Michael Wagner - Star Atlas founder and CEO, Ep 9

Brian Friel sits down with Star Atlas founder and CEO Michael Wagner to learn about what it's like building web3’s first giant strategy MMO on Solana.

Show Notes:

0:58   - What is Star Atlas?              

03:44 - Background / Founders of SA      

07:01 - Going for a AAA game             

09:32 - Phantom integration in Star Atlas

10:20 - Recent events, achievements and releases

15:08 - The DAO                          

19:27 - Interacting with the SA ecosystem

23:44 - Star Atlas, AAA gaming and Web 3.0

28:09 - Builders he admires    

Full Transcript:     

Brian (00:05):

Hey everyone. Welcome back to The Zeitgeist, the show where we highlight the founders, developers, and designers who are pushing the web 3.0 space forward. I'm Brian Friel, Developer Relations at Phantom, and I'm super excited to introduce my guest, Michael Wagner. Michael is the founder and CEO of Star Atlas, one of the most ambitious games being built on Solana and in web 3.0 in general. Michael, welcome to the show.

Michael (00:29):

Hey, Brian. Fantastic to be here and really looking forward to our conversation.

Brian (00:33):

I'm really excited as well. You guys are building something that a lot of people on Solana are really excited about. Anatoly, our first guest, actually quoted you guys as saying that he thinks you guys are "the most ambitious project being built on Solana maybe just outside of Serum." But for maybe listeners who are unfamiliar with Star Atlas, could you give us a quick breakdown on, what is, in your own world, what is Star Atlas, and how does it maybe differ from other crypto-based games that are out there?

Michael (00:57):

Yeah. Just on that interpretation of being the most ambitious project, I think that again, that is very subject to interpretation. It is a large vision. It's a very grand vision with a long roadmap ahead of us. Some people, I think, might be concerned about the grandiosity of the underlying vision itself. But we have a lot of confidence in what we're doing and the progress we've made and features and products we've launched and the success we've had to date. So, with that being said, let me just start with the flagship component of what we're building here at Automata, the studio behind Star Atlas, which is a grand strategy, space exploration, massively multiplayer online game.

Michael (01:32):

And we're building that in Unreal Engine 5. We've been building in UE 5 since early access and of course, building on the Solana blockchain. And one of the really pioneering gaming groups and projects to adopt Solana as our layer one protocol, going all the way back to 2020.

Michael (01:47):

Now, within this giant strategy MMO, you'll be navigating the stars, you'll be flying your ships. Which, by the way, all of the assets in the game are non-fungible tokens or NFTs. So, flying your ships and operating your land and outfitting your ships with crew members and components and modules, leveling up, progressing, getting new attributes and enhancements, and moving your way through skill trees. So, anybody who's a fan out there of MMOs will be familiar with these gameplay mechanics. But I do want to clarify that, although the Unreal Engine product is our flagship, it is our North Star, it's where we're focusing the majority of our energy, we actually develop across really five different segments within our business. And so, Unreal Engine or the fully immersive triple A game is one of those. We're also building out gameplay modals in browser as well.

Michael (02:32):

We're using Play Canvas as the game development engine there, and it's fully 3D-enabled, WebGL-based assets. And we actually have a release that's planned for this year; up and coming, anyway. And I'm sure we can get more into what that will look like, later in the conversation. But we also build infrastructure tools, architecture, primitives, that are essential to developing and refining the ecosystem and really encouraging innovation and development around all that we're building at Star Atlas.

Michael (02:59):

We have a marketplace that we've custom-created from scratch, built from the ground up. And then we also have a mobile gaming division as well. So, obviously a lot there; encompasses a lot. As I said, very big vision. But we're also very surgical in how we approach this and tactical in how we tackle these challenges that are in front of us.

