Where Blockchains and Horse Racing Meet with Chris

What is up everyone? Welcome back to another episode of the Dibi Crypto Podcast. And today I'm joined by Chris Ebling. And he is the co-founder and creative director of virtually human studios. How's it going, Chris? Good night. How are you doing? Great. Doing great. I'm excited to dig in and I've actually been, you know, involved in this. I've been in Zedrun for quite a few years

now, which is weird to say, per project in any space in crypto. Yeah, I've been following along for a long time. Very, very long time. So I'm excited to dig in here. But before we get into it, I like to always kind of set the tone with origin stories. So how did you get into, you know, Web 3 is all. Yes. So I've always dabbled in

technology. My background is an animator and creative director. I've been in the war and film and mainstream media. So, you know, AAA games, movies, Hollywood, Blockbuster movies, our work as an animator for many, many years. And during a time on a project there, I really interested myself into a virtual reality. It was actually the Lego Batman movie we were making at that time. And, you know,

we were using VR to kind of to to play out a scene that we're going to do a comic on a presentation, which was in a theater. So we built a scene in VR. And we played out the animations on the screens as if you were sitting in the theater in LA. And so through that interest in virtual reality and emerging technologies, I loved AR and

all these new things coming out. Voice been curious. And so, you know, fast forward a little bit. I was actually invited to start up like an innovative master's course on a university of technology in Sydney, Australia, which focused on, you know, innovation, co-creation and future technologies and how to kind of train young entrepreneurs and ideators with these new technologies. Right. So really trying to provide the

foresight of where we thought that the future is going. And, you know, kind of anticipating new trends, which of course, virtual reality has always been trending and now augmented reality. And then of course, it long came blockchain in early what? I noticed, you know, in 2016 is when I first got into cryptocurrencies. And then the curiosity there kind of sparked what you can use, what you

can do with these technologies and how you can prove digital asset ownership. And then, yeah, fell in love with these new technologies met my co founders who had worked with foreign on an indie game. And they were also getting into it. And they we decided to kind of form virtual human studio and and set off and create our first, you know, trailblazing project called Z Run,

which is a digital horse racing ecosystem built on the blockchain. Nice. Nice. And for everybody that's not heard of Z Run, this project, you know, I think it was, was it 2018 was when you guys originally kicked it off? Yes, that is correct. Yeah. So that was when I was really getting heavily into NFTs, you know, after cryptocurrencies, sort of, blazed the trail, I think for

a lot of founders, even in the space now. And I really saw Z Run come across and said, like, wow, this is a great example of how physical sports, like physical world sports can translate directly digitally, like something that's been around for forever, like horse racing could directly translate into this really cool kind of virtual NFT driven experience. And I think a lot of people, even

maybe a few listening to this that have been around since the beginning of, you know, NFTs and sort of this movement, I think Z Run has a place in one of the, the first trailblazers here. It's safe to say in my opinion, because it, it opened that door for people in addition to collectibles, but also like actual gaming in NFTs. Yeah. I mean, you mentioned crypto

kitties and that was a huge inspiration, right? And, you know, especially for the breeding of two horses. And, you know, looking at what they were doing with crypto kitties, our founder, Chris Laurent, you know, CEO, he actually got inspired by a breeding poster in the Hunter Valley region in Australia, where he saw there was a massive breeding feed on a horse. And at the time, he

was doing some, you know, crypto blockchain research and that kind of sparked the idea of, hold on, what if we do a digital horse racing game and then he got together with us and we kind of, yeah, Z Run was born. So yeah, using, using that kind of first ideation of, of crypto kitties, but then like bringing in more utility, basically, through like these gamified, you

know, known game, game mechanics. So you can race breed, which are two simple mechanics, but then you really own this horse and you can sell the offspring or you can, you know, win cryptocurrency through racing. And build like a legacy stable. And there's so much more, you know, I think the beauty around Z Run is the simplicity, you know, it's horse racing, it's a start, they

race, they finish. But then the additional layers of utility, you can add on to that, you know, with, for example, skins, if you look at games like, you know, Fortnite or Rocket League, big Web 2 games, where you have this, you know, self expression with characters. And then you can now layer in additional NFTs onto you. And then you can add on to your horses and

express yourself freely, you know, so kind of powers creativity. And, you know, fosters like, you know, individualism. So, you agreed, agreed. And I love the kind of. Tron. Yeah, as a design, I've always been a big fan of that kind of sci fi. That kind of comes from, you know, we're 80s kids, you know, and we're heavily inspired by the movies that raise this. So Tron

played runner, Star Wars, just to name a few. So yeah, we always want to kind of throw back like, there's something sweet about doing new tech and playing with new technologies, but paying homage to the old school, which paved the way. And that's kind of what the visuals of Z Run are. And on top of that also like, why be normal horse racing, which we have

in our quote, real world, when in this digital reality, you can actually be anything you want. So elevated horse tracks through, through space and sci fi scenarios is that's where we get our kicks as creatives. Yeah. Yeah. I love being able to kind of open up this new world of where physics aren't really needed. You know, I think you can do all sorts of crazy things.

