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Simon Kertonegoro of Enjin, NFT & Gaming Innovators & Creators of ERC-1155, Plus: Fox NFT Animated Series, Heisman NFTs, Filipinos Earn on Axie Infinity, RSA NFT Bashing +
ERC-155 is the only token standard for NFTs today that allows people to create every type of asset, from digital art and gaming items all the way to huge real estate deals. This smart contract changed NFTs forever, and the people at Enjin are the ones behind its conception. Eathan Janney, Jeff Kelley, and Josh Kriger are joined by Simon Kertonegoro, Vice President of Developer Success at Enjin, to discuss what makes ERC-1155 special. He delves into the tools and solutions they provide to users, the importance of cross-chain token network, their work in extending NFTs from crypto enthusiasts to others, and a lot more. For their hot topics, they tackle a wide variety of the latest news that transcend television, sports, cryptography, gaming, and tax.
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Simon Kertonegoro: How ERC-1155 Made NFTs Today
Welcome to the show. We aim to bring you not only the top 1% of what’s going on with NFTs now but also what will stand the test of time. We explore the nuts and bolts in the business side, and also the human element of how NFTs are changing the way we interact with the things that we love. This show is for the futurists and dreamers, disruptors and creators, fans and connectors, and makers and doers that are pumped about this ecosystem and driving where it goes next.
This episode features guest Simon Kertonegoro and a special guest host, Ira Liss, who we’ll introduce later. Simon is the VP of Developer Success at Enjin. Simon plays an integral role in providing development and marketing consultancy for the projects who use Enjin’s tools. A connector within the business, Simon works with the support team to produce documentation, the marketing team to produce thought leadership content, the business development team to assist in the onboarding of new projects, and the development team to understand the needs of the developer ecosystem. We’re excited to hear about all these. Simon, thanks for joining us.
Thanks for having me.
You’re not busy at all.
That’s just one of my jobs.
What is another one of your jobs?
I also have my own project called MyMetaverse, where I’m the Project Leader or CEO. Since working with Enjin for many years, working with many amazing developers, learning so much about development and how hard it is but also how rewarding it is, I was compelled to do it myself as well. I’ve got a team there that’s building out. It’s what we feel will be the first free-to-earn NFT games network. We’re building a network. We’re starting with four games that we’re going to build into the network. We’re going to build that all out and help bring more developers into the ecosystem. Enjin is an integral part of this ecosystem. It powers our entire NFT experience.
What kind of games are these, Simon?
We’re building four games. One is called Meta City: Minecraft, which is a Minecraft server. The next is Meta City: Roblox, which is a Roblox game. The third one is a secret, but it’s within a good game. The fourth one is a completely custom game, which is going to be called Meta City: Multiverse. Meta City is going to be this location where it’s transported through all of these different gaming worlds. The storyline weaves in between these different game platforms and gaming worlds. Most of our items will be integrated through all of the games. If you own one NFT, you can use them in either all four games or at least 2 or 3 of them.
We broadcast globally. Your secret is safe with us. We found out we’re in the top 30 technology podcasts in Dubai, which had us scratching our heads trying to figure that out.
They’ve got good taste.
It’s a great marketing tactic to say something as a secret, but if you tell somebody, then it’s guaranteed that it will get out.
It does sound intriguing.
That’s what got me here.
In terms of the launch time frame, when can we expect to dive in on some of these?
We try to build it in a very iterative way. We try not to build in a vacuum. We’ve already launched the core platform and the Minecraft server. We’ve already got about 1,300 users there. We’re trying to craft that experience first because it’s a lot easier to build a Minecraft server than a proper full-fledged custom proprietary game. What we learned there allows us to perfect the central platform, which is the game’s network because that’s where a lot of the NFT logic happens. It’s like a platform, an API and a database, so all of the transfer logic. We’re trying to handle as much of the tokenomics logic as possible within the core platform. When we build in all of these other games, we can just plug into it and we don’t have to rebuild that logic again in all of the four different games. Once we open that to the rest of the world, it’s going to hopefully be a very compelling system that developers can then join and adopt NFTs and Enjin. The users can learn about blockchain. That’s the small part that we want to play within the wider ecosystem.
What are some hints about that secret?
It’s a big game. It’s one of the biggest games.
Everyone should have the freedom to choose the kind of NFT experience they want. Click To Tweet
I know that Enjin developed a partnership with Samsung relatively early on in this game and has also developed several other interesting partnerships. What can you say about how that all came to be, how difficult or easy it was, and what kind of traction that it offers Enjin?
