What if you knew exactly what the Alphabet (parent company of YouTube, Google Maps, Android etc.) of today would be, years ago - back when the biggest competitor to Google was Yahoo!?1
Meet Centrality.
Centrality is the strategic force behind a vast array of companies that may change the way we work, live and even conduct business in the future.
This is the beginning of our journey into the compelling vision and complex puzzle pieces of the Centrality ecosystem.
Where to start?
With what got us interested enough to take a very deep dive and why you should embark on this journey with us.
[@MoneyGCC] I am a futurist that can envision the potential of technologies in their infancy. This is something I do so well that it’s my job. I work in finance as the head of technological innovation. I started my professional path in telecommunications, with technical expertise (including SS7 and SIGTRAN signaling protocols) that led me to deeply understand that we don’t have true privacy in our communications even through some of the world’s most widely used communication applications that have end-to-end encryption.
Now you're probably wondering if that’s the case, how do I keep my communication private?
Well that question led me to discover Sylo.
Sylo is the first company I have been able to discover that has a messaging app where all the code is open source and that the nodes used for communication are run by the community and not a centralized organization. This is important for a simple reason. It enables more privacy than any other messaging service on the market. It also has an added bonus of having its own cryptocurrency wallet integrated into the application. I knew I needed help with the research, and low and behold the universe heard me and took care and sent a Lilly 🌸
[@lillybelilly]: MoneyGCC didn’t know me well when he brought me Sylo, but knew me well enough to understand how much I enjoy and excel with a good research challenge. Being ahead of the crowd through extensive research is how you get an edge as an investor. That’s literally what I do. So what happened? He gave me a single name and through the research process, it transformed into extremely comprehensive spreadsheets. He gave me one name, and now there’s a collection of more than 50. We’ll get to all of that good stuff.
The first thing I found was Centrality.
[@MoneyGCC]: This rabbit hole of me wanting more communication privacy led us into the entire Centrality ecosystem. By far this is the most comprehensive and shocking project backed by varying amounts of money entering the Centrality ventures in different ways. At this stage the realization that this was a huge undertaking to basically find all the pieces kicked in.
[@lillybelilly]: Everything from the Centrality website to their whitepaper (and congrats to the team on the patent recently granted to one of my favorite technological components of their whitepaper), seeing what was in their portfolio and understanding immediately the significance of just some of those pieces, it was revelatory.
It is an emerging part of our future that has been an area of focus of mine for some time now. The immediate recognition of how it compares to names and visions that are publicly traded, as well as some private companies, and an idea of what it will be when all these pieces are finished and assembled, just wow. With this very deep dive, it was like one thing and then another and each time we discussed what had come up every step along the way with the research process, it was always like this just keeps getting better.
We have been able to observe (and ask questions!) about the components and how people see the pieces coming together. With the questions asked at multiple AMAs, the documents read, the video commentary watched - these all give us the confidence that through combining our strengths that we believe we have something significant to add to the conversation. There are some that have been aware of parts of this immense vision from the beginning and while everyone is so excited about what they know, the continued reveals and the team - those very early adopters and participants don’t all necessarily see this massive strategic play under the pieces. You can sometimes hear it in the voices of leadership as they answer a question. So beyond appreciative of everyone, but maybe with a hint of a wish that everyone understood the magic in the making before the big reveal. That also goes to show the strength of the individual pieces that people do recognize and already participate in. These pieces are powerhouses on their own and what they will be like when they realize their full potential and also come together is just on another level.
[@MoneyGCC]: So now that you know about how we started, let’s talk about Centrality, the journey we’re about to embark on and why you’re going to want to come along with us.
To call it a company might not in fact be the best descriptor. What in fact it is is the most clever way to mask and protect a mega metaverse project (and very compelling partnerships!) from companies like Meta - in order to protect the inbound intellectual property (IP) and the hostile intrusive corporate plays of companies that would create strategies to copy, takeover or acquire IP, devs and investments away from Centrality. It encompasses brand, intellectual property and technology. Some of which came later from the founders initial vision. While this may have started out as the strategic vision of Centrality, this is all a build up to the open metaverse vision of Futureverse.
