Synthetix Founder: Thoughts on the Intersection of DeFi, NFTs, Art, and Gaming

The author of this article is Kain Warwick, the founder of Synthetix, and it has been translated by Chain News.

Recently, I have been thinking about the "intersection" of DeFi, NFTs, art, and gaming. Here, I would like to summarize my current thoughts and publish them in a Twitter thread:

The first thing I want to emphasize is the distinction between attention and influence. Many things that attract a lot of attention have little influence, such as the latest Marvel movies; meanwhile, many things with significant influence receive very little attention, like some novel mathematical proofs.

Although we are all excited about DeFi, the reality is that DeFi still belongs to the financial category. This means that while its influence is substantial, the level of attention it receives is actually not very high. In contrast, speculative frenzy often receives a lot of attention but has little impact on the overall industry, and the same goes for market explosions.

On the other hand, art and other forms of cultural expression often receive a lot of attention but have lower influence. The influence of these fields tends to grow slowly over time, provided they can survive—many important artworks are often mocked or ignored by modern audiences.

This is why I believe that NFTs and gaming will receive more attention than DeFi in the next decade (the level of attention could exceed several orders of magnitude). However, in fact, DeFi has the potential to change and influence society to a greater extent, while gaming and entertainment simply capture people's attention more easily.

But is there no correlation between influence and attention? In fact, innovations with high attention can coexist with innovations of high influence (think of the internet + pornography).

In terms of attention, NFTs and crypto games overshadow DeFi, but they all use the same underlying technology. As more consumers begin to access Ethereum, the resulting surge in attention will also serve as a protective layer for both DeFi and NFTs.

In a sense, creating within DeFi feels strange to me. I have been a musician all my life, and when I lived in Boston, my band performed over a hundred shows on the East Coast, and I even wrote a novel. Art is perhaps the most important thing in the world to me.

Additionally, for a long time, I was also a gamer; I had an Atari when I was 4 years old—sorry for revealing my age, but I really don't know how my dad managed to buy a game console for me when I was so young; maybe he wanted to play it himself. I was fascinated by the game River Raid and enjoyed playing MMORPGs, Dungeon Hack, and RTS games, all of which were great!

The intersection of gaming and NFTs will be exciting. Coupled with the Cambrian explosion of art in the form of NFTs, it will support the critical work of reshaping finance in DeFi, ultimately building a fairer and more open global market.

Therefore, when Illuvium emerged, I was indeed surprised. Although I don't like to lose, in terms of attention, Illuvium really makes Synthetix look small. For me, this is a bit frustrating, as I have always considered myself very competitive.

However, this level of attention can actually drive market demand for underlying technologies like Ethereum and ETH-based scaling solutions, which will undoubtedly be a good thing for the entire industry.