At OliveX, Andy Hall and his Team want to create a space for a large amount of people to become active. Behind the idea stands the vision of web 3.0 and move-to-earn. But this might only work with users falling in love with the gaming experience.
Can you start by explaining what is it that OliveX does?
I think the simplest way is to start with our mission statement, which is to get one billion people one percent more active. We have some big, hairy, audacious goals. We're trying to tap into that 80% of the market, that find it really hard to motivate themselves to do activity and keep coming back to activity. So we need to find new ways, and we need to be able to tap into the communities that aren't active. And the great thing about the crypto world and Metaverse is that we have those communities, whether they're gamers, NFT enthusiasts, or crypto enthusiasts. There are a lot of inactive people in those spaces. So what OliveX is doing is targeting those industries, those communities, and finding ways to incentivize them to be active.
I know one of the methods that you are looking to motivate people and get them active is the “move-to-earn” concept. Can you explain to us what exactly that means for people maybe who aren't as savvy yet on the topic?
As the name suggests, we want people moving in lots of different ways to do an activity, because we want to build those habits. The move-to-earn model is about incentivizing people to do an activity and being rewarded for it. We've talked about rewarding the fitness industry for a long time now. But what we're doing now is rewarding with financial products. OliveX has a cryptocurrency, and we're using these tokens as a form of incentive to motivate people to do some kind of activity. The move-to-earn concept is about moving and earning some kind of financial reward.
Andy Hall is a true FitTech veteran. He entered the fitness world as a trainer, moving to Fitness First, TruBe, and later working for EGYM and Les Mills. For the past two years, as Head of Commercial, he's been helping OliveX build the Fitaverse - an amalgamation of fitness, NFT-technology, gaming, and the Metaverse.
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OliveX: Connecting the dots for the FItaverse
(👁️ Check out what OliveX does)
But what we actually do at OliveX is slightly different. We also focus on the gamification and storyline. Creating this storyline is really important to the community, so they can get to understand the environment, get to meet characters, fall in love and become fans of the story. We brought in a game designer, a former Game Director from Ubisoft, Mark McGinley. He's been involved in a load of really cool games for Ubisoft, so he really understands the mechanics of gaming. And what we're doing is bringing that expertise in to help us create a really exciting and fun game industry to Dustland Runner and Dustland Rider. That’s our focus, and the earning side of it is a bonus.
You had mentioned previous conversation that OliveX evolving from a move-TO-earn to move-AND-earn concept. Is what you just described the difference, or is there something more?
Yeah, it's as simple as that. We don't want to focus just on the financial side of it, the crypto side. It's great that we're doing that, and it's a big part of what we do. But that fun element, the gaming mechanics are really important. We want people to fall in love with the game and keep coming back. And whilst they do that, and unlock missions and levels and get involved in the storyline, they get to be rewarded with crypto at the same time.
Companies like OliveX and the people that are engaging in web 3.0 and the platform. When we talk about the traditional fitness industry - the gyms, the coaches, the health clubs - why is this exciting for them?
Our first phase is we own a piece of land in Sandbox, it's a play-to-earn Metaverse. There are over 160,000 pieces of land and I think there's close to 60,000 landowners now. So it's very much like a real world. You buy a piece of land, you build on it, you rent it out, and you sell it. In Sandbox, we own what we call a 12 by 12 piece of land, which is huge. And we're building DOSE Land, which is fitness-focused. So part of my role is to bring in fitness partners, the likes of MyZone, Tribe International, Stages Cycling and a whole host of others that are part of our land. The opportunity for them is to tap into this 80% of the population - the gamers, the NFT community, the crypto community.
We're giving them the platform to interact with them, teach them, educate them, and hopefully incentivize them to come and do something with their ecosystems, as well as transition into this move-to-earn space with us. We see it as a social hub, a place to experience games and missions and learn about play to learn. But also, the fitness communities that are a part of these brands will then come and learn about the Web 3.0 world.
What are the features OliveX is currently working on?
We will be launching the Sandbox DOSE Land world in the September or October. It's still really in the infancy as Sandbox has alphas every two and a half month when they open up for 30 days and add new experiences each time and new pieces of land. We're in it at a really early time, which is exciting. From a fitness business perspective, it's that chance to tap into the 80% and incentivize them to come and do something new.
Getting to that 80% is a very common theme for all the panelists that are at the forefront of fitness technology. It’s an absolutely critical market and one where we've missed the mark over the last 50 years.
Yes, I totally agree. And we're in a fortunate situation as a majority shareholder. Animoca Brands is a $6 billion company in the blockchain gaming space. Within the ecosystem of companies that they have, there's over 14 million users, gamers, NFT, crypto. That gives us a huge opportunity to tap into that 80%. That's quite important.