But since you guys are, you know, you had this real big success with Z Run. And it's it sounds like, you know, you guys have raised substantial amounts of money and you have a lot of users and a lot of really cool traction. So from your perspective, where are we at in the stage that is gaming and the merge of on chain gaming? Where do you

think we are with the whole scope of gaming and on chain transactions? Yeah, I think we're still very early, you know, like like any new technology, there's always like a boom, which we saw, I think in 2021, you know, a lot of money was thrown around a lot of VC, VC coin was was was given away. But I think like any new technology, there's a hype.

And then after that, this is a bit of a storm period. And I think we're seeing that, you know, now with the current climate as well. But, but that's that's actually good for us because we like this is the time to build. This is the time for the real companies to get serious and really pack down and build. But, you know, it's going to take some

time to adopt, you know, crypto currency, even just cryptocurrency on its own, but then NFTs and gaming. It's going to it's going to take a few more years. I think before it becomes really, really mainstream. However, it's a good time to get in. So it took a good time to get your feet wet and play around, you know, we're still early. We as in said, run

have still got a lot of work to do, you know, we've got some really excitement exciting. Things plan for the next, you know, year, even half you. So, you know, we're aware that you have to kind of sustain the test of time as well. You know, you have to pay peaks and troughs. But then also just keep building and staying the course. Yeah. Agreed. I think

there's a fun little saying around. It's not a bear market. It's a builder market. The people who deserve recognition get it. Less of the sort of Rolex wearing Lambo driving goes on. And more of the actual hard, hard coding and heavy lifting goes on in these down turns. Yeah. And I mean, I'd like to see, you know, games adopt. But I think there's two, two types

of games in the future as well. I mean, I think there's a, there's a worry that, you know, people and users out there, gamers out there think that, you know, NFT and the digital asset ownership and blockchain games. And gaming is going to replace gaming. That's, that's, that's so far from the truth, right? It's just going to be an additional layer to some games, you know,

where there is an opportunity to earn. And so the whole idea of saying it's play to earn, that's, that's, that's wrong. It's play and earn. So the focus really always has to come back to the fun, the entertainment, because that's really what games are. And then that additional layer of utility and opportunity to be able to extract some, you know, wealth. Or, you know, something back

to the player where they actually own an avatar, own these skins, own these objects and actually can trade them for, you know, real world rewards. That to me is, is super exciting. But, you know, there's a clear line between both of them. Yeah. And I think we all sort of have our work cut out for us for, for education, for educating people as to the value

of ownership, because there's a lot of pushback, you know, right now with the, the metaverse and everything being what some people would say has been around for decades with game lobbies and things like that. But it just totally undermines ownership completely. And I think there's, there's so much need for, for education. And you guys have been streaming for as long as I've been following you. So

I'd love to know your thoughts on education, because you're doing a great job with production and getting out there with streaming gaming and things like that. So how do you see education playing into this and where are you guys at with, with how you prioritize education? Yeah, it's one of the big things. I mean, we out throw education in there with onboarding, which is one of

our big priorities. And it's not just onboarding into Zadranis, it's just onboarding into the space, you know, you, you know, as well as anybody else who's dabbled in crypto and NFTs. It's, it's not an easy step by step process. It's not a two-click process. It's, you need to get the ether. You need to get the ether. You need it loaded up on you, you need to

get metamask. You need to load it up on your metamask. You need to transfer it over here. And you need to put it into your worthwhile. And then you need to play like the, there's a thing called time to fun when you're developing games. And that's one of the things that we're focused on right now is really, how can we make it easy to play for

everyone? Right? As you know, Zadran right now. It's really a game for people who really like to dive into the data of these forces and really like go deep and, you know, tinker under their hood, so to speak. Which is great. And it's a select crowd. But what we need to do is actually evolve that. So it's more on the facade and quicker that you can

