Animoca’s co-COO set to leave as he takes on top role at wallet venture Gryfyn

Arnoldo Concepcion, the co-chief operating officer of Animoca Brands, is set to leave his role to fill the position of chief executive officer at crypto wallet firm Gryfyn by the end of the year. 

Teaming up with custodian Hex Trust for the endeavor, web3 wallet Gryfyn is the latest joint venture for Animoca. Previously, it opted to build the K-pop-focused AniCube with Cube Entertainment and to create a firm focused on building blockchain-based experiences for sports with the soccer media platform OneFootball. 

“My goal is to transition fully into Gryfyn later in the year,” Concepcion said in an interview last week at Paris Blockchain Week. He added that, while no date has been set, it’ll either be at the end of this year or the beginning of next year. 

When Gryfyn announced its $7.5 million funding round last week, it was previously reported that Concepcion would fill the role of CEO at the joint venture but it wasn’t clear how that might affect his role at Animoca. 

“My goal was to transition last year but we’re growing so fast at Animoca so there was always a need to have more help,” he continued. 

Concepcion will remain on the board of directors for Animoca Brands KK, the web3 company’s Japanese subsidiary. 

As part of the transition process, Animoca last year added co-COO Minh Do to smooth over any bumps in the road.

What’s Gryfyn? 

As Gryfyn’s CEO, Concepcion is hoping that its web3 wallet can facilitate mainstream adoption. That’s part of the reason why he went with a custodial offering over a non-custodial wallet, he explained. 

“People are afraid of losing their keys, getting hacked or scammed,” he said. “They’re already familiar with KYC and custodial in other contexts and so if we make it this way, it adds a little bit more of a comfort level and legitimacy to what we’re doing and allows us to work with partners who aren’t in the web3 space.” 

Notably, the wallet, which is built on top of Hex Trust’s infrastructure, has already nabbed a partnership with MotoGP. Part of that sponsorship includes its MotoGP Guru experience, where players can make predictions on who might win a race to earn prizes. 

“This is a free-to-play experience to create engagement for Gryfyn,” said Concepcion. 

While the first three races of the MotoGP season will be soft launches for the game, the full experience — complete with NFT drops for players of the sports predicting game — will be launched on April 28 when the road racing event hits Spain.

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