Mocaverse: The Infrastructure Layer for Crypto Consumer Applications

Mocaverse is positioned to become the leading portal to access web3, empowered by digital identity and user reputation. With an unrivalled ecosystem of top tier games and consumer apps, and distribution to over 700m addressable users, the project is poised to revolutionize digital ownership and community engagement in the web3 space. Trading at a relative valuation well below comparable peers, we see significant upside valuation potential for the protocol.

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Mocaverse is a creation of Animoca Brands, the world’s leader in blockchain gaming, NFTs, the metaverse and social blockchain applications. The company is unifying its ecosystem of over 540 web3 projects through one common access point. The Mocaverse project is building blockchain-enabled web2 experiences that empower users to create digital identities, accumulate reputation, earn and spend loyalty points, and carry the same interoperable identity and reputation to unlock experiences and rewards in the Mocaverse and its partner ecosystems.

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The Mocaverse ecosystem is young and growing impressively. Over a matter of months, almost 2m MOCA IDs have been minted and the platform boasts over 700k active monthly users. The team is intent on improving and innovating around the crypto user experience, which has historically been poor. In addition to users, there is a strong pipeline of new projects gearing up to join the ecosystem thanks to a maturing technology stack that is tailored to consumer-facing applications.

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Animoca has an audience of over 700m app users across its top 30 portfolio and subsidiary companies. This stacks up against platforms like Telegram (900m messaging users) and Binance (170m trading users). Yet the MOCA token has a market cap of USD101m, versus USD14bn for TON and USD83bn for BNB. From a relative standpoint, we see significant catch-up potential as MOCA integrates with large brands and apps across the Animoca portfolio.

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LEADERSHIP TEAM

Yat Siu, Founder of Mocaverse and Animoca Brands

• Yat Siu is one of the most prominent technology entrepreneurs in Hong Kong.
• Yat is the co-founder and executive chairman of Animoca Brands, a global leader in digital entertainment and blockchain technology. Animoca has advanced digital property rights, through games like The Sandbox, and has been a driver of innovation in web3 gaming.
• Yat began his career at Atari Germany before moving to Hong Kong in 1996, where he founded Cybercity, Asia's first free web page and email provider. He later established Outblaze, a tech conglomerate specializing in cloud, gaming, and smartphone software, which he partially sold to IBM in 2009.
• Under his leadership, Animoca Brands has grown into a major player in the blockchain space, with a multi-billion USD valuation.

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Alan Lau, founding team at Mocaverse, Chief Business Officer at Animoca Brands

• Alan is a seasoned executive leading all Animoca Brands strategic investments and empowering 540+ portfolio companies.
• Alan plays a strategic role on discovering strategic opportunities and driving alignment of the 540+ portfolio companies with Mocaverse to maximize network effect and growth of Mocaverse’s ecosystem.
• Alan is the former CEO of the insurance arm of Tencent, with over 15 years of Internet/TMT experience.
• He is also a prominent figure in arts and culture, co-chairing Asia Art Circle, serving as the Vice Chairman of M+ and is a board member of premium fashion brands.

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Kenneth Shek, founding team and project lead at Mocaverse

• Kenneth Shek is a venture builder and startup founder in AI, E-Commerce, and Renewable Energy, with enterprise experience in management consulting and consumer businesses.
• He founded a consumer prediction startup processing terabytes of data a day and built ventures in renewable energy and high growth e-commerce sectors.
• At Accenture, Kenneth was pioneering web3 initiatives with Fortune 500 companies (e.g. Hospitality Chains and consumer brands), and leading regional Data and AI practice in consumer businesses.
• Kenneth leads Mocaverse team within Animoca brands.

