1kx

Wallet infrastructure is playing a crucial role in unlocking the web3 experience for the next generation of dapps. So far, users have had to install additional software, source and fund it with a novel currency, and face unfamiliar confirmation screens before even making the first interaction in web3. Despite improved firewalling and a movement away from seed phrases, these hurdles are still points of high churn for decentralized applications. The environment has been ripe for innovations tha...

Roughly two weeks ago, on the 25th and 26th of May in Lisbon, we held ‘The Summit‘, a gathering focused on onchain game developers, founders, and community members. Fifty four individuals from 17+ teams attended: Playmint, Citadel, Lattice, Mithraeum, AW House, Briq, Aperture Labs, Worldrunning.guide, Cometh, Realms, Cartridge, Mask Network, Great Wyrm, ID Theory, Matchbox DAO, CafeCosmos, Caldera, Matterlabs, Conquest, Poseidon ZKP, Dip, and other great minds. The Summit's goal was to c...

Today, most NFTs represent static assets. The immutability of its media and metadata is enforced either as a social agreement or through code. While this is sufficient for storing cultural artifacts designed to be unchanged (static art, music, writing, collectibles), there is a wide open design space for experimenting with dynamic onchain assets that continuously evolve their appearance, metadata, or state according to immutable rules. Dynamism brings NFTs beyond static links and media, to be...

Crypto has created a new field of interaction design for consumer experiences. To date, attempts to represent physical goods onchain have been spearheaded by cryptonative brands for high-end fashion items for authenticity and provenance. Meanwhile, the vast majority of onchain actions such as NFT minting, attesting, trading, and equipping remain limited to digital contexts. We see a big potential for onchain interactions to be brought to physical environments through digiphysical consumer goo...

The future of consumer goods is generative. Today, onchain generative algorithms are primarily used in the visual arts domain, as artists write code to create digital and interactive pieces, animations, and prints. However, art is likely just the first applicable medium for this new onchain creative process. We believe onchain generative media will proliferate across every other consumer and luxury goods vertical, and this artistic process will uniquely enable a new class of physical producti...

Each new computing paradigm has historically unlocked a new set of possibilities for games:Transistors, microprocessors, TVs — the concept of a computer gamePCs — expansion of gaming categories to include strategy and simulationInternet — multiplayerSocial-web — social-network gamesMobile — casual gamesVR — SpatialWith each new chapter of change, we have seen new teams succeed by embracing new modalities and technologies. Not incumbents, but rather fresh thinkers — game designers who were abl...

IntroductionWeb3 infrastructure networks have emitted > $ 10 Bn in rewards over the past years, yet little research is available to understand how these emissions have been paid out and how different emission schedules look like. With this first article in a series we’re trying to bring a bit of light into the dark. We define Web3 infrastructure networks as those in which a decentralized network of service nodes provides resources for use cases beyond security, e.g. compute, storage, message ...

The emergence of corporate-controlled social media platforms, driven by commercial motives, has significantly eroded the initial hope for participatory culture online. Networked information technologies should fundamentally democratize cultural production, but nowadays, these platforms limit and mold online participation primarily for profit-driven purposes - a ‘like’ is not an expression of gratitude for a piece of content, but instead is a monetization tool that drives commercially-motivate...

Proving machine learning (ML) model inference via zkSNARKs is poised to be one of the most significant advancements in smart contracts this decade. This development opens up an excitingly large design space, allowing applications and infrastructure to evolve into more complex and intelligent systems. By adding ML capabilities, smart contracts can be made more autonomous and dynamic, allowing them to make decisions based on real-time on-chain data, rather than just static rules. Smart contract...

Our investing so far and what we’re excited about.Two years ago, at 1kx, we started to expand our focus into consumer investing. While infrastructure investing was our core bread and butter, it was evident that the infrastructure stack was maturing, and the path to mass market viable products was only growing clearer.Our investing so far…Since then, we’ve made 30+ investments, 13 of which we led, across all categories of consumer, including: virtual worlds, games, creator, community coordinat...

NFTs. Real-time 24/7 collaboration. Global experiments from day one. Open and permissionless innovation. Rapid advancements in research. Self-sovereignty and control of personal data and property. Community and creator empowerment. Transparency by design. This is what keeps us excited about Web3 and its future. The past year, in particular, has repeatedly brought reminders of the dangers and shortcomings inherent to the centralized, opaque systems of today: systems of power which, rather than...

The world's most recognizable consumer intellectual property (IP) brands are incredibly valuable. Pokemon has grossed over $77 billion in lifetime revenue, while Winnie the Pooh, Mickey Mouse, Star Wars and Anpanman have all crossed the $50 billion figure. Despite this, 5,000 different toy companies, 6,000 American film studios, and at least 3,500 video game development businesses compete annually against these recognizable IP brands. Consequently, these up-and-coming traditional IPs fac...