In this interview, I speak with Simon Fletcher, co-founder of Megaverse. He tells me about all the different aspects of his project, including Megaverse, MegaFi, Mega NFTs and Mega Guild, and explores his company’s exciting new concept. Don’t miss this piece!
U.Today: Simon, tell us about your position at Megaverse. Why and when did you first get interested in the crypto field?
Simon Fletcher: I am the co-founder of the project. I was working with my co-founder on another project, and then we decided to create a project in the Metaverse. In terms of my role, I manage our marketing team and form partnerships with companies like Polygon, Chainlink and Filecoin. We have sponsorships with other companies. We are the co-founders, which means we do everything. We wear a lot of different hats.
I first started working in crypto in about 2017. I was working for a company called NAGA, but it wasn't called NAGA when I started working there. They moved into crypto. We did an ICO in 2017, which was one of the biggest ICOs of that time. That was great, and everybody was super excited about being in crypto and what the future was going to bring—and then suddenly came Crypto Winter. That kind of derailed a lot of the plans the company had. But the company still exists and is successful. They moved all their operations to Cyprus. I was part of the Hamburg team, and most of the Hamburg team did not move to Cyprus. That's when I started in crypto. After that, I worked in a number of e-commerce and crypto-related projects as a consultant. Around a year ago, I started working full-time on this project, and that's how we got here today.
U.Today: What is the main idea behind Megaverse? How will it work?
Simon Fletcher: Our original idea—because we have a crypto background, both myself and Moe, and also in traditional finance as well—when we decided to create a Metaverse project was to base it on the crypto heat map. Our Megaverse is divided into 24 lands, and they all represent one of the top 23 cryptocurrencies when we took a screenshot of the crypto heat map. Our biggest island is BTC Island, obviously, because that's the dominant crypto on the market. The second biggest is Ethereum. The third biggest is—well, we don't include the stablecoins, so the third one is probably Binance coin. That was the original idea, based on our crypto background, to create a Metaverse project that was directly linked to the communities that are driving the crypto revolution.
As we began to develop a bit more and get deeper into the idea, we realized it doesn't have to be restricted to cryptocurrencies. What we want Megaverse to be is a place where all communities can come into the Metaverse for the first time because everybody uses social media. Social media is an extension of the digital revolution in which we live. You know, 20 years ago, most people didn't carry mobile phones. Ten years ago, a lot fewer people were as heavily involved in social media as they are today. The way we see it is that in another 10 years, everything that we take for granted now is going to be different again. We think that soon everybody will transition into the Metaverse. What we want the Megaverse to be is a place where we transition from using our mobiles for all of our social media interactions, where our escape from the real world actually takes place on the Metaverse, and the Megaverse will be the home for this—or so we hope.
U.Today: Metaverse is an actively developing new sector. What makes your project unique and special in this sphere?
Simon Fletcher: It’s super early, but some projects have been successful. The two biggest ones that most people are aware of are Decentraland and The Sandbox. They're inspiration for us—they're the benchmark for what can be done. They've done some really interesting and exciting things, but they also have limitations because they're at the start of this experiment. Nobody really knows how it's going to develop and how it's going to impact the wider world.
We've started to understand that we are kind of doing Metaverse 2.0 because one of the things that will differentiate Megaverse from Decentraland and The Sandbox is that our environment is going to be much more realistic. Our environment is being built using Unreal Engine.
It will be more like a high-quality video game than the low-poly that they use. That's one of the things that makes us pretty unique. At the moment, the biggest differentiator is the quality of the environment. We're taking what's already there and taking it to the next stage.
U.Today: Tell us about Mega DAO. What does it include?
Simon Fletcher: This is also, I suppose, something that makes our project unique. Mega DAO encompasses Megaverse, MegaFi, Mega NFTs, and Mega Guild. Basically, we are not just creating a Metaverse project—a game that includes play-to-earn, etc. What we are doing is combining our backgrounds. Mega DAO incorporates MegaFi, which is a decentralized exchange, and obviously Mega NFTs. We've got an NFT marketplace. We're going to have a launchpad for other Metaverse projects. Mega DAO is the wider ecosystem in which Megaverse exists.
U.Today: Can you tell us about your roadmap? What are the next steps for this year and next year?
Simon Fletcher: Our roadmap kind of changed because originally our idea was to be the low-poly similar style project that already exists. We realized that we don't have to just copy it; we can better it. What we're currently doing is really working hard on the development of the environment. That's another thing that kind of sets our project apart. A lot of projects are successful, but they don't actually have a product. They just have very good marketing and they sell an idea, but there's nothing actually there to do or play. You just buy an expectation that something will exist in the future.
Upgrading to Unreal Engine means it's going to take a little bit longer than we originally planned, but there's no rush. Right now we're working hard on that. We expect to have a playable demo in the coming weeks.