[@lillybelilly]: So let’s start with the Raised in Space rabbit hole. Raised in Space is Venture Fund/Studio. Shara Senderoff is a founder and managing partner of Raised In Space. Scooter Braun of SB Projects and Brad Garlinghouse of Ripple are both board members. Since the inception of Raised In Space in 2019, Ripple’s Xpring has been a partner. Futureverse announced an official partnership with Ripple in June 2022.2 Shara Senderoff has become a key figure in the Futureverse ecosystem, actively participating in interviews and AMAs, more specifically with Altered State Machine. Altered State Machine (ASM) is creating trainable AI for NFTs. Yes, omg the utility. More about ASM another time. Back to Raised in Space - how does it connect to HYBE?
HYBE is a publicly traded company best known as the entity behind worldwide K-Pop sensation BTS. Ithaca Holdings is the parent company of SB Projects (which includes management of significant star talent including Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber and J Balvin), as well as other entities such as Big Machine Label Group. Raised in Space not only includes Scooter Braun of SB Projects as board member, it is also a venture of Ithaca Holdings.3 An April 2021 deal4 gave HYBE a 100% stake in Ithaca Holdings with the goal of being a global synergistic music industry innovator.
HYBE artist involvement is unconfirmed, however one of the figures of Outlier Ventures, which is an Altered State Machine investor, recently recorded with BTS. The Outlier? Snoop Dogg. Both Snoop Dogg and his manager Nicholas Adler are part of Outlier Ventures Partnership, via the Outliers. A member of BTS, the flagship of HYBE, also recently collaborated with talent from Atlantic Records, whose parent company is Warner Music Group. Warner Music Group is also an investor in ASM.5 There are many other components to the music side of this vision, but for now we’ll just keep it there as part of the discussion around HYBE.
The Authentic Brands Group connection came because of a very specific way of wording around the “Muhammad Ali - The Next Legends” title. “Mohammed Ali - The Next Legends” is a game in development for Futureverse that uses ASM technology. This very careful wording that caught my attention, which led to a statement that “‘Muhammad Ali — The Next Legends’ is part of ASM’s new long-term partnership with Authentic Brands Group (ABG)”6 and is the first of what is expected to be many collaborations between ABG and ASM.
Authentic Brands Group recently put an IPO on hold and sold equity stakes in November 2021 that valued the company at $12.7 billion.7 The ABG portfolio is expansive. Included among the many brands that compose the ABG portfolio are sports legends such as David Beckham, Shaquille O'Neal, Julius Erving (Dr. J) and Greg Norman. MoneyGCC made the sports connection in their portfolio immediately and asked a question at one of the AMAs. The response from Aaron McDonald is what in our experience is typically an encouraging version of a no comment comment - “I'd rather not comment on it right now” - to a David Beckham game possibility.
Here’s a visualization of the names we’ve mentioned so far, but there are many more.
[@MoneyGCC]: The immense linkage to companies we will capture in the next write ups will show the vast complexity and pure genius of Aaron McDonald, the founder of Centrality, and his team. Dividing all the work Centrality is doing into several smaller companies and outsourcing some of the more complex aspects of creating Futureverse, an open metaverse, to larger companies with major developer accessibility, shows Centrality is not to be underestimated. Coupled with the various incubators they support, they are opening the doors and supporting many innovators in this space.
We can’t wait to introduce you to what they have achieved already, what is planned and what we see coming.
Until the next installment in this series,
https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2004/08/10/yahoo-the-first-winner-in-google-ipo.aspx, https://money.cnn.com/2007/03/05/news/companies/yahoo_google/index.htm
https://www.futureverse.com/news
https://variety.com/2019/digital/news/zach-katz-scooter-braun-ithaca-holdings-raised-in-space-1203127860/
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/hybe-and-ithaca-holdings-join-forces-to-lead-the-global-music-industry-innovation-301261320.html
https://medium.com/@alteredstatemachine/altered-state-machine-welcomes-new-crypto-technology-entertainment-and-investment-partners-in-b09344b5d3d8
https://www.abgnewsroom.com/press-releases/altered-state-machine-metaverse-ai-boxing-game-muhammad-ali
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/22/authentic-brands-shelves-ipo-to-sell-stake-that-values-company-at-12point7-billion.html