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Caleb Ho, Engineering Lead at Mocaverse

• Seasoned technology leader with extensive experience in the fintech and ecommerce sectors.
• Having held key roles including Head of Engineering at a virtual bank startup, acquired by Rapyd, Engineering Manager at Znap (mobile payment startup, successful exit for $75 million), Head of Engineering at Grana (ecommerce, secured $10 million funding from Alibaba), key engineer at Microsoft, and Co-Founder and CTO of a fintech startup.
• Adept at building teams from the ground up and driving zero-to-one product development, while scaling operations and fostering innovation.

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Prakhar Agarwal, Product Lead at Mocaverse

• Prakhar was the first product hire and Head of Product at Kyber Network, where he drove 10x+ user growth at one of the top DeFi protocols.
• With over a decade of experience across blockchain, gaming (Ubisoft), and fintech, Prakhar has a proven record of building innovative and high-impact products.

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Kyle Chiu, Marketing Lead at Mocaverse

• Kyle is a seasoned marketing professional with expertise in brand marketing, performance marketing & growth, and community management.
• Before joining Mocaverse, Kyle held the CMO role at an NFT marketplace and was Head of Brand & Growth at a crypto exchange.
• Before joining Web3, Kyle spent years in advertising agencies and led the APAC digital marketing team of Deutsche Bank Asset Management.

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Olivia Song, Business Development Lead, Asia

• Olivia joined Mocaverse to drive business development in Asia, starting with South Korea and Japan.
• She was employee #6 at Avalanche and played a key role in expanding Avalanche in South Korea for the past 4+ years.

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Simon Doherty, Head of Capital Markets for Animoca Brands and Mocaverse

• Simon Doherty joined Animoca Brands in 2022, focused on corporate finance and strategic initiatives.
• Before joining Animoca, Simon held roles in corporate finance at Taylor Collison, BBY and PwC as a Senior Associate in Corporate Advisory.
• Simon holds a Bachelor of Commerce in Accounting and Corporate Finance from The University of Western Australia and a Graduate Certificate in Mineral Economics from Curtin Graduate School of Business.
• Simon's expertise spans corporate finance, investment banking, capital markets, financial analysis, and mergers and acquisitions, making him a key figure in driving Animoca Brands' growth and strategic direction.

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PROJECT BACKGROUND

When it comes to consumer facing applications in the digital asset space, Animoca Brands is the undisputed leader. The company was founded in 2014 and is a portfolio of video games, digital media brands, IP, and blockchain infrastructure technologies focused on allowing users to truly own their digital assets. Animoca develops mobile games and subscription products, leveraging internationally recognized IP like Marvel Comics, the NBA, Hello Kitty, and many more. Animoca uses its portfolio of assets to create collectibles platforms and virtual worlds where unique digital assets (NFTs) can be purchased, used within games, collected, and traded on secondary markets. In addition, Animoca acquires and invests in brands in the digital asset space. These investments include Axie Infinity, The Sandbox, Decentraland, and Dapper Labs (creators of CryptoKitties and NBA Top Shot). It also has a stake in OpenSea, the largest NFT marketplace globally, and in Flow, a layer-1 blockchain focused on scalable and cost-efficient NFTs.

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Animoca has assembled the largest collection of web3 companies in the world, focused on culture and entertainment. It has an addressable web2 and web3 user base of over 700m people across its portfolio of over 540 companies. Animoca is now looking to tie these properties and the combined user base together through its new Mocaverse project and MOCA token. The Mocaverse will act as a focal point of discovery, allowing users to navigate digital culture and entertainment. It will provide rich experiences and identity management within the web3 world.

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The Mocaverse project is building web3 native tools that empower users to create their digital identities, accumulate reputation, earn and spend loyalty points, and access the Mocaverse ecosystem. We have known the founder Yat Siu since 2017 and are impressed by his pedigree, track record and conviction as he pioneers web3 consumer applications. Yat has been a central figure in connecting consumer crypto applications and bringing them to the mass market. To some degree, Mocaverse is an extension of Yat himself. It is a distribution channel and layer of infrastructure to help crypto applications interact with each other and go mainstream.

