that's one of the pain points that many people is not really seeing, creating a real infrastructure, just not only providing the part of the library. I think the library as us is really good. But if you don't have the tech where you integrate miners and integrate people who has maybe some of the machines there waiting to provide some of this power will be another part that you can solve through gaming.

11:55

Juan

And at the same time, you can provide solutions not only in the sense of having to solve the pain point of how other people can really earn through gaming, but you help those people to be part of the ecosystem in which they can fund those other projects or other gaming, other games that are coming. And people can really be part of a complete ecosystem where you have infrastructure, you have the players, you have the investors, you have the content creators, and you have, of course, the decentralization that will maintain this complete ecosystem.

12:40

Nadja

Well, I just have to absolutely just call this out. This is one of the most interesting conversations that I've had in a while about the future of gaming. So definitely if you were thinking about leaving this talk anytime soon, definitely stay tuned because Juan has amazing insights. I love your approach on this. We came from play to earn or play and earn and now kind of moving into a more I almost want to say realistic expectation of the industry in play and own. Because that is where a lot of the technology. And let's say the innovation based on the technology evolved from is this idea that in web3, you can own your own assets. But of course, the narrative has kind of completely shifted in the other direction in the sense k there are games. As you say, you're going to sit on your chair all day, you're going to push a few buttons and you're going to make all this money and that ship has come and it's sailed.

13:42

Nadja

And a lot of people are feeling very almost like the promise of GameFi and web3 has been disappointing. But of course we know in this industry that in the beginning the dreams are always massively big and there's a lot of sort of short term hype opportunities that come and go. So where do you see the actual adoption of GameFi and web3, especially in the short term? Because there's a lot of people that my son for example, is a gamer but he doesn't care about owning anything. He just wants to enjoy it. He's got no incentive to use web3 games because he's already got his web. So where do you think this adoption is going to come from in terms of especially play and own away from this idea that in order to earn or in order to play, you're going to earn?

14:40

Juan

I think that's really actually a very interesting question that I always keep changing my mind, to be honest. I think you always have to be looking into different factors, different sources and see really how the market evolves and how it's giving you feedback. I don't think the market is a static and that's a key point. I think it's always evolving. So lately with many people because we work a lot right now lately with the web2 companies. I think that's one of the points that we need to emphasize. I think the adoption will come through them. I don't think the adoption will come really through web3. Taking the lead by themselves. I think it's too how to say it, I mean, I think it's counterproductive because web2 companies, they already have games, they have already users, they already have many things that you don't really need to rebuild.

15:44

Juan

Mostly what you need to offer them is another way to approach gaming. And I think the adoption will become coming from those web2 studios who will actually would like to expand their business models and bring different revenue and see the real advantage for that. There's many gamers, me personally, I play games and I think that's the reality of it, the reality of playing games should be for your own fun. I sit down and I play maybe 1 hour a video game and I'm having fun and then I just stop. I don't really care about making money from it and I think that's the real thing from it. You really have to have fun. And of course if you get I mean me as a gamer, when I play, I do get the skins and I do get some achievements and get this and that and I will be happy to sell it.

16:45

Juan

But personally, I am not really trying to make money from it in the short term. So I think the adoption like bringing that wave, it has to be through one studio or several studios maybe, in which they will onboard. They have already their audiences, their communities, and you just bring it into Web3. Like, I don't know, I will give an example. Call of Duty, you have Call of Duty and you have this community and then one day from another, they are going to just have a version for the web3 and they will bring that community to play that through different and smooth the way in which they're going to make mostly the Web3 experience almost invisible. Because I think one of the pain points aslock that I forgot to mention is how difficult is to really start to play these games. You have to do so many things, so many steps in order to start to play.

17:48

Juan

You buy this, you do that. That is really time consuming. And gamers, they just want to play. You're going to give up if there are too many steps to really play a game. So I think that the adoption will come from one of those games that people are familiar with and they will move their communities slowly to web3. And in that sense, those gamers, in the end, they will just realize through their services and through the promise of making things very smooth, better UI, better UX, people will start just to play. And when they realize everyone is kind of playing web3 games without really calling it, they are just gaming and playing and own is becoming the standard. You're going to own your own assets. I think the future is play own. And of course, if you want and if you spend the time earn, you can just sell those assets if that's what you want.

18:45

Juan

You can keep them if that's also what you want. I think it's all about choices.

