welcome back to Chain reactiona podcast that delves into the stories, backgrounds, and breaking news with the biggest names in cryptocurrency.
For this week episode, I interviewed Gwendolyn Regina, chief investment officer at Tier 1 blockchain BNB Chain. Prior to her current role, Regina worked at Facebook, or as some now call it, Meta, building a new business unit for private equity companies. risk and growth of emerging companies. She is also a founder of a few different companies and a member of the founding team of an early-stage tech investment firm, Thymos Capital.
As Chief Investment Officer, Regina screens new projects, talks to developers, and runs the BNB Chain grant program, which selects up to 10 projects a month to help them grow on the chain.
BNB Chain launched in September 2020 and was initially started by Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange by trading volume.
Since then, BNB Chain has aimed to be a separate, decentralized, community-owned entity from Binance, with a focus on three audiences: retail markets, builders and developers, and bridging Web2.0 to web3 businesses, Regina said. “We are here to, number one, grow the blockchain and grow the pie.”
Although the past year has been rocky for crypto markets, BNB’s investment strategy takes a long-term view and is not primarily affected by daily market events, Regina explained.
“Our investment thesis doesn’t change, and yet it changes too,” Regina quipped. “We all know that blockchain and crypto move incredibly fast, so we are more precise in certain areas, but overall it hasn’t changed.”
All in all, through the bear market and the “mini bulls” on the way, “we are in a phase where everyone is building,” Regina said. “And we want to enable more capabilities on BNB Chain.”
Web3’s games on the BNB Chain have also grown “organically through robustness and cheaper fees,” but the blockchain team is now “doubling down” on that sector to encourage more gamers and developers to play and build on their chain, Regina added. Of her 1 million daily active users, about 40% are gamers, she shared.
“Our GameFi infrastructure has always been relatively strong, but because things evolve so much, we’re really trying to find a one-stop-shop for GameFi infrastructure,” Regina said. “Going back to our investment thesis, when we look at the different themes, we always ask ourselves what is missing now and, more importantly, […] you have to think about what will be important six months from now.”
For Regina and the BNB investment team, investments are “more than financial capital; there are really many growth incentives”, among other elements.
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