Before the world became obsessed with artificial intelligence, thanks to advances in generative ai, cryptocurrencies were a favorite of many investors. So when some venture capital firms began rapidly shifting their focus between ai and cryptocurrencies, industry onlookers despised their opportunism. Meanwhile, a wave of entrepreneurs emerged as fervent advocates of the convergence of ai and cryptocurrencies. Vitalik Buterin, the main founder of the ethereum blockchain network, published an article last month reflecting on the four possible applications of “eth.limo/general/2024/01/30/cryptoai.html” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>ai + crypto“, generating enthusiasm among your Twitter followers. Use cases still need to be tested at scale.
A Singapore-based startup is trying to prove that combining ai and crypto is not just a passing fad. Ultiverse, which aims to be an “ai-powered” platform for producing and publishing crypto games, has garnered support from some big-name investors. It recently raised $4 million in a strategic funding round led by IDG Capital, a venture capital firm known for its investment in Chinese tech titans Tencent, Baidu, Xiaomi, as well as crypto companies Coinbase and Circle, among others. .
Other investors participating in the round include Animoca Brands, Polygon Ventures, MorningStar Ventures, Taiko, ZetaChain, Manta Network, DWF Venture, and Jacob KO. The new investment boosted Ultiverse's valuation to $150 million.
How exactly does Ultiverse use ai in its cryptoverse? In an interview with TechCrunch, company co-founder Jimmy Liu, who previously ran his family's private equity firm, suggested that ai can be used to “accelerate production and user adoption.” .
Instead of building ai models from scratch, Ultiverse is using large existing language models, such as GPT-4, Llama, and Stable Diffusion, to train its non-player characters in the game, so that each player has a different experience depending of your interaction with them. the NPCs. Players can also create their own ai agents to act on their behalf.
“In the past, this type of production process could take days or even weeks. We needed more than one person committed to that. But now, with the integration of ai, we have reduced the time and cost to produce the same amount of content as before,” Liu said.
Adapting ai into the game design process may not be a startup's main competitive advantage. After all, other studios can comfortably use LLMs in the same way they do. There are numerous examples of how gaming companies have adopted generative ai to create art assets, build level segments, and even design game models for other developers.
Then there is the perennial debate around crypto games, which revolves around the question of whether they truly generate tangible value for the industry by enabling user ownership and asset liquidity, or whether they exist primarily to profit from players. like a jackpot. Overall, the industry's reputation has been tarnished by “play to earn” titles like Axie Infinity, which have been compared to pyramid schemes.
So far, Ultiverse has published three games, including a mobile cricket game with 200,000 unique active wallet addresses, most of which are from India and Pakistan, where the sport is immensely popular. The startup has 7.3 million registered users across all its games as of December, with an average monthly active user of 830,000.
Using an increasingly common crypto wallet feature called “account abstraction,” which eliminates much of the technical complexities of self-custodial wallets, the cricket game managed to attract primarily non-crypto users who previously did not own a wallet, according to Liu.
“It's pretty much seamless until they need to withdraw the reward after a certain amount of time, when they realize, okay, this isn't just a game,” the founder said. “That approach helps us grow and convert those, what we call web2 players who have never experienced web3 before, to be part of our ecosystem.”
“Ultiverse presents itself as a comprehensive ai-powered solution for web3 game production and publishing, poised to revolutionize the industry,” an IDG Capital spokesperson said in an upbeat statement. The company has also invested in other major crypto projects, including Ripple, ImToken, and KuCoin. “This investment demonstrates our belief in its potential to not only lead but also transform the way games are developed and experienced globally.”