18:53

Nadja

I love that because in the end, this is truly what differentiates the web3 industry from other industries are exactly that choices. So Juan, I want to know, as you say, you work with a lot of web2 companies to onboard them onto the Web3 technologies. But at the same time, obviously you've been in the Web3 space yourself for a good number of years, nearly a decade. So in your opinion, and I know we are at a very strange, weird sort of time when there are companies that are completely web3 native and there are companies that are completely web2. And now there's this bridge that's being built and obviously Elfin Games is part of that bridge. But overall, sort of generally speaking, what are the key factors that you would say differentiates a successful, decentralized game or gaming platform from an unsuccessful one?

19:53

Juan

I think I would say that there's a big important point that we need to make clear in part of between web2 game companies and web3 ones is that speculation factor is very present in web3 companies. And that's part of the game. That's part of the game and we should be fine with them and we should welcome all those speculators because those speculators give a lot of hype. So trying to just bash them in some sense I don't think is beneficial to anyone. And definitely I think that's the biggest difference in which web2 and web3 differs because most of those gaming companies that are web2, they really have to follow some financial guidelines. Web3 gaming companies, I think they follow very little financial or know your customer procedures and stuff like that. I think if you ask me based on that, what is going to be one of the companies, how you can differentiate a good ecosystem from the other one will be mostly not because of the price appreciation, because that's one way how companies get money.

21:11

Juan

But I think through their communities. I think if they are users, if you have a decentralized gaming ecosystem that are self-sustainable and they have communities doing their own games, I mean their own tournaments, you can create those communities, make their own tournaments, they can create their own events, they can create their own things. And is a game I think that will show the success maybe necessary. It will not be only like one platform, maybe cannot be the platform, but it can be a game. Just take a little bit the example of, I will say maybe World of Warcraft or LOL. Those are communities and very successful games. And all these people, the community is very successful. You can say those are the most successful games in the world and they are self sustained by the company. Of course there are companies behind investing in advertisement because they get millions of views and so on and you have prices and so on.

22:23

Juan

But I think you having people actively playing your games, at least one or two games because not all the games are going to be good. But if you have one really good game, you can make your platform successful. Like what's the biggest game in Nintendo? The biggest game in Nintendo that really let's say became iconic was Mario. Mario was the hit from Nintendo. And if you think Nintendo, you know, you just go and think directly into how you're going to find successful platforms will be if they actually have communities playing and using their own products independently from their token price because they will have trading volumes. And trading volumes means cash inside of the company and the company needs cash to survive.

23:20

Nadja

So I want touch on something that you mentioned earlier. Obviously web3 companies have a lot less limitations around regulations and all of these, as you say, the financial aspects like KYC, that web2 companies have to adhere to because they are part of the traditional financial system. Do you think that there is going to come a time when most of the gaming elements that we see will have a web3 component to it? In the sense that it will almost be a surprise if you're in a web2 game and there's no web3 options or do you think it's something that's going to coexist side by side and people will always kind of have the choice. Do they want to go on a decentralized platform or play a decentralized game and web two games will continue to exist with little influence. Where do you see this going and perhaps what a time frame are we looking at for this adoption?

24:20

Juan

I think the web2 games are going to become web3 games that's in the future I will say, if you ask me for our window, I think probably in ten years, probably all games are going to be web3. Because I do believe in ten years we already are going to have encrypted in general blockchain this technology. If you can see the news and what's going to happen, you know, this is actually getting regulated really heavily and really fast in this year. I think mostly this year, ETF launching next year. So many things are happening right now and this is part of how this financial infrastructure is really getting adopted, making it safe for most of users. And I think of course, there's another point that is the next generation that is coming. They are 100% internet natives. It makes sense that everything that they already own digitally is theirs.

25:29

Juan

They already are familiar with money like Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. For them just going to the bank, this painful process of talking to someone who really doesn't understand anything, asking you these questions and banking is really the worst thing that we ever had from my point of view. I always have a lot of problem with that. But all these new generations, they are internet natives and they are going to understand that they need to own everything that they are going to have inside of their digital identity coming. So if you see that, I think from a point of view it just makes sense that in the end this technology becomes invisible in which you don't really have the option. You're not going to say I want to play a web two game. It's just part of it. It's just part of the infrastructure. Like the TCP.

26:28

Juan

The Internet is built. You don't really know. You just know that the internet works and you just open your browser and that's it. It's going to be very similar to the instance you don't have mostly like the option, you just have it there. You just understand that this technology will understand that those games are built in that way. They will access platforms, as I was saying, they will not just have to download things just access maybe a browser or an app. And they are going to play directly from there. And they know they have their own digital identities. And in these digital identities they have their assets, they have their NFTs, they have their things and they can just do whatever they want with them. So I think it's going to be adopted and it will be the standard.