The main thing is Enjin has been around for so long in building NFTs since 2017. We quickly became a household name in this space as far as having good products that are available to the wider population and that are user-friendly. Amazing and very forward-thinking tech companies that are looking for a solution, the ones that already exist generally will come to Enjin and work out a way to leverage that user experience and also offer the immense amount of value that they can offer as far as their technical knowledge and their ability to create product-market fits.
The ways that this benefits both parties are in a lot of ways very tangible because of the story, the public narrative and what people understand. Both parties grow when we work together because working with Enjin shows the innovativeness within the NFT ecosystem, and then us being able to work with great companies. It provides a level of proof that we’re doing something meaningful. The intangible ways that it benefits both parties is what interests me. I can speak to it on the Enjin side. It allows us to have an amazingly strong sounding board based on how we build the products. It allows us to get this super-high level feedback that’s driven by years of experience and incredible teams. As a result, we end up with these products that are getting better and better and also an ecosystem that thrives based on it as well.
Did they bring the shredder to the meeting where you signed the contract, where you get to all dump your iPhones in the shredder at the same time the contract was signed? Did they give you a little window to move your data over?
We gave ourselves the shredder.
I have to address it, ERC-1155. This is the standard pretty much upon which the NFT system that we know that’s in the public eye now was built on and made possible. This was developed as a part of the entire Enjin project. Is that right?
Yes. Enjin started building their first NFTs in June of 2017. For context, the term NFT got coined in about November or maybe earlier when CryptoKitties came out and blew up. When Enjin started developing ERC-1155, they thought that they were inventing NFTs. They were simultaneously inventing them at the same time as these other projects were. ERC-1155 was a labor of love for our CTO and CEO, Witek and Maxim. They had been in the gaming industry for many years. They had seen that the gaming world needed a more tangible form of a digital asset to be able to scale into the future and work within the future economy that they saw would exist.
ERC-1155 was based on the need to solve the most complex forms of tokenomics possible, where you have video games that have economies that are nearly as complex as the real world. They’ve got currencies, items and a whole host of different kinds of items like real estate, furniture, weapons, armor, companions, pets and everything. As a token standard, ERC-1155 is a template for how you construct your NFTs and your currencies as well. It was built in the perfect way to become the final solution in the end. ERC-721 was coined in November when CryptoKitties came out. That has been a driving force of NFT adoption as well. In 2021, some big projects have been seeing the value of ERC-1155 and seeing that it’s more flexible and standardized, and a lot easier to plug into all different games. It also has some cool underlying features. It takes up less energy and everything to create ERC-1155. It has become the fastest-growing standard.
The big topic these days is the energy burn from both crypto and NFTs. We all heard Elon complaining about Bitcoin and saw our portfolios plummet as a result. From a matter of practicality, could you talk more about energy consumption as it pertains to NFTs? What are some of the best practices that you’re bringing forward in that area and advising project teams to consider?
It’s a very legitimate issue that needs to be attacked aggressively head-on. We’ve believed this for a long time already. It’s not just because Elon said it, even though it is good that he does shed a light on it in a way. What Enjin has done is starting with ERC-1155. Minting NFTs on the ERC-1155 saves up to 90% in gas, which requires less share of the Ethereum network and therefore takes up less electricity to create. On top of that, the best way is to move these systems onto more efficient chains until Ethereum can be a more efficient chain itself. You have some good sidechains available within the Ethereum network. Moving your NFTs especially your DeFi projects onto those is a very meaningful way to do it.
Enjin has created their own blockchain, which is Bridge to Ethereum so it becomes a sidechain. That’s called JumpNet. That only takes up as much electricity as one average Australian. It’s 15 tons of carbon produced by JumpNet per year. The reason we’ve done that is to ensure that we can go carbon negative as quickly as possible but also ensure that we can provide the growing NFT ecosystem with a means to transact for free without paying up to $60 in gas every time you want to mint a token and send it. The successful gaming paradigm is free-to-play games and freemium apps. Paying $60 to mint an NFT and then giving it to someone for free doesn’t fit within that business model very well.
You’re being too nice. I think Jeff and I paid $300 for some Gary Vee NFT in gas. It was brutal.
We get the $17,000 quote that I got at one point. That was right down in MetaMask.
