James Kuk, CEO of FreshCut, joins the ranks of ex-Twitch executives who are starting their own Web3 gaming businesses. Former Twitch executives continue to make waves in Web3.
James Kuk, previously Twitch’s global head for business development and strategic partnerships, is now ready to take his gaming platform FreshCut up a notch. FreshCut has received $15 million in funding from Republic Crypto, Animoca Brands and Galaxy Interactive. The new funding will allow FreshCut to continue developing its short-form video content platform. It is available in both browser and mobile form.
Polygon and Hashed were also part of the round.
FreshCut’s new features include “watch-and earn” and “create and earn,” which means that both content creators and viewers will be able get the FreshCut Diamond ( $FCD ) token. FCD was launched last week on Polygon. However, anyone who wants to earn FreshCut Diamond will need to wait until FreshCut launches their wallet integration sometime in the summer or complete “quests” in the FreshCut Discord server.
A tipping feature and a subscription feature will be available on the platform. Viewers can also use their FCD tokens for additional perks.
Tokenomics from FreshCut
Interview with Decrypt Kuk discussed his views on tokenomics. He argued that many projects haven’t locked up their tokens long enough and not allocated enough funds to their communities.
FreshCut is his attempt to change that. It will act as a governance to token, which allows holders to be involved in the decisions made on the platform.
Kuk stated, “If you want to build something lasting and sustainable that has real value, it cannot be just a flash in a pan.” Web3 is often criticized for this reason. It’s all about earning money, playing to win, and then selling your stuff when everyone else does. But that’s not good for 1) gaming or 2) building for people. Web3 is all about people and not companies.
The FCD tokens that the FreshCut team holds and its investors have a one year lockup period. They also have a longer vesting time. FreshCut will also allocate 50% of its tokens for its community.
Kuk stated, “We’re going be building forever.”
Kuk stated that FreshCut will be all-about curation when it comes to content. Kuk doesn’t want the app filled with clickbait, spam, and low-quality video content.
FreshCut has already signed up around 200 content creators. Longtime Twitch streamer Tucker Boner and Kevin Lin are two of the investors.
Brycent, a Twitch partner who is also a Infinity streamer, is an advisor to FreshCut. He stated via Twitter DM to Decrypt that FreshCut wasn’t an opponent to Twitch since FreshCut focuses exclusively on video-on-demand (video-on demand) content.
Brycent stated that although DLive and Theta are great ideas, it was difficult to gain significant traction in streaming because most gamers are loyal the “Big 2” (Twitch or YouTube) for streaming. He was referring to the space for decentralized online video platforms. I don’t think that many gamers care about streaming decentralization. They just want to have fun and be with their friends. Gaming moments (small clips), on the other side, is not a market that anyone has controlled.
Kuk answered a question about why he didn’t try to build FreshCut within Twitch. He explained that Twitch is more about “optimizing”, and less about “building”.
FreshCut doesn’t seem to be affected by the current market downturn. Kuk said, “I believe that this current recession was much needed to get most of the chaff out of the wheat.”