27:16

Nadja

Yeah, I think that's a really interesting point because if you come from a pre web3 era, you're used to not owning things, you're used to the platform being the over Lord and you have to agree to the terms and conditions and you have no choice. And especially as you highlighted choice earlier, I mean, web2 is almost the absence of choices. But then of course, if you are someone who is used to a web3 world, which is also why adoption takes time, then it's going to be very bizarre. The same way that if you tell your kids today what your life was like as a child and they were like, oh my God, I can't believe that. I can't even imagine this. So I can imagine a time in future where web3 technologies and the ownership of it especially is so just part and parcel of the culture that it's almost unimaginable that you don't own something.

28:10

Nadja

But on that point we talk a lot about the role, that game. I mean, for example in the Metaverse, there's a lot of companies moving in the Metaverse. But then you see Roblox, you see Fortnite, these established games, they are the ones that really lead the next generation into the idea of this. So if we think about the role of games in society, do you think that gaming reflects the trends or do you think that gaming sets the trends?

28:44

Juan

That's a very good question. I think gaming set the trends. I will just do this kind of example. I think that everything goes through this process of hype and then maybe forget about it. I will give you the example. Facebook I will just use know Facebook was really well used and then I personally don't use Facebook anymore. Maybe use Instagram. But for me I feel like Facebook died, was this momentary 20 years hype of it and now everybody moved to Instagram. There's also now people going directly to TikTok and many other things are going to come as kids as gaming is used for different it's like a way for your imagination to become someone else. I think when there's a good story or something really nice, people will start to play it. Just people will start to play it and they will like it and you get obsessed.

29:59

Juan

31:07

Juan

We will get to know each other and share, play together and so on. So I think to answer it will be games will set the trend.

31:22

Nadja

So that leads me to my next question because as we all know, this is not the easiest market in which to build anything probably in the global economy right now, but especially in the Web3 space. So as a founder building this company at this time, how has the current market conditions influenced the strategic decisions that you have been making?

31:51

Juan

I will say that the market conditions, they have been a little bit rough because again, still the hype is gone. So not many people didn't continue to investigate or to spend time inside of Web3 of crypto in general, because you can have also video games, web2 and they still have their communities, no problem. But as the promise of money is gone, many tourists left the space and that's something that I think is good, something that at the same time is not the best. I mean it's good because the speculation diminished but at the same time you have the opportunity to see the real mostly what the stays in the market is mostly people who is holding of course, because they want to have a new cycle, they are players. But market conditions in this situation are really rough in the sense that there's always something happening and mostly in Web3, your token performance is like, I will say, some qualification of how good you are in some sense.

33:27

Juan

34:36

Juan

So marketing this stuff is not easy. I think many companies are suffering from this and the traction is not the best. But the time will come. The time will come and with good partnerships and good efforts, the more you try, there's going to be an opportunity that we believe we can hit the right spot.

35:04

Nadja

I agree with you fully. We've also not launched the token for exactly the same reason. And it's a difficult strategic decision to make when you're ready to go and you want to go. But at the same time, as you say, the token performance is so closely tied to, well, really the starting success of a company in the web3 space. So in the end you have to balance those choices out. I want to ask because I think there's a lot of people that are either they started building, let's say towards the end of the bull market and just as they were able or able to raise and willing to raise funds, that's when the bear market hit. Or people that started building in the bear market and as a result of conditions being what, they are not really being able to get to the point of fundraising in order to really catapult the project into the next level.

35:59

Nadja

So let's say advice, what's your advice or what guidelines would you give founders specific perhaps to the GameFi space, but even more generally speaking, just to get through this difficult period you mentioned community building. That of course is a crucial part of especially if the beginning part. But so what are some of the guidelines or advice that you can give founders that find themselves in these difficult positions at the moment?

36:32

Juan

Great question. I think let's say it into different scenarios. Of course, if I'm a builder and a founder and I think I can give the example for the first one, we actually raise funds by the end of the year, by the end of the bull market. First of all, I will say that the best thing you can do is get good advisors, good investors, not investors only that they are on. I mean, I would not say that I don't have only one or few of those, but I do you need some investors that really care, that are there for you, to hear you out and to give you guidance. Because the thing of the bull market is that everyone is kind of rich, so they pretty much want to throw money at you. And in bull market raising funds is a little bit easier of course, than in the bear market.