Brian (03:15):

Yeah. No, I'm super excited about that. And you mentioned a call to arms for MMO-based players out there. I used to be a big wild player back in the day. I totally think this is a really awesome vision. Letting these end users level up in a way that they owning the NFTs that they have and having this be very user-centric, I think,

Brian (03:31):

Is a really revolutionary model. Before we dive into all of that, could you give us a little background on maybe who you are and who the rest of the founders were, and how did you all decide, "Now is the time that we want to build this game on Solana?"

Michael (03:44):

Sure. I'll be brief here. I will say my background is in traditional finance. Previously worked in portfolio management. I hold this chartered financial analyst designation, so really expertise in all things investment management and investment analysis decision-making. But the more exciting part of my life started back in 2013, when I got introduced to Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies and really SCRYPT coin mining with GPUs.

Michael (04:07):

Now, I grew up as a big computer nerd and part of a computer gaming group. Built all my PCs as I was growing up. And we would spend our weekends playing video games and drinking Mountain Dew. And those were our parties. So, one of my buddies from back in that era introduced this idea of building out SCRYPT coin rigs in milk crates. And so, it didn't take me long to essentially sink every penny I had into buying GPUs and just putting these rigs together and getting involved in the blockchain ecosystem. Terrible timing for me. It was immediately preceding the collapse of Mt. Gox in 2013, the largest Fiat on-ramp and exchange at the time.

Michael (04:43):

And we went through, one of many that I've experienced now, crypto winters and bear cycles. But my interest was certainly captivated. And I just spent the next couple of years learning as much as I could and by 2015 had made the decision to go full-time crypto. 2016 I launched my first company in the space, which was at the center of the legal cannabis industry in crypto, providing financial solutions there. And it was really through that company, and through a series of acquisitions, that I onboarded two individuals who went on to co-found Star Atlas with me. That's Danny Floyd, who's our chief product officer and Jacob Floyd, who's our chief technology officer. And also, along that path, I got connected with Pablo Queiroga, coincidentally, serendipitously, you might say, in Las Vegas, actually in a coffee shop. Just overheard him having a conversation about one of his ventures that he was working on.

Michael (05:29):

And that was in 2018. But really just fast forward a couple of years: 2020, we're in the middle of the pandemic. The company that I had previously founded, called Tokes, things were moving a bit slow. And just given where our passions, interests, and expertise lie, particularly with Jacob, Danny, and myself, who were all working on Tokes at the time, and understanding, seeing the trends that were moving forward across the crypto space, which was predominantly DeFi, NFTs were up-and-coming in a very nascent stage of blockchain gaming. We just felt that we could actually build something bigger and better. And that was the idea of, "Let's bring a AAA MMO to the blockchain." And by the end of that year, Pablo was fully recruited onto the co-founding team as well. And we had our formal debut in January of 2021. And the team is now about 240 people strong.

Brian (06:18):

Wow. That is seriously impressive. Like you said, January, 2021, I think you guys were one of the earliest, serious projects that planted your flag on Solana. I'm curious, shifting over to the product now, in addition to being earliest Solana, I think you guys, like you said, you're also early to bringing a AAA game into the blockchain context. In particular, I think you're one of the first major games that is building in Unity Engine 5 and trying to combine that with a crypto world that is normally very web-based. Like you said, you guys are doing some stuff in Canvas and WebGL as well. Can you talk a little bit about that decision to go AAA, to go to the top, Unity Engine 5, and how that implications are for your project?

Michael (07:00):

Well, I think one of the valid criticisms that exist in, really from the traditional gaming community, but even within this crypto ecosphere, if you will, is that the gameplay mechanics that were present back at that time and even persist through to this day is that they're relatively simple mechanics: a lot of turn-based games, a lot of card-style games. But more importantly, they emphasized the financial components of the gameplay. The idea of play-to-earn, the emergence of play-to-earn. Emphasizing the ability to earn, instead of emphasizing what we feel is most important, which is creating and entertaining an engaging gameplay environment. And so, making a fun game.

Michael (07:39):

And for us, we're extremely passionate about what we're doing. But a large part of that is we're building the game that we want to play as well. This is essentially living the dream, being able to create the product that we will one day be participating in as well. And we're just extremely excited about it.

