Apeiron Interviews: Doubling Up with Jsquare and DFG

Hey everyone! It’s time for another Apeiron Interview, and this week we were lucky enough to be joined by not one but two awesome people…

Hey everyone! It’s time for another Apeiron Interview, and this week we were lucky enough to be joined by not one but two awesome people! We sat down with James Wo, CEO of the Digital Finance Group (DFG), as well as Joanna Liang, CEO of Jsquare, and talked all about the ins and outs of Apeiron, the metaverse, and what’s got them hyped about our project and its GLORIOUS FUTURE.

Before we get to it, we have a few announcements to cover — it’s all happening in our community at the moment. First, we have the Apeiron’s Got Talent show! Do you have talent? Of course you do (probably)! Come and join our talent show: you’ll have the chance to give a live performance, and if our judges like you, you could be shortlisted to win incredible prizes! Or hey, if you don’t want to join, just come along to our Discord and watch, it’s totally free and should be a ton of fun. Head on over to our Discord to learn more.

Next, this week we have the 2nd of our mini-Black Hole Campaigns! For these, you’ll head on over to our gleam page, complete some social media side-quests, and for each completed quest, be entered into a raffle to win mini-Black Holes for Celestial Conjunction. If you want to breed more planets, this is a great way to get involved, so…get involved!

Finally, our Dood Plushie Plumpy PlushQuest is still ongoing. If you’ve fulfilled all the relevant conditions — including chatting, Doodiquesting, and owning 4 unique Dood Apostle NFTs — then you can apply for your very own Dood Plushie NFT. These plushies are great: squishy and soft, perfect for hugging or punting as your mood demands. Check out this article from last week for more info.

Announcements: Complete. Which means it’s timmmmeeeeee for some interview action. Let’s dive in!

Foonie Magus: Hey guys! Thanks so much for taking the time to sit down and chat with us. First things first, could I ask you to introduce yourself and your companies to our readers?

James: Sure, I guess I’ll go first then. I’m James Wo, CEO of DFG. We’re a primarily self-funded and private global crypto-investment fund of 7 years with close to a billion dollars invested in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, DOT [Polkadot], stablecoins and leading digital asset service providers as well as emerging protocols. Thanks for inviting us here today! Ok, Joanna, I’ll pass it over to you?

Joanna: Thanks James! My name is Joanna Liang, and I’m the CEO and co-founder of Jsquare. Jsquare is a global venture firm — self-funded with no external LPs (Limited Partners). We’ve invested in around 60 projects so far with a focus on mass adoption of gamefi and NFT-related projects.

James: Oh I guess I should mention, I am also a co-founder and the CIO of Jsquare haha.

FM: Oooh cool! So you guys know each other then?

Joanna: Yes! We’ve been working together for many years :D

FM: Awesome~ Right then, so Joanna, you mentioned you invested in a lot of gamefi projects. I’d like to ask: how did you learn about Apeiron? What were your first impressions?

Joanna: Sure~ Well, we share good decks and deal flows among our investor friends and community, and that’s how we first came across Apeiron. Our internal research team were fascinated with the game, and when they presented it to us, we were impressed with pretty much every aspect of it. We actually shared and discussed it with our friends at Garena — and you know, they’re a pretty big gaming company in Asia — and they loved it too. From game design to the project plan: everything about Apeiron fits our investment strategy.

FM: Wow, thank you! High praise indeed. It sounds like you’re excited about our project, which we love to hear ❤

James: Yeah and I’d like to follow up on what Joanna’s saying there. One thing I noticed when I was looking at Apeiron was the fact that it has been in the works for over half a decade with the same team. You guys have put together a group that has worked closely for quite some time.

FM: That’s right! It’s really great to be able to share our work with the world after working on it for all this time. A breath of fresh air, even!

James: Yeah absolutely! And the thing is, unlike some other projects, you have to ask the question — are they serious about what they’re putting together? Are they considering the long term or short term only? When you have a team like yours, where people are coordinated, committed, and familiar with each other — that gives us a lot of confidence in what you’re trying to build.

FM: Thanks for your support!

James: No problem! To finish off my point, the other thing about Apeiron that impresses us the most is that the game itself looks fun! There are a lot of games in the space right now that focus too much on the play-to-earn concept of gamefi and don’t give enough attention to the game itself. In our opinion, play-to-earn adds value, but it shouldn’t be the center of attention. We think it’s important that you guys are creating something that is, ultimately, a great product — a great game, first and foremost.

FM: Yeah that’s something we’re very much in alignment with you on — right from the start, we’ve put our efforts into making sure that we make a game that is fun, that people actually want to play and enjoy playing! Speaking of which…what things are you looking forward to playing around with in Apeiron?

Joanna: I’m excited by the roleplay aspect of it! As well as the way that NFTs are integrated into the game through the Planets and the little Doods, I think that is a lot of fun and very interesting to me.

FM: Do you see yourself as a good goddess or an evil one?

Joanna: Probably good…though it may be fun to try out being evil as well haha.

FM: That’s part of the fun, I guess — you can do both! Alright, let me get to the next question I have for you here…ah yes. What kind of collabs are you doing, or that you’d like to do, with Apeiron?

Joanna: We here at DFG and Jsquare, we are not only big investors, but personally we are big fans of NFTs — we want to be involved in NFTs because we believe that they can bring real value in terms of multi-utility, functionality, etc. It’s quite a new space. On the other hand, we have a lot of connections to more traditional gaming companies — like Garena and Tencent. So we’re happy to work with you guys and help engage with both the Web3 networks as well as the more traditional gaming industry connections.

FM: Acting as something of a bridge between these two communities and helping us link up with both, right?

Joanna: Exactly! Also, earlier on I mentioned how we utilize a mass adoption investment approach to gamefi, and so we are connected with many different NFT projects: we can help you guys reach out to them, to identify if there are any synergies, and if there are, to build on them. And finally, on the marketing side, getting the word out about Apeiron is something we’ll be helping with, especially in Asia.

FM: Sweet, that sounds like a one-way train to value town to me! So I know you guys are busy and we don’t have much time left. Is there anything else you’d like to say before we sign off?

James: You know, we have to recognize, we’re in the middle of a bear market, it’s a tough time. But we have seen how Apeiron has kept building, and it amazes us. Right now the gamefi sector is very small compared to traditional gaming. But we believe it’s going to grow, and we believe that Apeiron can be on the forefront of the market.

Joanna: To add to that, we can say now that the first wave of gamefi has come to an end. Gamefi 1.0 has passed. But we are looking forward now to gamefi 2.0, and we think that Apeiron can be a beacon for the new and improved gamefi.

James: Because Apeiron is not just play-to-earn,it is also a god-game, a card-battler, a game with mythology and story and cute Doods…It’s going to be a lot of fun. We can’t wait to play it!

FM: Thanks so much, both of you, for all the kind words! And thanks for coming to do this interview. See you around!

James: Thanks for having us, see you!

Joanna: Thanks everyone! Bye!

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Big ups to James and Joanna for taking the time out of their busy schedules to chat with us about Apeiron, the metaverse, NFTs and beyond! Did you enjoy this little peek behind the scenes? Talk to us! Let us know! Follow/Join/ONE OF US on all of our social media (Twitter, Telegram, Discord) and chat with us about your vision for Apeiron.

That’s all for now gang, we’ll see you next time!