Justin Kan on What The Axie Infinity Hack Means for Blockchain Gaming

Justin Kan founded Twitch for people playing video games, but his new startup, Fractal, is for people making them. On Friday, the company announced it raised $35 million in a seed round led by Paradigm and Multicoin Capital. I spoke with Kan about the startup’s strategy helping game developers mint NFTs and trade them, and about other big trends in gaming and blockchain.

For instance, what does he make of the $600 million Axie Infinity hack discovered last week that has shaken the blockchain gaming world? Kan said that hack is an example of the risks that come with building games on newer blockchains that game developers program themselves. For context, Sky Mavis, the creator of Axie Infinity, based the game on its own blockchain, Ronin. Hackers attacked the Ronin “bridge,” or the software connected to the Ronin blockchain used for token conversions.