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MOCAVERSE ECOSYSTEM

While the Mocaverse project only got underway in 2023, its progress has been remarkable. There have been almost 2m MOCA IDs minted and the ecosystem boasts over 700k active monthly users. Within Animoca Brand’s portfolio of projects, about one new token generation event is happening every week, adding to the universe of potential applications within the Mocaverse ecosystem.

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TECHNOLOGY STACK

Mocaverse describes itself as a network, although this is not another layer-1 or layer-2. It is not a blockchain, but rather a collection of technologies that bring applications together. Importantly, Mocaverse is not trying to lock users into a specific chain but is looking to integrate with every chain and grow an audience of crypto users.

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The entry point to the Mocaverse is through the Realm Wallet. This is built by the Animoca team and is part of a complete software toolkit known as the Realm SDK (software development kit). From a technical perspective, the wallet is designed to be an Account Abstraction (AA)-enabled wallet. AA is a relatively new concept designed to improve the crypto user experience. Traditionally, crypto wallets are controlled by private keys which are used to initiate transactions. AA wallets allow smart contracts to manage accounts, making the wallet experience more flexible and user-friendly. For example, traditional wallets need users to manage seed phrases and manually sign every transaction. With AA wallets like Realm Wallet, we can have wallet recovery mechanisms through social recovery and recurring transactions can be automated and batched together.

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Another benefit of AA wallets is that they improve the user experience when it comes to gas fees. Traditionally gas fees on Ethereum must be paid in ETH. This can be confusing for new users who do not understand the gas fee model and may not own ETH. With account abstraction, smart contracts can allow gas to be paid in other tokens or even sponsored and paid for by the application on behalf of the user. This lowers the barrier to entry for new users. In the case of Mocaverse, the MOCA token in a user’s Realm Wallet is deposited to a “paymaster” contract. This contract will pay user gas fees without the user having to understand what gas fees even are.

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In addition to being an AA-enabled wallet, the Realm Wallet is interoperable with other products within the Realm SDK such as Realm ID, Realm Points, and Realm Reputation. This interoperability means that wallet credentials can be used across different applications and ecosystems within the Mocaverse. For example, a user can seamlessly transition from participating in a gaming ecosystem to a social platform, all while using the same wallet and maintaining their identity and reputation across these platforms. This consistency between applications and the use of points and reputation between apps should help enhance user engagement and retention.

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When it comes to the Mocaverse technology stack, it is interesting to note that the team has developed the Realm SDK and branded it separately from Mocaverse. This is intentional and highly strategic. By creating a neutral technology stack, it becomes an easier toolkit for partners and potential partners to adopt. This is pure technology and there is no “Realm token” or lock-in for users of the technology. The fact that the tech stack integrates seamlessly with Mocaverse is a benefit for partners but does not come with any obligations. The rationale is that over the long run, this will become an enticing technology stack for consumer-facing applications to build on that has no strings attached but allows the app to gain broader distribution through the Mocaverse platform.

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MOCA ID

MOCA ID is a decentralized identity system and is the entry point to everything in the Mocaverse. It is designed to provide users with a unified digital identity across various web3 applications and can be thought of as similar to the Apple ID, which allows Apple users to download apps and have a user account in games and apps on the Apple App Store. MOCA ID allows users to authenticate themselves, interact with dApps, and participate in the Mocaverse ecosystem using a single, interoperable ID.

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Interoperability is a core concept at the heart of the MOCA ID. This is what separates it from something like an Apple ID, which can only be used within the Apple App Store ecosystem. The MOCA ID integrates with crypto wallets and can manage reputation across applications. The simplest form of integration that an app can have with MOCA ID is to connect with the MOCA ID API. By doing so, an application can gain access to data about the user and can contribute reputation points to the user for their activities on the app. Reputation points are beneficial for users as they can be used to access exclusive features and rewards, such as Mocaverse’s token launchpad, NFT launchpad, staking pool, and more. The points are also beneficial for the applications as it gives the app a means of rewarding users for attention and interactions within the app.