The roadmap is to keep building, keep focusing on development. What we're also doing to complement that is that we're building our team. I'm currently based in Barcelona, and my co-founder is in Dubai, but we've just opened a big office in Chennai, India, which is where all the developers are based and also where we're going to bring in a number of in-house marketing staff.
Users can expect MegaFi to go live very soon, and from there we will open our NFT sales, push the Mega Token public sale, and deliver the first land sales. The land sales are particularly exciting as the pricing plan we have put in place is really unique and will give holders all the advantages of owning land in the Metaverse while also tying the value to our unified belief that the major cryptos represented on our map will continue to rise in value in the coming years. The Mega Index is something that a lot of people are going to be very excited about.
U.Today: When are you going to launch the mainnet?
Simon Fletcher: It will come in stages because it's a huge project with a number of different islands that are building up. But we should be able to launch Matic Island and BTC Island in May or June of this year.
U.Today: What were your greatest achievements in the past year?
Simon Fletcher: It's a learning process. It's difficult to classify achievements because we haven't really achieved anything so far; all we're still doing is developing. But that in itself is an achievement, to build something that's going to actually have value rather than just make claims about what you're going to do and then let people down. We have a very good concept and the capacity to bring it into reality.
Perhaps the biggest achievement is just to understand that what we're doing is really good and we don't have to rush it. When it comes out, everybody's going to benefit from the fact that we took our time and produced something of real quality that's going to add value to this whole new sphere of reality that everybody will enjoy in the next decade.
This is not to say that we have not achieved some things in the past year or so that we can be proud of. Our partnership with Polygon is very important to us. Sponsoring the La Liga games of FC Barcelona, Real Madrid, and Atletico Madrid is not really something we see too many other people in this sphere being able to do. This summer we have secured the rights to sponsor players in marquee games at the Wimbledon tennis championship.
U.Today: What is your personal favorite part of Megaverse?
Simon Fletcher: It's hard to say because Megaverse is, for me, just work at the moment. It's not yet a real concept that I can enjoy. Just the sheer number of opportunities and possibilities that come with the project—whether it's the play-to-earn aspect, whether it's the idea of bringing people and their shared interests into a whole new environment that will completely change their perception of how they interact. It is such a vast opportunity in front of us. There is no specific part of Megaverse that is more appealing to me than the other. It is the general direction in which we're moving with the project and the way society is moving with this transition into Web 3.0 and all the Metaverse projects that are coming out.
U.Today: I also have some cross-cutting questions; I hope they are not too personal. How much are you personally interested in NFTs? Do you have any works of art, or favorite artists or projects?
Simon Fletcher: To be perfectly honest, I am not incredibly interested in NFTs—personally. Of course, it's a fascinating sphere. I have had some involvement with NFT projects, but I'm not heavily involved in it. I think it's fascinating. I think the artwork aspect of it is great, but I don't own any digital art—actually, I do: somebody gifted me an NFT last week. One guy that we've been working with sent me an NFT as part of his project.
It's fascinating to me how people have suddenly decided that this is a place where there is value. The prices that people are paying for these NFTs, which were originally airdropped for free in many cases, is just amazing. I saw an exhibition in Barcelona recently that included a section dedicated to NFTs. I don't remember all of the artists’ names, but the work was amazing. Beeple had a piece of work in there, and the price he sold the NFT for was just mind-blowing. It's a crazy space.
U.Today: Do you have a crypto portfolio? If so, what are the main cryptocurrencies in it?
Simon Fletcher: I do have a crypto portfolio. I'm not a trader. I invest in cryptos just out of the belief that crypto is the future. It's what we’re going to use in the next 10 or 20 years. The value is only going to go up. Of course, some projects are not going to be successful. My portfolio is pretty conservative in that respect. I do have some lower-cap holdings, but that's more related to projects that I've worked on in the past.
I'm a Bitcoin man. Ethereum as well—I'm a big fan of Ethereum and Vitalik. I'm strictly in the top tier of the cryptos. I'm not that diverse with my portfolio. It's more of a long-term investment than looking to find those 100x gems. I would definitely be interested, though, if somebody wants to give me some tips.
U.Today: What do you think the Bitcoin price will be at the end of this year? This is not investment advice, just what you think.
Simon Fletcher: I've been so busy today that I didn't even check the price this morning. Oh, no; it’s down 3.7%. Let's say double. I'm looking at the price now, and it's telling me it's $40,000. Let's say we're definitely going to hit $80,000 over the course of this year. I don't know if that's going to be the price at the end of the year, but I have no doubt that this kind of lull in the market is going to quit sometime soon. Then, everybody's going to get back into the hype and start piling in, and we are going to see $80,000. We may even see six figures—$100,000—but let's see. Let’s hope so.
Tomiwabold Olajide
Gamza Khanzadaev
Yuri Molchan
