TikTok’s ex-gaming lead creates Meta0 for blockchain gaming integration

What

Jason Fung, Tiktok’s former head of gaming, has announced his new job as the CEO of Meta0. The company, also co-founded by Fung, will focus on making it easier for game developers to integrate blockchain functionality into games

Why

Speaking on the news to Blockworks, Fung said “I left TikTok because I saw a clear opportunity to offer a solution to the current segregated nature of infrastructure options available to developers looking to build blockchain games,” and that this was a “problem in the market worth solving”.

What next

Fung added that the current bear market “provides an excellent opportunity for building” and that he will not be distracted by market speculations or volatility in crypto markets while building Meta0

The story

Meta0 plans to create APIs to make blockchain integration easier for game developers. An API (application programming interface) acts as a bridge to allow different computer systems to interact. In the case of blockchain gaming, a game would need to interact with a given blockchain to record its actions on-chain.

According to research by DappRadar, the blockchain gaming sector grew by 2,000% in Q1 2022 compared to last year. If Meta0 can win the race to create a reliable API bridge for blockchain game developers, they could capitalise on a growing market.

The key to this, Fung says, is interoperability: “Right now, if you look at any developer when they implement NFTs or blockchain in their games, they have to choose a single blockchain, be it Polygon or Solana or Binance Smart Chain. But imagine a more interoperable option,” he told Reuters.

“With a protocol that we’re developing, developers can easily build their game-leveraging strengths of different blockchains, and allow the user the flexibility of transferring their NFTs cross-chain.”

At TikTok, Fung worked on dancing mini-games such as ByteDance. This allowed users to interact with the platform’s dance routines that proved vital for the video-sharing app’s rise to prominence. 

Meta0 is still in its very early stages, with a small team of six making up  its founding team. According to Fung, Meta0 has concluded its first round of funding and will look to raise more finance through VC (venture capitalist) investment and token sales in the future.

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