37:32

Juan

But the money that you receive doesn't have the same value because everyone wants to make a quick buck and they don't really care. So there are some good investors that we have, some others that they really went completely cold, they just don't care. But so I will say for what you can do is try to find those advisors that believe in your project and try to cut deals with them so they can introduce new partners. I think the most important thing in this case is capital preservation. You have to keep as much capital as possible. You need to run your project as how we are running it as low minimum burn rate of your cash because you need to focus into at least our focus has been building a product keeping our community alive with activities with small things, keeping them keep engaging with them, doing things with partners and find new opportunities with other companies to cooperate in the future.

38:35

Juan

And that's like I will say for those who have funds, do not rush into doing a lot of marketing because any marketing you are throwing right now is a waste of cash. Because everything that you pay is literally you throw it into the fire right now. It doesn't create the same effect as when you do it during a moment where everyone is having the eyes in the market. Like when it's a bull market, everyone is looking at kind of opportunities and you can make much more with that money. It's much better invested and it can give you better returns than just doing it in these market conditions when everyone is like crypto is a scam. So the recommendation would be save your money until the most you can do. Not spend in things that are not really necessary unless you have a really big bank of role and you can afford to do that.

39:33

Juan

40:40

Juan

It's a numbers game to be honest. It's like sales. You sell, you sell. People will believe in your idea, others will not believe in your idea and you will get those.

40:52

Nadja

Very solid advice and spoken from someone who you can hear has been in the trenches. It's only with experience that wisdom truly comes. So Juan, I want to know you touched on community and this idea, which of course is very accurate at the moment, that spending marketing funds is not necessarily going to give you really any good results because it's so short lived and not many eyeballs see it. But what does it mean actually to build a community in a market like this? Because we've seen over the last I don't know. The bear market now feels like it's been going on forever, but we've been seeing over the last months and sometimes everyone's completely sick and tired of web3. And you? See almost no community activity. And then there are these spikes where people kind of come back, see what's happening, and then decide, okay, it's still not the time.

41:49

Nadja

So what truly at the moment, especially for companies that are not doing marketing and perhaps have a very small budget, you might not have raised funds, as you say, might only have gotten angel investment to do the basics such as the MVP. What does it take to build and engaged decentralized community at this time especially?

42:16

Juan

I think that's a very important question for us. I will say that what it takes. It takes a lot of effort for sure because you will have a community like mixed in which there's people who wants you to launch the token and do this, do the rest, they feel entitled to get return on their investment, of course, all this kind of stuff. However, the more activities you do and the people you find a little by little during the bear market are much more valuable in some sense. I mean not completely. In some sense they are more valuable because those are going to arrive to your project or they will discover your project. Always make your project vibrant, speak about what it is about, always introduce it. Reach new partners, reach new communities, bring it to the public, be welcoming and some of these new phases are going to come and they will be fresh, let's call it.

43:26

Juan

They have zero expectations, they like the project, they see that they need to wait. They will wait and find ways of being part. Some of them, not all of them, but in a big sense, some of the people who approach the Elfin kingdom they want to be part, they want to create, they want to find ways, of course, that can contribute to the ecosystem and just try to find I mean, for example, there are many from my experience now, this is something away that I actually learned, is that sometimes you hire external services. In some sense it's good, not so bad. I think some of them they are really good, others are not that good. But one thing that is really key, I will say, is your moderators in your community. We had several different moderators, and some of them, the only way you can really have a community who will stay with you is through your customer service and the people who is actually talking to them.

44:38

Juan

That's like the first contact point. And if you have someone who just doesn't really care and doesn't know about the project, anyone will care about it. So if you have good moderators, I mean, at least this is what I saw from the experience. If you have good moderators in your group and they are quick and they understand the project and they can answer the question, and they are actually very helpful, they will make those community members coming, or the old ones that they know what we're doing. And I think that gives a lot of confidence to everyone in which they will feel. I would call it like safe. So having a good team of moderators will be, I think, one of the key aspects for building a community. And always maybe do activities, try to engage them. In some sense, when I say you don't need to spend a lot of money, it's like you don't need to go and spend 10,000, 20,000.

45:43

Juan

You can do activities. We do some poker nights, we do some creator content contests, things like that keep the community engaged and you give something back in return for being there. And I think that's one of the ways we're trying to keep and build the community. Some people are really happy for things that happen. Others, of course, will not be happy. It's, I think, a balance between good and bad. But of course, bad times give you difficult times, give you a lot of troubles, and easy times will give you a lot of, I would say easy moments and in which you might get lost. Actually, this is the best moment you can build your project and have and find those problems, the real problems, and try to solve them. Because when the bull market comes, you will have these problems ten or 100 times bigger.