With JumpNet, we’re seeing that all of our developers are moving over and minting on JumpNet and sending their tokens on JumpNet to their users. Everything is happening for free at no cost and uses trading there. You can bridge it to Ethereum anytime you want to sell it on some of these huge marketplaces on there as well if you want to access that liquidity. You get the best of both worlds that way. The levels of decentralization on Ethereum are mammoth. It’s very powerful and good. There is that benefit in moving your items across to Ethereum as well. We think that everyone should have the freedom to choose the kind of experience that they want. We need to ensure that people can afford these systems of value as well, but then they have the choice to move them onto the other networks. We plan to be a connector across all blockchains as fast as possible.
Can you explain what this concept of melting is? Do you have that with Enjin Coin? How does that work? Is there something similar happening with other platforms or currencies?
I think this is the only one that it happens with. What happens is when a developer wants to adopt Enjin, especially if they’re doing it on JumpNet where there are no gas fees, they pay nothing. They don’t pay any subscription fee to adopt the platform, mint on the platform, and use the API to integrate NFTs deeply into their games and apps. It’s all free. The only cost is when you mint with Enjin, you put Enjin Coin inside the NFTs that you mint. That Enjin Coin that you put inside those NFTs doesn’t go to Enjin. It goes inside the NFTs and then gets transferred to the users. It’s a way to provide a very base value for their NFTs that you’re sending out and ensure that the users know that these are tangible in a way because there’s all of this Enjin Coin liquidity out there and they can see, “These have a BAT value.”
It’s the same way the USA used to have the gold standard many years ago where they were backing every dollar with gold to ensure that there was a guaranteed and certified amount of value behind the dollar. It would mean that people would see more value in the dollar and trust the dollar. It would also curb inflation, in general, that way. In the same way, when you back an item with the Enjin Coin, you know that no matter what happens, that NFT is going to hold not only its utility value because I own this NFT. I can use it. I can plug it into this game and get all of these benefits, or plug it into this app and access this content.
On top of that, it’s also got Enjin Coin within it. As Enjin Coin rises and falls, that value within it also rises and falls. As more and more NFTs are minted throughout the history of the world, the Enjin Coin that’s put into all of these tokens gets taken off the market and then backed into these tokens. Therefore, Enjin Coin as an on-market currency becomes scarcer and harder to attain. That means that the Enjin Coin within these tokens becomes more significant.
ERC-1155: ERC-1155 saves up to 90% in gas, which therefore requires less electricity.
It’s like if I could buy something for an Ethereum and then hopefully, sell it later for an Ethereum. You’re saying in this case, there’s an actual currency where if I wanted to get rid of that, I have to delete the item or something. Melting means I’m exchanging it for those base Enjin Coins underneath and that item is no longer mine. Is that what happens?
In a situation where you own an NFT that has Enjin Coin inside it and you want to trade it, you trade it as per normal. You sell it to someone and they give you Ethereum for it. Melting is what happens when you want to destroy the item and take the Enjin Coin back. You can trade that Enjin Coin on the market or preferably mint more NFTs with it.
What percentage of your team went to Burning Man and came up with that idea?
The percentage that counts.
Simon, I think a lot of our readers appreciate the effort, skills, knowledge and experience you put into the development work that you do. I don’t think they have a sense for what a day in the life of Simon is working on Enjin and your other projects. Fill them in. What does that look like?
I’m blessed with an amazing team on both sides. It sounds like I do a lot but everyone else does all of the heavy liftings. On the Enjin side, I’m the first point of contact when a developer or a project wants to adopt the Enjin ecosystem. I generally jump on a call with them, go through their needs, understand what they want to achieve, and make sure that we can even solve that problem. If we can, then I’ll describe how we can solve it from a business model-wise. Also, I can talk with the developers, go through the documentation, talk about how it all fits in with their user experience plans and everything, and show them which API queries that they will plug into their app.
Once that’s all planned and we’re all confident that we can provide value to each other, then we’ll bring them into the Enjin ecosystem where we have a private Slack channel, where we have all of these amazing developers. It’s a collaborative ecosystem and everyone can work together. Within NFTs, you can create cross-game and cross-app NFTs. You own it in the wallet. Multiple games can see that you own it and give you benefits within multiple games. It’s a good place for people to come together and organize those next-generation gaming experiences.
I’ll also be on the Slack channel. They’ll ping me a lot with different questions. Some of them I’ll be able to help with. Some of them I’ll refer to the support team. Anything to do with marketing, business planning or even some project management planning, I can generally lend some experience too. Any cool collaborative opportunities that come up, that’s the fun stuff where I get to put everyone in the same room, organize that stuff and try my best to take it live, even though I’m not the most organized person in the world. I’ll also help with taking that information or the way that we craft these collaborations, try to make the most amazing story possible that makes people go wow, and then put that into a marketing plan and a press release.
