Hey Hackers! I’m NICOLE Nguyen and I’m the Co-founder at Duelist King.
First of all, a huge thank you to the HackerNoon community and staff for nominating us for a 2021 Noonies award! We’ve been nominated in the following categories please do check out these award pages and vote:
Blockchain Game Developer of the Year
As someone in the gaming industry, I believe that the most exciting technology of the present is blockchain because it has the potential to empower individuals and indie game studios versus big game distributors and democratize the gaming space like never before to give the community more decision making power. Learn more about my thoughts and opinions on blockchain in gaming and my journey in the tech industry via the interview below.
1. What do you do and why do you do it? (tell us your story)
My name is Nicole and I have been in the blockchain space since 2016. My first 3 years with blockchain community building was filled with sweat but also joy as my former company Infinity Blockchain Labs was considered the earliest pioneer in promoting blockchain in Vietnam. I was the key organizer of the first mass-scale blockchain conference in Vietnam - Vietnam Blockchain Week for 2,500 people, the first blockchain hackathon in Vietnam - Blockathon, and 20+ meetups. My next job was to set up and run a regional blockchain media and VC called Asia Blockchain Review and Infinity Blockchain Ventures. The amazing people in the blockchain space who can come from any walk of life are the main inspiration for me to keep moving forward and go all-in with this transformative technology.
2. Tell us more about the things you create / write / manage / build!
As the first NFT game powered by Dual Launch via OccamRazer IDO and PancakeSwap IFO, Duelist King is built on BSC and Cardano and supported by Fantom, Polygon and Cronos (powered by crypto.com) to provide a cross-chain supporting platform for NFTs and later Duelist King tokens. We started off Duelist King by building our own in-house Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO), Oracle and Random Number Generator. Also we dream of Duelist King as the first generational NFT card game that aims to transform the way people play, participate and earn in card games through top-notch game play, asset designs and advocacy for the sustainable future of #Win2Earn.
We believe the current gaming space is heavily tilted towards bigger game studios who can manipulate the gaming market for their own good. Blockchain has the potentials to democratize the gaming space and combined with NFT, undoubtedly gaming will be able to stand strong through bull and bear market as a valid use case for blockchain.
3. How did you end up on your current career path? Do you like it?
My career path has always been a rough and uneasy one (you know how picky and critical the community might be sometime). Yet the feeling of being able to empower people and convince them to believe in a plethora of life-changing opportunities thanks to blockchain and technology is just something so special that you can’t find in other technologies - and in this case we have the community to feel especially thankful for!
4. What tech are you most excited or passionate about right now and why?
Blockchain, blockchain and blockchain! The importance of decentralizing trust and empowering the community through collective trust can expedite technological adoption and empower us to transform a certain industry and the whole world with blockchain. Some people might have already experienced financial freedom with blockchain and on top of that, starting up a business and becoming a tech entrepreneur can turn so much more accessible and potential thanks to blockchain.
5. What tech are you most worried about right now and why?
Blockchain does come with its downside - rug pulls, scams, users lacking basic knowledge to verify where to put their assets into etc. The reason being the novelty of the technology, lack of educational efforts and the lucrative businesses it can bring might explain why some people still remain skeptical with blockchain.
6. If we gave you 10 million dollars to invest in something today, what would you invest in and why?
I would invest in a cross-chain infrastructure that will be able to support asset and liquidity management across different blockchains. This will help fix the chronic issue of fractionalized liquidity in blockchain and help aggregate resources and liquidity at a larger scope and pave the way for more world-changing games, DeFi and Fintech products.
7. What are you currently learning?
Mindfulness meditation as it helps me see through the mirror of truth and be more aware of what is reality and what really matters.
8. What’s the best advice you’ve ever given someone?
Invest in people not in papers! Numbers might deflate yet talents and values will definitely inflate.
9. What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
Go down the uncharted path till the very end as the leader instead of being a follower for the remaining of one’s life - and that’s how I found blockchain!
About HackerNoon’s 2021 Noonie Awards
The annual Noonie Awards celebrate the best and brightest of the tech industry, bringing together all who are making the Internet and the world of tech what it is today. Please be sure to check out our award categories, nominate, and vote for the people and companies who you think are making the biggest impact on the tech industry today.
The 2021 Noonies are sponsored by: bybit, Dottech Domains, and Avast. Thank you so much to these sponsors who are helping us celebrate the accomplishments of all our nominees.