Michael (07:56):

So, the choice at the time was really between Unity and Unreal Engine. Videos were coming out around UE 5, which was not yet released when we started conceptualizing all of this. But there's a couple of pieces of fundamental technology that are coming with UE 5, like Nanite, which is the way that assets are rendered. Polygons are rendered in the game environment. And what is going to be possible in terms of visual fidelity? And so, that was really important, as well as Lumen; is another technology that's new to U E 5, which is the way that light essentially reflects and reacts within the game environment as well.

Michael (08:27):

And there's a couple of additional pieces there. But what we saw was the potential to create an immersive digital reality, cinematic quality reality. UE 5 is the next generation of gaming, with or without blockchain. Now, what we are doing, adding the fundamentals of blockchain for true asset ownership for a digital asset native economy and for on-chain mechanics that can initiate ecosystem-wide contributions and development to the gaming product itself; we think that is absolutely incredible and will lead to an explosion of growth over time, beyond just the game product itself. But we just saw UE as the best game engine to build within, especially with the opportunities that were present at the time and into the immediate future.

Brian (09:08):

Yeah. Well, I love that philosophy of building a game that you would want to play and then choosing the right tool for the job there. From the Phantom side, we've definitely seen that interest as well. Just from the metrics that we see of who's using Phantom, what they're connecting to, throughout the last year, Star Atlas is always one of the top projects that people are connecting to. And they're wanting to view their ships, they're super excited about this, and I think you guys have a ton of great momentum into building with Unreal here.

Michael (09:31):

Big shout out to you guys, if I may just take a moment. Because Phantom came onto the scene. It wasn't the first wallet, but it was, and I think continues to be, the best UI web wallet for the Solana ecosystem. It was already in demand from our users. It was a pretty simple decision for us to integrate. And you guys see the data on your side. We see the data on our analytics. And I think something like 95% of the user base of a couple hundred thousand people across the Star Atlas ecosystem are using Phantom as a wallet. So, big credit to you guys for what you've been able to accomplish there.

Brian (10:01):

Oh, thanks. Let's keep it going. Let's get gaming on Solana for... I think there's a lot of folks who are really excited about this. I guess, following on that thread, it's been a really busy summer for you guys, across a lot of different aspects. Can you tell us a little bit about some of this events that you guys have had back in June? Specifically, I've seen a lot of noise around 426; maybe what that is, for some folks who are unfamiliar with that?

Michael (10:20):

Sure. Yeah. I guess just to preface it all, I will mention that we've built a lot, as I've said. We have a lot to continue to build. And we have a community that has been cultivated that is very passionate and enthusiastic, but that also we need to cater to. And so, it's very important for us to interact regularly with our community, engage with our community, keep them informed of the process. And this is truly one of the first times in history, I believe, where a large user base and community is getting the backstage access into the actual process of building a game as complex as Star Atlas.

Michael (10:53):

And so, a part of that as well is that we're really fostering this ecosystem for collective gameplay. So, guilds: encouraging the gamers to join forces to play across this universe that we're building right now.

Michael (11:07):

And so, the first event that we hosted this year was called COPA, the Council of Peace Assembly. And this really was a showcase, a place for guilds to highlight the innovation that they're bringing, their recruiting strategies, their intended methods of engaging with a game, of which there are many. We have 28 different career paths in the game that you can take and many different options for player vs. environment, single-player missions that are all scoped out, from deep space PVP with permanent death and destruction of your assets. And so, how you choose to engage is it's really entirely up to the user; there's plentiful options. But doing so with a community and group of other players is probably going to be to the benefit of everyone involved.

Michael (11:48):

And so, we're really looking to cultivate these relationships between members and help guilds recruit and bring more people in and create strong bonds with their members. And Council of Peace Assembly was an event that was dedicated exclusively to the guilds.