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We envisage several possible positive outcomes for MOCA ID over different time frames:

• Short-term: MOCA ID enhances user experiences across web3 platforms by simplifying identity verification and offering exclusive access to ecosystem features. This could drive early adoption and increase user engagement within the Mocaverse ecosystem. Already, we have seen the launch of Mocana, a gamification feature that engages users by offering “Mocana Missions”. These allow users to earn rewards and are tied to user MOCA IDs.
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• Medium-term: MOCA ID becomes widely recognized beyond just web3, but also integrates with web2 platforms with sizeable existing user bases. This allows users to seamlessly interact with apps and services, building a strong onchain reputation and identity that is universally accepted on the web. For web2 applications, the integration with MOCA ID can replace centralized services and can improve online compliance and KYC. It brings improved security to managing identity online as well as financialization opportunities that come with having crypto wallets attached to login credentials.
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• Long-term outcomes: MOCA ID could evolve into a critical digital identity, essential for accessing a broad range of digital services, including finance, social platforms, and governance. Its integration with various aspects of daily life, such as accessing healthcare, voting, or managing digital assets like stocks, crypto assets or an art collection, could make it an indispensable tool for personal and professional identity management.

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THE MOCA TOKEN AND DISTRIBUTION

The MOCA token is a key component of the Mocaverse and is used by both consumers and applications. On the consumer side, its simplest use is to be used as a medium of exchange within the apps that are attached to the ecosystem. Rather than holding multiple coins attached to numerous games and applications, users can hold MOCA and use it to purchase digital items and experiences. Conversions to the native token of the respective applications or games happen in the backend. It can also be used to pay transaction gas fees, easing the experience for newer crypto users. In addition to being used as a currency and gas token, MOCA is designed to support various activities within the Mocaverse, such as staking, governance, and rewarding users for their participation. MOCA tokens can be staked to earn staking power, which provides access to exclusive experiences and rewards. MOCA stakers may also be rewarded by receiving token drops from projects within the ecosystem.

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On the application side, apps will use MOCA tokens to enhance their distribution and streamline the user experience. For example, MyAnimeList, the world's largest anime and manga community site, is integrating with Mocaverse to create new experiences for fans, creators, studios and IP holders. MyAnimeList would like to sponsor the gas fees for their users and so will need to purchase MOCA tokens to do so. In addition, partners such as MyAnimeList will be keen to engage with the large Mocaverse audience. To advertise to users within the Mocaverse ecosystem, apps will need to stake their MOCA tokens. Staking MOCA will enhance the distribution and reach that apps can achieve within the platform. This is akin to the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model, whereby larger amounts of staked MOCA equate to wider services that Mocaverse offers its partners. In a recent gaming launch, 90,000+ users were driven to try BlockLords in a single week through the Mocaverse distribution engine.

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With the MOCA token distribution, the team is aiming balance immediate needs with long-term growth and sustainability. The allocation is as follows:

1. Network Incentives (31.5%) - this portion is dedicated to fostering community engagement and incentivizing participation within the ecosystem.
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2. ‍Ecosystem & Treasury (20%) - reserved for funding expansion initiatives and supporting the overall ecosystem development.
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3. ‍Strategic Partners (13%) - allocated to align incentives with strategic partners who can contribute to the network's growth.
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4. ‍Team (12%) - dedicated to the team behind Mocaverse, supporting their efforts in developing and maintaining the network.
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5. ‍Liquidity (10%) - ensures liquidity for the token, targeting market stability.
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6. ‍Operational Expenses (5%) - covers the operational costs necessary to run and manage the network.
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7. ‍Launch Contributors & Advisors (7%) - rewards early contributors and advisors who have supported the project from inception.
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8. Community Sale (1.5%) - promotes community involvement through the public sale of tokens to community members.
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SWOT ANALYSIS

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VALUATION

The MOCA token was recently launched on major exchanges, including KuCoin, Gate and Bitget, with a starting trading price of USD0.088. It has since gone as high as USD0.143 (+63%) and is currently sitting back at around USD0.09 per token. We firmly anticipate further exchange listings on all major crypto exchanges in the near future, given the pedigree of Animoca and its relationships a listing on OKX, Binance and other major exchanges seems inevitable. The token listing allows new Mocaverse users to access the token for its utility within the ecosystem, while also increasing the project’s visibility, attracting a wider audience of investors and users.

