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Serial Web3 entrepreneur and angel investor Yat Siu from Animoca Brands is on a mission to crack the code of how big the social ripple effect is for every user who follows him on X.
“Not every follower is the same,” Siu, dressed casually, tells Hall of Flame from his fancy Hong Kong office over a Zoom call.
“I would argue, for instance, that some might only have 10,000 followers, but that impact is much deeper than 100,000 or 200,000 followers because the audience that follows you has a network effect in itself, so the nodes of the followers are more powerful,” the Austrian-born classical musician turned tech entrepreneur explains.
“Hypothetically, if Elon Musk were to follow me, that would be more valuable than the other 100,000 or so people that follow me, not to diminish their worth, but just to say that the implied influence and impact is higher,” he claims.
It wouldn’t be a stretch to think Musk might have been tempted to become one of the 160,000 followers Siu has gained since starting his multi-billion dollar Web3 gaming giant, Animoca Brands, back in 2014.
Starting life as a mobile gaming company, over the past decade Animoca has turned into one of the biggest investors in Web3, with over 450 investments in the space, including big names like Axie Infinity, Polygon and OpenSea.
A-listers are also fans of Siu’s work with NFTs and the metaverse (remember them?) with notable followers including crypto-friendly entertainer Paris Hilton and award-winning rapper MC Hammer.
“I remember when MC Hammer started following me, I was like holy s**t that is kind of cool.”
For Siu, a huge pinch-me moment in 2021 was when his “childhood hero,” William Shatner from Star Trek, followed him.
Siu has a real laid-back, casual vibe. What starts as an interview quickly turns into a brainstorming session about how to measure the value of followers.
“It’d be impossible for me to navigate through 160,000 followers and work it out,” he laughs.
I joke that he should put up an ad on his X account offering $100 to someone who can go through all his followers and create an Excel spreadsheet of the most valuable ones.
“That’s a good idea…it’d be interesting to do an analysis,” the successful businessman says, validating the journalist’s business input.
What led Yat Siu to X fame?
Siu’s a down-to-earth guy and brushes off his large following like it’s no big deal.
“It’s OK, it’s OK, it is reasonable. It is not in the millions,” Siu laughs, which is totally understandable when your A-lister acquaintances like Paris Hilton have 16.4 million followers.
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Siu’s content around “elevating the space” in Web3 through educational content has helped drive his following over the years. His involvement with the metaverse, NFTs and gaming and high public profile in crypto media and at conferences have also contributed.
What type of X content does Yat Siu create?
If you’re a crypto bro just looking to follow X accounts that promise to make you rich, Siu probably isn’t your guy.
But if you want someone who cuts through the noise and offers interesting insights into the broader Web3 industry, he’s worth following.
“When I write something it is usually about macro things, the industry, trends we see, companies we really like to support,” Siu explains.
“I retweet a lot of stuff that I find interesting,” he adds.
Siu also dives deeper into long-form blogs and shares links to them on his X account.
“I typically write these on Medium as well, which I post on Twitter, those are the more thoughtful ideas when I have time, it could be a 10 minute read,” he says.
What content does Yat Siu like?
Siu admits he doesn’t have a “favorite account” on X. Just like he sees followers as more than just a number, he views content the same way — not as something isolated.
“I view it as a collective thing; the value comes from measuring the pulse on the community,” Siu explains.
“I like various content ranging from long-form stuff to interesting and informative. I absorb everything,” he says.
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However, as a fellow long-form writer, Siu admits he enjoys BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes’s “fun and insightful stuff about the markets.”
Crypto predictions from Yat Siu
So, with price predictions off the table, Siu’s prediction challenges the crypto crowd by suggesting that Donald Trump’s main rival might not be bad for crypto after all.
“I am not negative on Harris for crypto, I think she will be more measured and cautious, but I don’t think she will be against it, at least so far it doesn’t seem that way,” he says.
“People on Twitter are like oh she isn’t mentioning anything on crypto in her campaigns, she must be bad. No. Omitting something doesn’t mean you are against it either,” Siu explains.
That said, with all the pro-crypto comments Trump’s been making in 2024, Siu can’t deny that Trump might end up pushing crypto forward faster.
“If Trump wins, I think it is fair to say that crypto would have a much more bullish run than if Harris wins,” Siu says.
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Ciaran Lyons
Ciaran Lyons is an Australian crypto journalist. He’s also a standup comedian and has been a radio and TV presenter on Triple J, SBS and The Project.