46:40

Nadja

That's very true. I think people always position the bull market as this beautiful, mythical place where there's no problems and everything is wonderful. But especially if you're building a product and if you're leading a startup, it's a fast moving time when no one ever sleeps and there's also a lot of challenges. So for sure, the bear market is a time to make sure that you have those fundamentals ready, and especially in terms of community building. And as you say, not just building the community in the sense of having this place for people to be, but really making sure that you build the community where there's a relationship building happening between the team and the community, whether they are players, whether they're holders, et cetera. So I see that we close to the end of the hour, but I want to pick your brain a little bit.

47:33

Nadja

If we think about NFTs, gaming obviously is one of the sectors where people see the most promise, especially in terms of ownership. But what are some of the other areas, the other applications or utilities of NFTs apart from GameFi that make you excited that we might see over the next few years?

47:58

Juan

I think NFTs are just going to get more going to become first part of our culture. They are making it little by little. And I will say something that will make me excited of being part of different clubs. If I own certain NFT, I can have access to special benefits. And just not to buy the NFT, but I will give you a very maybe bad example in which like for example, if I buy a know any brand, you just name know, I would call know Renault, something like this, or Chevrolet, you name it and you buy this car. And this car comes with this special NFT because it's one of the cars you can have access to, I don't know, special events during the year and you can participate into those. I think these kind of NFT functionalities are really something that people will use and they will find it in a way that can be useful maybe for certain edition of cars, you can have it and maybe you can just sell it the day you sell your car too, you can keep it if you want.

49:19

Juan

No one can really ask you to sell it. Or for artists also, in the same time, you can get access to a special content supporting some of the causes of what they do. I mean, so many applications for these NFTs that you will be having that is going to become just bigger. I think these big brands are the first ones who are really becoming entering into this space. Like Adidas, I think. Jimmy Choo and Dolce & Gabbana. All these kind of big brands. I'm not a well knowledgeable guy about all these brands, but they already have these NFTs and they give you, of course, access to different things. And for example, I know very well in Hong Kong, Shanghai, there are these, I don't know, I think the name is Tiffany or Jimmy Choo. I don't remember really well what's the brand, but they have this cafe and if you buy one of their bags, this is like a latest thing you buy and you get this NFD and you can go.

50:30

Juan

And when you go and you show this NFT, you can have some discount because you go and you have bills that cost 200, 300, 400 US. And maybe you can get a discount for, I don't know, 20%. So it's something part of this club and part of this Jimmy Choo or Vogue or I don't know, just name it. So I think those applications are really interesting and people like to be part of communities. It's just an identity.

51:02

Nadja

Yeah, I mean I love what you say about it just simply becoming part of the culture over time. Because the idea of ownership, the idea of digital identity, it's already part of our internet experience. It's just that the technology is not there to support and empower us as the users. Of course, in web2 it's there to support the companies building these technologies. So I'm going to ask, I think probably the last question because I see there's a whole bunch of audience questions coming in. So just in closing, I mean we've spoken a lot about the future of GameFi, the future of just this idea that technology as a whole is moving from web2 into web3. So as the technology continues to evolve, what do you think is the future going to look like in terms of gaming, in terms of blockchain, in terms of the social impact that these sectors, whether it is the decentralized technology, whether it's the fact that people go to games to express themselves.

52:10

Nadja

What do you think, what effect is this going to have on us in future? Because at the moment everything happens in Silo, you are on the internet and you do X and you are there and you do Y. Whereas in web3, because things are decentralized, we become the focal point. At the moment it's more that we have to split our identity in different sort of roles and different areas of the internet. So what do you see the future is going to look like maybe 10,20, even 30 years down the line.

52:43

Juan

Well, 20,30 years, I will try to look into the future but I think I do actually like the idea of having different identities. I don't remember where did I hear this? And it really resonates with me was that my generation, I'm from the 90s, we are the generation who didn't understood privacy at all. We went to Facebook, to all these platforms and we just gave the real information and we did all this and we doxed ourselves and they belong with everything. And if you see right now the new generations, they do care a lot more about their digital identity because they are native. They are native and they understand they have to have different identities of what they want to become or one day they want to be. So I think down the line in 20,30 years, the internet of course is already part of our day to day.