Michael (12:01):

We sent out a request to all the guilds across our ecosystem. We had 39 submissions from groups that wanted to present their vision for participation in Star Atlas. We had to narrow that down, so we selected 15, based on a set of criteria of presentation materials. And then we hosted an all-day event. We brought in some friends and family and existing partners and some new partners. Relationship with iBUYPOWER, which is one of the largest PC manufacturers in the world, for some custom-branded Star Atlas gear. We actually gave away a top of the line, 3090 Ti-equipped PC to one community member. It was an absolute beast of a machine. I'm kind of jealous, envious that I couldn't win it myself. But-

Brian (12:40):

Yeah. Yeah, right.

Michael (12:42):

... great PC. But in any event, the whole point is it was a eight-hour event. 15 different guilds presented, and we had some activities in between and sidetracks that people could participate in. But it was these guilds just presenting, again, their intended approach to Star Atlas, whether that's playing the game, creating a business, creating technology, and how they want to recruit and actually play.

Michael (13:02):

Moving forward, just towards the end of July, we hosted our first product launch event. And that was called 426 Live. And this is something that is a bit memetic. I won't go too deep into the background of it but in working with the community so closely and trying to provide as much information as possible to them about anticipated timelines for product rollouts, we often refer to the next release coming in four to six weeks. Didn't always or frequently hit those timelines. And so therefore, four to six just became the community meme whenever a projected target date was released.

Michael (13:39):

And so, we just embraced that. And we've launched the 426 Live. And we think it's really appropriate, just given we had real products coming out. So, on this last one, we rolled out a brand new marketplace program as I described earlier. And one of the biggest releases of the year so far is the official rollout of the Start Atlas Dow. Baseline functionality of the platform with locking in emissions, using the Tribeca framework as part of that overall suite. We launched a Web 3.0 affiliate program; referral program for people that are bringing new members in. We call that Star Path. And then we also, again, solidified the relationship with IBP, iBUYPOWER. And we do have options available now for people to go out and buy Star Atlas-branded PCs, mouse pads, headphones, peripherals. And just really cool to see this Star Atlas-branded gear. And that whole relationship, by the way, just came about because King, the representative there, happened to be a member of our community. And he's just really excited about what's going on across Star Atlas and wanted to get us involved.

Brian (14:34):

I can't think of another project, I don't think, that has this level of a rabid fan base that wants to be engaged in this key decision-making at this kind of a level. You mentioned a lot here, between all the guilds and the conferences you had around that and the 39 guilds wanting to all present their vision here and the referral programs you guys have; now also, Star Atlas Dow. Let's focus a little bit on the Dow in particular. What is this Dow? What impacts in decision-making do they have on the game as a whole? And who can participate in this? Can I just come in one day and show up? What are the mechanics to this Dow?

Michael (15:08):

Yeah, I think the concept of Dow's decentralized autonomous organizations, in general, are pretty radical in ideology and what they propose. I would say, even more so in the case of Star Atlas. Here we are, spending enormous time and resources in creating out and building out intellectual property in the form of a gaming product, with the sole intention of taking this ecosystem. And it really does emerge into, as I said earlier, immersive digital environments; the idea of the metaverse. The idea of a place where people can go outside of reality. They can get themselves involved in social aspects and work in education, in commerce; do your shopping there. All things that you can do online today, I think, in some way, are going to live in the metaverse.

Michael (15:50):

I think it will displace a lot of industry. And I think gaming is one of the core applications there. But we're taking this idea of building the centerpiece of all of that, the gaming product and the ecosystem, and ultimately transitioning control over to the Dow. Which again, in my opinion, very radical proposal to essentially just transfer all of the value that's been created.

Michael (16:08):

In terms of who can participate, this is, I think, a pretty commonplace model. We have a governance token. It's called POLIS. It's actually a dual token ecosystem. Atlas is our in-game transactional currency, and POLIS is the governance token. But anybody, of course, can acquire POLIS and participate in the Dow. And what I would extend that beyond is, what we've released now is really the universal Dow, the pinnaculum Dow. This is the top level of a hierarchical structure.