All throughout that process, I’m leaning on many other people to make that possible like the marketing team, PR department, support team, and project management within all of those teams as well. That has been a super rewarding job. I’ve leveled up so much within my own personal skillset by being there. It has been incredible. MyMetaverse is a whole different side of the story where I’m the Project Leader. I have to set the roadmap and vision. We have a great company culture and I try to keep that in place.
I work with the developers to try to plan out their sprints. I try to plan that out to be the most compelling marketing story as well and then plan out the marketing with that. I lean on everyone else to do the groundwork in that project, put the content together and work with each other to make sure everything launches successfully. It’s two levels of the same problem. In Enjin, I’m doing more of the groundwork. In MyMetaverse, I’m doing more of the high-level vision and ensuring that everything is incredible.
How did you first hear about NFTs, connect with Enjin and get into this world?
I saw that Enjin ICO promoted on the Coinomi app in September or August 2017. I was like, “Cryptocurrency is in gaming. That makes sense.” I went in and read their white paper. I was like, “This is a whole different thing. These guys are physicalizing game items. This is incredible. This is the future.” I read about the team. I saw that they had been around for ten years and built the Enjin network, which had twenty million users. I was like, “This is the future. These are the guys. I knew it.” I dove into the community. I got obsessive reading constantly about anything to do with gaming, digital items and Enjin. I started writing articles, building my own content base, and sharing that with the team. Eventually, I came on as a freelance writer. We didn’t even know that they were NFTs until a couple of months later. They were just unique items to us. We didn’t have a name for them. That was how I first found out about NFTs.
It sounds like you’re building a similar ecosystem with the Metaverse project that you’re working on. There are a number of developers, people coming in, spending their time, and building their commitment to the project and passion behind it. You mentioned story, marketing and conveying that as well. It sounds like that’s the roadmap for bridging the gap from the diehard enthusiasts that are knee-deep in Enjin and your project to the mass market. Is that an accurate statement?
Yes. I see MyMetaverse like the Steam for free-to-earn NFT games. Steam is the biggest gaming network in the world where you can go and find all the games that you want to play. You purchase them and then you play them. We want to build that game discovery platform, except create a completely different kind of experience where you can play for free. It’s all about the NFTs that you earn and providing a great trading experience. If you envisioned all of the technology that powers the Steam like the servers, databases and all of that kind of thing, if that was on the blockchain, that would all be Enjin. Enjin is the engine that powers MyMetaverse. MyMetaverse is like a shiny, nice car that’s great to drive. The actual engine is literally Enjin.
Also, integrate them into Tesla cars.
Self-created?
It’s more creative than lemonade.
It’s a serious skill.
What’s the most recent thing you purchased?
Can you tell us what does that token do?
We discussed that but it was a secret.
That’s what it was.
What’s the most recent thing you sold?
We’ve talked about Pet Rocks as NFTs.
What is your most prized possession?
My dogs, if that counts.
It doesn’t count. Sorry.
Do I own them or do they own me?
They own you.
What kind of dogs do you have?
Simon, what did you do just before this show?
Definitely.
What are you going to do after this show?
Thank you, guys.
It sounds familiar.
Is this not known to you, guys?
No. What is it?
Please don’t. I hate tax.
What about you, Ira?
Important Links:
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Simon Kertonegoro – LinkedIn
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Ira Liss – LinkedIn
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CNBC Tech – Article
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Emma-Jane – previous episode
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JDSupra.com – Legal news
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https://Capital.com/newest-cryptocurrencies-to-watch-in-2021
About Simon Kertonegoro
As VP of Developer Success at Enjin, Simon plays an integral role in providing development and marketing consultancy for the projects who use Enjin’s tools. A connector within the business, Simon works with the support team to produce documentation, the marketing team to produce thought leadership content, the business development team to assist in the onboarding of new projects, and the development team to understand the needs of the developer ecosystem.
About Ira Liss
Accomplished partnerships and business development professional with cross-sector network breadth and long-term relationship depth. Super connector with big wins putting venture founders, creative resources and funding sources together. Fiercely loyal to many great people. Primary industries and clients served include, entertainment, cryptocurrencies, fintech, capital markets and social impact. Currently developing NFT campaigns for star filmmakers, leading eSports talent and government-sanctioned metaverse dominions.
Cut my professional teeth in the financial world, exceeding sales quotas as Vice President of Institutional Markets at The Reserve Funds, closing more than $1 Billion in new assets under management. Previously served as Compliance Officer for First Institutional Securities, managing sales practices of 65 Series-7 licensed professionals.