53:49

Juan

But it will become just like breathing. It's just like you live in it, you will live your life there and depending on what you like, you will use different identities. It's just another aspect of how you express yourself. I think all of us, we have different masks. We call it like this. If you go to a party, you have your mask or your party self. If you go to a competition I want to play football and you play football. You become this competitive person. So you have your different personas, different depending on how you feel, you change your attitude or your identity in front of everyone. And I think this is something that many, that probably some humans are looking forward because not all of us are so outgoing, we are not social for some. They are easier to go through Internet and do this kind of stuff.

55:00

Juan

I think even though it feels like it's going to be a little bit less interpersonal, I think humans are going to become a little bit more human, understanding each other through the real expression of themselves and it will change the way people can really I think it will change a lot the way human interaction will happen. How does that look like? Actually a really hard thing to do. We can see that with Tinder human dating completely changed. We can see all this kind of stuff. Instagram also changed the way we behave. So we just need to see how these digital identities will change our lives for good and in some cases for bad too. So it's a very philosophical question that I don't really have answer, but I think of course it will shape many of our identities and mostly how human communication and interaction between each other is going to be.

56:10

Juan

So what we use it to do for I will say this mating, interacting is going to be completely different. Right now I am still the guy who likes to go maybe and pick up a girl. I don't think it's going to happen the same in the next 20 years. I don't think maybe my son will go and ask. I don't think my son will meet his partner in the same way I met mine. I think probably these kind of changes will completely change, but something that will be for sure interesting to see, and that's what makes me excited about is transparency. I think transparency with blockchain towards making a society a little bit more even or more real will be actually the big game changer. I think our societies are going to become a little bit cleaner from corruption and from inequality thanks to blockchain and to all these technologies that are happening right now.

57:13

Nadja

There's certainly so much that's going to change and a lot to look forward to and probably also a lot to be scared of. So it's definitely an interesting time to be alive. So I want to just quickly do one audience question. I know that we're on time from Warren. Where do you see Elfin in the next five years? Considering the fact that more play to earn are now evolving in the Web3 space?

57:40

Juan

Well, Elfin is going definitely to have some major upgrades right now. We close certain partnerships with some web2 companies and web3 companies and infrastructure companies. We have been working really under the radar. As I say to builders, you should focus mostly on building and not worry that much about how the market is going because the market, when the market is ready, it will be ready. You will know exactly when Elfin for sure will be part of a bigger ecosystem that's how I see it has his own ecosystem but will be part of a bigger ecosystem of gamers in which Elfin will provide a specific metaverse and a specific entertainment for certain type of gamers and of course build through this. I would say that Elfin, in the next three to five years you will have it as a platform like you can recognize as Steam.

58:47

Juan

You have many platforms but if you think I like to refer to Steam because it's actually the most well known. But on Steam, in which you will have certain type of games, you will not have games. You know, the main focus for Elfin is not AAA games, but mostly something that we like to call like arcade games in which you go, you can compete, you can do things, but they are not as well and time consuming and resource consuming, like a Call of Duty. You will have something that is much easier like for example, you go to the dentist, you can play some games really fast. That's like the main point of the ecosystem that you will have. So Elfin definitely will be recognized by its minigames and its IPS in which we are going to try to put Elfin as big as we can, aiming as low as will be recognized, embedded in the culture.

59:47

Juan

Like if you think about Pokémon, you definitely can think about Elfin.

59:53

Nadja

Awesome. Juan, thank you so much for a very insightful hour. If people want to follow you and follow Elfin games, where is the best place to do that?

Juan

Yes, of course. Thank you very much Nadja, for hosting here and for having me here. Thank you everyone for listening. Of course if you want to follow me, I will be coming again more active on Twitter or X. Now you can follow me at ibagonhz. You can just click on my image and just go and follow me. If you want to follow Elfin kingdoms under my profile you can also see that it's building Elfin games and you can click and follow Know or you just find the handle Elfin games and you'll find Elfin Kingdom with all their information. So that's the best way where you can get updated with everything that's happening right now.

Nadja

Awesome with that one. Thank you so much. This has been an amazing hour just talking and philosophizing about the future of GameFi and just society in general. So thank you so much for your time. Definitely looking forward to what you guys are doing at Elfin. I personally know how involved you are with your community and it's definitely something that is a standard, I think that other companies can look to and follow and emulate and for the audience. Thank you so much guys for joining in again and I will catch you again next week for another episode of The Future of NFTs, brought to you by AdLunam. Cheers everyone. Have a good week.