learn that pay this horse is actually good in this race. So you can easily get a horse, get on the track, experience the fun that is, you know, owning a horse in a real race or in a real digital race in the stock our world. And then, and then, you know, educate users through that as well. So, you know, we've got major community blogs. And again,

just that word community, our community's been amazing. And I guess you would know that Steve from being in there. Like they're there helping each other grow and helping each other learn all the time. Which is a big, big thing in the web three space. Actually, you're not just building on your own. You're actually building alongside community. And they're, you know, invested way up front because they

have bought into your game like and literally own pieces of your game. So it's, it's, it's a, it's a different concept than just working on a mobile game or a AAA game where it hasn't been released yet because you're building and they're constantly evolving and you're evolving along the side with them. So, you know, communication is key. As is education. Agreed, agreed. And I think something

to touch on here is just, just a human me with prices of the horses. Yeah. I remember things just got wild for. I don't remember if it was a couple months or a month, but things just got bonkers like six figures. And I'd love to just get, I know price isn't important to a lot of listeners out there and everything like that, especially when it comes

to gaming. But I am very interested to learn from your perspective, what that was like seeing this sort of explosive growth in what you created with these horses and their rarity just going on. And I'm just going to be going up it. I just wanted to get it, get your take on what that was like for you as a founder and also what those prices were

or are close enough so that everybody could get a gauge on what's. Yeah, it kind of when bonkers there in the 21 when we were doing our horse drops. Again, the one thing that the metaverse is. And this is in general with any project. It's a, it's a speculative market, right. It's all about speculation. Naturally, we feel that there's huge promise in the game that we're

creating because A, we're passionate about it and we love it. And we know there's so much more to give. And we have a vision for what Z run can be. Which we can tap into after this, after these prices. But I mean, said that there were horses selling from, you know, on our drops for around 28 grand for like the Z one macromotos, which are the

rarest. And then all the way down to you know something like 800 grand for $500. Sorry, not 800. But $500 for a Z 10 I think or maybe even $200. It seems like a lifetime ago. But then these horses were trading on the secondary market as well. Like if you had a good racer, we saw horses sell for, you know, almost $200,000. And switch table hands,

right. But, you know, if you have a good racer and a good. And there's a good ecosystem for you know, it's an investment over time, right. Where you can then play the game and you know drip by drip. You're going to be making making. Making some core. And then you can go back and you know I just saw recently released top stable learners and there's a

stable out there that's actually made over $200,000 playing Z run. Or $150,000 playing Z run, you know. And that takes time. That's a grind. But again, that's not a bad. I don't know how many races they race. I have to look into that. But that's, that's pretty exciting because again, what this NFT and digital asset ownership of rare assets. And the fact that you can tell

say that. This is a rare asset versus this one, you know, just like a basketball card, you know, if you've got a Mac of Michael Jordan rookie card, not about a lover and James one or whatever. Like their rare or Pokemon for that sake, you know, you've got a charizard. And it's a mid condition. It's rare. And it's got a depicted value. You know, it's depicted

by the market. Similarly, we're seeing that, you know, with digital assets. And but back to the point of what the future of Z run is. I think that's what gives it that speculation. You know, I think. I think users can see that what we're building here is something bigger than what it is today. We go on record and I'll go on record and say we are

building like a creator ecosystem. Like, basically, Z run is going to be operated by the community. They will run the races. They'll run the tournaments. You know, they will be the ones in charge and be the creators, which is, is a super important part of what I would like to say is a meaningful metaverse, right. And that's powering creators. So what they do is, you know

what we're basically doing at Snapdragon, I mean, kind of. It's a security. We want to be skiing on. Like for example, it's Call4 on and they're moving fromals just now. Are you thinking, hey, you know,love or not? So this isn't started? Yeah, that's interesting. We're seeing how big we can imagine there. And by looking at stitch range. But, you know, like, basically a cross- Like this

router. This is going to. It's a shadow nobody can shave off your computer, and I mean, what does this like? What is it that you're super pumped for? There's a bunch of things. Getting up in the morning. I'm excited to see what my team is building and catching up with them. That's the number one thing. Like I love checking in with the creative team. I love

seeing what we're building and what how it's progressing. I love checking in with the product roadmap and seeing what the product team is doing and how they're progressing. You know, we're not moving as fast as we want to. I don't think anybody is in the space because again, it's such a different feeling from, you know, for example, working on a blockbuster movie that takes two years