Michael (16:35):

There are elements within the game, within the lore, where political strategy becomes important. And that's at the faction level, it's at the regional level, and it's at the local level. And you can think of this as a county, city, state, federal government, if we were to think of it in modern context of the way that politics is structured. And so, there are gameplay elements that will be influenced. And then there's really the universal Dow, which is just released. And that is to govern the future of Star Atlas itself.

Michael (17:03):

Now, while I think that this is a paradigm shift and almost antithetical to the way that most companies are built, I also fundamentally embrace fully the idea that significantly more value can be created through these decentralized ecosystems, by opening the pathways to be bidirectional, as opposed to trying to capture all value, retain all value, and create protective walled gardens around it. This is why layer one protocols are succeeding. This is why Solana is succeeding. The idea that you can create primitives in a base layer protocol, that other people can build on top of, is mutually beneficial. It's symbiotic. And we want to do the same thing with the metaverse.

Michael (17:43):

And so, that's really the idea. That's the vision. We take the idea of the gaming product that attracts people in, it builds this digital society. And then many different functions, features applications, programs, and economies can be built on top of, around it, and tangential to it.

Michael (17:58):

And so, that's where we're going with this. Now, this is not a short path. America wasn't founded in a day either. So, we have an ethos and a philosophy behind the path to decentralization and how we get from a point where a lot of the content is directed and governed by us, as a more centralized entity at Automata, to one in which Automata is really just a contractor to the Dow. We actually work for the community. We work for the Dow itself. And the Dow is making decisions. Final point I'll make here is that it's specifically because of this philosophy that I think a product like Star Atlas has an indefinite and perpetual life cycle. Because now you're not reliant on the studio to build the 2.0 version and the 3.0 version. It can actually be something that is constantly evolving over time by every contributor around the world that wants to participate in this.

Brian (18:49):

Yeah. I love that analogy to a layer one blockchain. That opened up my eyes originally, with seeing that anyone from community could just open a GitHub issue and, if they were technical enough, share their vision on how this could improve. And Solana's very open to that. And seeing you guys also position yourself in that way, I think, is really cool, especially as it relates to a AAA game. It's turning the whole industry on its head there.

Brian (19:09):

So we deep dove a little bit into Dow. You also mentioned a couple other components that you guys have live today, being Star Path. Also your new marketplace. How can end users today interact with the Star Atlas ecosystem, as far as those two respects? And is there anything else that they should be aware of as far as interacting with the Star Atlas ecosystem today?

Michael (19:26):

Well, first and foremost, I encourage everybody to be informed and educated on what we're doing, what the vision is, what the road ahead looks like. Because I emphasize this all the time. It is a very long journey ahead. We have many years of development. However, our philosophy to development releases is also not conforming to that of a traditional studio. So, we're not building the whole game for 10 years, in isolation, and then rolling that out. We're rolling out components. And I'll speak to one of those in just a moment. But first things first, I would encourage people to read through our white paper, read through our economics paper, read through our quarterly State of the Economy report that was published last month. And also, go check out some of our cinematics, some of our studio trailers, some of our in-engine trailers. It'll really give you a sense of the quality that we're developing too, and what the lore and story behind this is.

Michael (20:15):

So, that's the first thing. Once people are comfortable with that, options do exist to purchase ships on our marketplace. That's the predominant asset that's out right now, even though land and crew members and components and buildings and structures and all of these things will be available in the future. But for now, the ships are the core asset that people can purchase. They can do that through our marketplace. And it was important for us to get the first, even if simplistic, admittedly simplistic, gaming feature out, which we did on December 17th of last year.

Michael (20:42):

And we call that SCORE, or Faction Fleet. Score is Ship Commissions on Remote Expeditions. But Faction Fleet. And this is a utility driver for those assets that people have already purchased. It's a way to support your faction through sending or loaning your ships out to the faction, is the story behind it.

Michael (20:59):

And the player is responsible for managing a set of four different resources. And to the extent that they are keeping those restocked, then the play-to-earn economy is actually activated. So, those players are earning Atlas today. That's one thing you can do.