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When thinking about the value of MOCA, it is worth putting it in perspective of other ecosystem tokens and their valuations. While every project and token has its own intricacies, it is worth exploring a simple comparison around user numbers and valuations based on circulating supply:

• Telegram: the messaging app Telegram has its own token TON (that we have previously written about). Telegram has 900m messaging users and the TON token has a market cap of USD14bn.
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• Binance: this is the most used crypto exchange in the world with over 170m trading users. The Binance token BNB has a market cap of USD83bn.
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• Animoca: the group has an audience of over 700m app users across its portfolio. The recently launched MOCA token has a market cap of USD101m, i.e. ~0.7% of that of TON’s or 0.12% of BNB’s market cap.
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MOCA is clearly undervalued when looking at comparable user number metrics.

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In terms of relative valuations, our view is that MOCA is one of those rare opportunities that has what it takes to climb the ranks into the top 10 market cap digital assets on CoinMarketCap in the coming years. This would set it at a 140x valuation versus today’s circulating market cap.

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CONCLUSION

We foresee a future in which Mocaverse revolutionizes web3 by evolving into the leading web3 distribution platform and a prevalent digital identity system. Such a platform will go far beyond what current legacy platforms offer. Imagine a decentralized Netflix of apps, where users jump between games, music and social platforms. As they move between these experiences, users maintain a single digital identity and accumulate reputation in their digital wallet. The interoperability of the Mocaverse platform incentivizes partner apps to collaborate with each other, resulting in the cross-pollination of user bases. For example, a Japanese telecom operator may partner with a Korean media brand, offering customers discounts, perks and free content. This is made possible through the single sign in and digital identity of the MOCA ID.

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Taking this a step further, Mocaverse will integrate digital identities with financial capabilities. This will mark the beginning of a powerful convergence between social interactions, financial management and personal identity. Mocaverse can become the backbone of a new digital society, and the next iteration of centralized platforms like the Apple App Store or Facebook, offering users unique, decentralized, user-driven experiences. By integrating financial services directly into the platform, Mocaverse can be more than just a content distribution platform. It can become an online hub that offers complex financial applications tied to digital identities and online reputation. With users able to KYC themselves, MOCA IDs could become a tool for accessing essential services and applying for financial products such as insurance or mortgages, all within a secure, user-controlled environment.

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We are excited by the current growth and future potential that Mocaverse offers. Its collaborative approach means that the platform is partnering, rather than competing, with the largest players in web3. It is a place for builders to contribute experiences and in return receive enhanced distribution for their applications. It is a system designed for growth and adoption, with the large MOCA ID user base attracting new projects, reputation points encouraging users to interact with new apps and the Realm technology stack providing a base for builders without lock-in concerns. It is a team that is hyper focused on improving the poor user experience that crypto users have become used to. Animoca is one of the few companies globally that can pull off this type of ambitious web3 project at scale. Mocaverse is building the infrastructure layer to bootstrap consumer growth and will put crypto in the hands of billions of people.

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In terms of relative valuation to peers and positioning on CoinMarketCap, we are of the view that MOCA has significant potential to climb the ranks and outperform other assets. The next crypto bull market will likely be centered around consumer adoption. Not only would MOCA perform well in such an environment, but the Mocaverse project has the potential to be a key catalyst in fostering this future of mass consumer engagement in web3.

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NOTE: Mocaverse has become CMCC Global’s largest investment to date. We now hold positions in our Digital Asset Funds, the Titan Fund and on the CMCC Global balance sheet.

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