to create. You're doing that in kind of your own time. There's no pressure. There's no outside people like you leak a trailer every now and then you get comments and you get excited. But with like Web3 and how we're building next to the community, you know, it's never fast enough. And you I think you know that as well from following projects, you know, people are very

passionate and they want to see things fast and happen quicker. One thing is checking in with the team. I'm excited to see the progress. And then I love jumping on and just seeing also what the community say. And just to keep tabs as well on, you know, what the pulses like out there. And you learn so much from actually listening to the community. I know we

take a bit of heat that we might not listen to them out there, but that there's some squeaky wheels out there that claim that, but you know, we're out there on Twitter in Discord and we're listening. We're not, we might not be like, or applying to everything, but we're taking notes. And there's so much to learn from the people who actually are passionate and playing your

game. So that's that's the second thing that I'm really passionate about. Nice. So what's next for you guys, you know, you developed this sort of what I would consider a Web3 home run game. And as a studio, this is sort of hopefully going to be a recurring occurrence for you guys that you're going to be rolling out all these hit games. So what's coming up is

coming. Yeah. So, you know, on the side of Zed Run, we're actually building another, uh, Medivercial experience called human park, which is really, again, also about, you know, powering creativity, fostering inclusivity, uh, and driving prosperity. So really about customizing your own avidars, um, and being in these shared spaces, communal places where you meet others, you know, it's, you look at what's out there in Web2 and

you look what COVID did in the surge of life. Like, uh, what the pandemic did in games like rule blocks and Fortnite. And you, and, and these kids just hanging out in these virtual spaces. And not even only not, they weren't just only playing the games, but they were hanging out in the lobbies, which kind of then triggered, you know, Fortnite creative, giving the tools to,

um, the players to create their own playgrounds, virtual playgrounds to have fun in. And so taking note of that and being inspired by that, we really looked at human park as this kind of a birthplace for your digital self. Here's an empty canvas. Here's a free, uh, it's non-gated because we gave away these three avidars, um, which you then can walk around with, you'll be able

to customize, you'll be able to meet up with your mates, and there'll be an assortment of mini games and different kind of little lobbies and areas. But at the end of the day, you'll be able to create your own like story and narrative in there. And I know this sounds wild, but, you know, you, you, you, one step at a time, uh, one experience, you're into

the time and slowly, if you can hand over the tools to the community to become the creators, then that will exponentially grow. And, you know, the best, I guess, the best analogy for that is, look what things like WordPress and, you know, Wix or, or a square space did for websites, right? Now, anybody who could, could generate a website. And it's one of those things in

the web three space that it's going to be hard and a big challenge for companies to, to crack, but we're going to do our part to try to solve that by creating the tools and the infrastructure to be able to, uh, empower, uh, players users to be their own creators. Because then you will see exponential growth and you'll see all these, you know, uh, interconnected worlds.

Um, the biggest hurdle for the metaverse is of course standardization, right? What file types are we going to use? How is, you know, something from sandbox going to work in the central land and work in human park and, and then across into Z run and then into meta and into, you know, Nvidia, all the reverse and so on and so forth, right? Um, so though there's

big challenges ahead, you know, uh, it's not so much. I think the technical side of it, we can solve because there's very, very smart people out there and it's just about agreeing on what kind of file type and standardization we want, similar to what we did with the internet in the early days. But it's going to take some of those big players that come to the

table and actually, you know, work together. Uh, and, you know, I think there's a, there's a saying if we, if we, uh, you know, work alone and you can work fast, but if we work together, we can work longer. And, um, I think that's what the metaverse, you know, this big word metaverse is infinite, right? It's going to need big bowls, uh, disruptive steps like that.

Agreed. Well said. Well, those are all the questions I have for you, Chris. A work people go and learn more about said run and also, you know, your studio. Yeah. So, uh, Zen run is easy. Z. Run, um, jump in, uh, there's some horse, uh, you can soon you'll be able to bar horse races, race horses for free. So you'll be able to jump in or

VHS dot lab. There you can see all our other projects and what we're working on. Um, and then human park dot I, I owe, um, which is this new metaverse old, you know, exploration of self and co creation and creator economy, which I was babbling on about. Yeah. And then you can always find me on Twitter at I am for settling dot com or sorry, I

am for settling. And, um, yeah, reach out anytime. Okay. Have any questions. Right on. All right. We're, if you guys are listening on iTunes or Spotify, all the links that Chris mentioned will be in these show notes. But thanks so much for coming on and having a checkers. Thanks for having me. Play.