Michael (21:12):

I would also encourage everybody to get in Discord because a lot of conversation and strategy and guild formation and guild recruiting, these things are all taking place right now. A lot of speculation around what gameplay mechanics are going to look like, but the Automata team are there as well. And we're interacting frequently and giving guidance and feedback and giving just our current thinking on state of affairs. But going forward, the timing of this podcast is fortuitous. Going forward, very soon, we'll make some announcements around the next 426 Live event for this year.

Michael (21:43):

And I don't want to reveal exactly what's going to be announced there, but people do know that we have a couple of things in the pipeline, which includes the first Unreal Engine client. And that's called the Showroom. And this is the first time you'll have access to a downloadable client. You can run it on your PC, enter into the Unreal Engine-immersive world, summon your ships, inspect your ships, walk around them, see them at scale. And for anyone that's seen our videos and trailers related to Showroom, I'm sure they can attest to this. But seeing something like a Pure Sex 4, which is a two meter-long air bike, essentially. It's like a hovering motorcycle. Next to some of our largest ships, the Commander class ships that are 300, 400, 700 meters long, you get a real sense of the value of the asset that you've purchased and what it's going to be capable of in-game.

Michael (22:30):

So, that's up and coming. A new locking mechanism for Atlas, which provides benefits to the marketplace. And last thing I'll add here is, we've also been spending quite a bit of time developing the underlying story behind Star Atlas. And we do have a couple of releases this year, including a graphic novel, which is a comic book format, comic book style, written media that tells the story of Star Atlas before the current era, at least in-game current era, as well as an upcoming podcast sometime this year, which is a storytelling podcast. Not interview style, but it's a storytelling-style podcast that speaks to another aspect, another region in the Star Atlas universe. So, a lot of exciting things up and coming. But I think join the community and read through some of the materials and just have a good time with us in Discord.

Brian (23:19):

That sounds great. I won't press you for any more spoilers there. We'll wait for the next 426 event. The showroom in particular sounds really exciting. I'm stoked about that. Zooming out now, a little bit longer-term view, you've spoken a little bit about this in your guys' role in merging the AAA gaming and the Web 3.0 worlds, but how do you see these two worlds, that are pretty separate today, converging? And how do you see Star Atlas' place in both of those?

Michael (23:44):

Well, as a long-time gamer, I see immense value in Web 3.0 gaming, not only for the true asset ownership, not only for the play-to-earn, but again, this idea that you can mutually benefit through co-creation of some idea. I think it's enormous. That, in and of itself, is a paradigm shift that traditional studios would need to get comfortable with. The idea that, "Hey, maybe it makes sense actually for you not to create and retain all of the value, but share in that value and enable a community to co-create that value with you." I think that that is going to be a challenge for almost every traditional business, not just studios, for that matter. Moving into the era of decentralized governance and Dows, and again, Web 3.0, just broadly speaking.

Michael (24:28):

But again, referring to being a longtime gamer and spending probably tens of thousands of hours in games over my life, it's great to be able to recapture some of that valued, even just through the asset ownership itself or through the account progression, as opposed to being inherently restricted and prohibited from being able to turn around and sell gold that you've farmed or sell a character that you've leveled up. We actually encourage that. We want to facilitate that. You created the value; you get to keep it.

Michael (24:57):

So, I think Web 3.0 Gaming is absolutely the future. I think that incorporating elements like NFTs and cryptocurrency-based assets into the gameplay add an enormous amount of value. I think for blockchain in general, gaming is going to be a massive contributor to mass adoption of blockchain and cryptocurrency. I think one of the big issues with crypto today is that it's great at attracting the speculator. Anytime you have a high volatility environment, people that have the risk tolerance will enter into the ecosystem to try to capture some portion of that.

