KuCoin AMA With MON Protocol (MON) — Web3 Gaming: Redefining IP Ownership and Monetization

Dear KuCoin Users,

Time: May 29, 2024, 12:00 PM - 12:46 PM (UTC)

KuCoin hosted an AMA (Ask-Me-Anything) session featuring the Founder and CEO of Pixelmon, Giulio Xiloyannis, in the KuCoin Exchange Group.

Official Website: https://www.monprotocol.ai/

Whitepaper: https://www.monprotocol.ai/tokenomics

Follow MON Protocol on X and Discord

Q: For those meeting you for the first time, could you share a bit about your background and how you became involved in Web3 and Pixelmon?

Giulio: Mon Protocol and its team, myself included, are based in Singapore. I have a background in Web2 consumer tech, having previously been the cofounder of one of the e-commerce players in South East Asia and Zalora.

Zalora IPO’ed in 2019, and a couple of years after that I left to cofounder a Web3 gaming studio with my Co Founder, Chris (that has a Venture Capital background). We launched in 2021, acquired the Pixelmon IP in early 2022, and built through the bear.

We have one of the (subjective opinion) better looking monster collecting collections in the gaming space. As we built Pixelmon, our Monster collecting gaming IP — we realized that in Web3 gaming distribution to final players was a big market gap. We are also building our own distribution capabilities.

Today, MON Protocol is both a developer (with the IP we develop being Pixelmon, 2 live games and 2 more in production), and a publisher of Web3 games.

Q: It's said that MON Protocol is aiming to be the "Nintendo of Web3." Can you elaborate on what this vision entails?

Giulio: I think some market participants and stakeholders have compared our journey as a company to that of some other large “publisher developers”. In the Web2 space, Nintendo is the developer behind IPs like Mario, Zelda and Pokemon, but they also distribute hundreds of other games taking a revenue share of third party developers.

We also develop our own IPs, and particularly believe that we should make deep story based IPs and not just one off games, but we also want to publish for third party studios. That makes us similar, in ambition at least, to examples like Nintendo or Tencent.

Q: You've mentioned the expansion of the Pixelmon IP. Could you describe what this expansion will involve and what new developments we can expect?

Giulio: Pixelmon is a Monster Collecting IP. The most known examples are cases like Digimon and Pokemon.

Pixelmon differentiates itself in targeting an older, more edgy age group, in the 18+ years old range. Pixelmon has published two casual games so far: Kevin the Adventurer and Pixelpals. In a couple of weeks, we will publish its third game, a Mobile app game called Monster Tycoon. In 2 months, we plan to publish our first PC title — warriors of Nova Thera. You may check here for more information. In the link I have provided, you can see some footage of what Warriors of Nova Thera looks like.

Pixelmon also has an Anime season in development. Feel free to check here. This is our teaser trailer and our YouTube account.

Q: Besides Pixelmon, are there other games or projects that your team is currently developing?

Giulio: Yes! We are working on a second IP, it will be sci-fi based and also a gaming native.

We are not ready to unveil all the details of it yet. Its first game will be live this year on Android and iOS. Additionally there is our publisher's work. This is our list of partner games and ecosystems. We are the official publisher for Solana, Aptos, and Immutable. We have also collaborated with over 60 third party games.

Q: Beyond its role as an in-game currency, what are the additional uses and benefits of $MON?

Giulio: $MON is our ecosystem token. This means that:

- MON powers all our games as a currency.

- Every third party published game entails either an airdrop of third party tokens to MON stakers or a MON sink based on the success of the third party.

So, MON has two layers of sinks - one connected to our games and one to the success of our partners.

Q: We've observed some notable price action in $MON recently. What do you believe is driving this interest and investment (utility and value proposition)?

Giulio: I think our strong suits are:

- We are a large team (100+) with most having a deep gaming background.

- Our art and games look very good, particularly our NFT collections.

- We are the most traded gaming NFT collection of the last 6 months and top 5 historically ever.

- We can boast the biggest support from 3 top gaming chains as publishers of choice.

- We have a deep 50M USD treasury backing us.

- We have a very strong institutional support from tier 1 funds and angels like Yat Siu, Luca Netz, executives from Riot games, Electronic Arts etc.

Putting all that together there is considerable interest in the project.

Q: What is the income model of MON Protocol? Many projects like to talk about the long-term vision and mission, but what are your short-term goals? What are you focusing on right now?

Giulio: Good question!

- Short Term: launch our next 2 games and get close to 1M players on them before the end of the year. That alone would create strong gamer driven token demand. Pretty simple, more gamers, more game revenue, more MON demand.

- Mid Term: launch a second IP and monetize that too.

- Long Term: become a publisher with 100+ games generating MON sinks.

Q: How secure and reliable are your smart contracts considering that many projects have experienced failures and lost user funds? Have you thoroughly tested your smart contracts with both parties involved?

Giulio: All of our smart contracts are audited by tier 1 audit firms and the audit reports are available on MON Protocol’s website.

Q: Do you have any official social media channels, like Twitter, Telegram and Discord? Where can I find the latest news about MON? I've come across several fake groups on Telegram and Twitter, so I want to make sure I'm following the right ones. Can you provide the links to your official channels?

Giulio: You may check it here.

Q: Staking and NFTs are currently trending! Will you consider implementing NFT technology in your future products?

Giulio: Currently, we have the most traded NFT collection in the gaming category with 140M USD of trading volume to date. Pixelmon generation is #1 on Blur.

Q: How does MON Protocol's experience in Web2 consumer tech influence its approach to Web3 gaming?

Giulio: I think in our marketing angle, we’ve built consumer apps with over 1 billion downloads. So, we know how to do the consumer marketing online — in addition to our usual X and Discord approach, we utilize a lot of Web2 channels. Our first game accumulated 500k players in 2 months.

Q: Can you share more about the 'bear market' experience, and how MON Protocol adapted to the challenges?

Giulio: Bear market — head down building and keep the community informed all the time on what you are building. Use it to build a product and true relationship with the community.

Q: Do You allow suggestions and feedback from the community are we allowed in decision making, do you put community into consideration?

Giulio: Yes, we have 90,000 people on our Discord channel. We created focus group channels, game testing channels and also CEO questions channels. The community actually gets extra airdrops if they participate in the development.

🎁 Participate in the MON Protocol AMA quiz now for a chance to win $10 in MON!

The form will remain open for five days from publishing this AMA recap.

KuCoin and MON Protocol have prepared a total of $2,000 in MON to give away to AMA participants.

1. Pre-AMA activity: $800 in MON

2. Free-ask section: $50 in MON

3. Flash mini-game: $400 in MON

4. Post-AMA quiz: $750 in MON

Sign up for a KuCoin account if you haven’t done so yet, and ensure you complete your KYC verification to be eligible for the rewards.

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