Michael (25:30):

DeFi was a good step, by the way, in more utility-driven functionality, although still a large speculative component. Gaming is different. Gaming is the entertainment value. You cannot overlook the utility. In economic terms, you cannot overlook the utility that is derived by a sense of escapism when joining a game environment. Now, whether or not blockchain was a part of that and whether or not play-to-earn was a part of that, if you create a great product, if you create a great game, people will come to play it. And so now, what we're doing is focusing on that great gameplay and that escapism that people desire out of engaging in video games, but then also enhancing that and saying, "Look, if you want to take it a step further, you can actually derive true financial benefit from this as well. And that's a component that you can layer into your gameplay strategy or not. Play as simple as you want or as complex as you want."

Michael (26:20):

But I do want to emphasize this idea of, really, development methodology that we use across Star Atlas, which is actually abstracting logic from a game engine and building that logic on the blockchain, using smart contracts. And this exposes the world to the whole idea of permissionless systems and censorship resistance and self-sovereign ownership of assets. The true inception of this philosophy was with the creation of Bitcoin, 12 years ago now, I guess, or 13 years ago. And so, because we're taking game logic, like in the case of Faction Fleet, all of your resource management is done on chain. There are already guilds out there that are creating their own programs, in their own UI, that interfaces with ours and interacts with that and adds more utility to our players. Now, our players can go use a third-party service. And there was no contractual relationship between us and that provider.

Michael (27:14):

So, the idea that you can initiate this type of innovation, because we're using blockchain as, really, the backend server technology, to me just creates enormous potential for growth. So, I think it's definitely the future. I think the way that we're doing things at Automata, and for Star Atlas, really attempt to capture all of the potential value. Humbly, I feel that we've been leaders in the space, that we have presented a big vision. But I also feel that we've executed well to date. And we will continue to do so. And we will continue to be leaders, not only on Solana, but across blockchain and Web 3.0 in its whole.

Brian (27:50):

That's awesome. I think that's a great way to wrap things up here. I agree. I think the Solana space is lucky to have you guys as pioneers in pushing forward AAA gaming on Solana. One question we always love to ask anyone, at the end of our discussion here, is: who is a builder that you admire in the Solana ecosystem?

Michael (28:09):

I almost don't want to answer the question just because picking out one is so difficult. I think, realistically, what we've seen on Solana is, in and of itself, an explosive growth, a Cambrian explosion of innovation. Especially thinking about the early days in the late 2020 and the early '21, where we had to build a lot of the tools that we needed ourselves. And how so many tools are coming online. And you and I were chatting, just before this, about the Solana summer camps and the hackathons and 18,000 submissions to the latest summer camp for project proposals.

Brian (28:42):

Pretty unreal.

Michael (28:43):

It is absolutely unreal. So, it's very difficult to isolate one. I think what Metaplex is doing is phenomenal because they're developing some of those same primitives that I'm referring to, that we're actually developing as well, in a different capacity. Magic Eden has done a fantastic job with the marketplace and with the NFT and the PFP drops and cultivating an environment for NFT purchases for industries like gaming as well. So, I think they're doing great. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Phantom. You guys are awesome. So, maybe I'll just close with that and say I absolutely am thrilled about the Solana ecosystem. Any challenges that we are facing, I am sure, are short-term. And I think Solana's done amazing job, just cultivating a great environment for warm, welcome developers and great innovation.

Brian (29:26):

I couldn't agree more. Michael Wagner, thanks so much for coming on the show. It's a really great discussion. You mentioned a lot throughout here about how folks could get engaged with Star Atlas. Make sure you join the Discord, join the website. Any closing thoughts here?

Michael (29:38):

No, that's it. But please do stay tuned. Our 426 Live event is coming up soon. I didn't even mention it, but we have this web client that's coming out this year as well. And we'll probably speak to that at the 426 Live event. We're pretty much @staratlas on any of the socials or staratlas.com. And you can find all the links there. But yeah, I look forward to meeting some new people in our community soon.

Brian (29:58):

Yeah, we'll have to have you back on to talk about that web-based environ and more exciting announcements for 426. Thanks so much, Michael.

Michael (30:05):

Thank you, Brian.