Activision Blizzard COO and President go to NFTs

Activision Blizzard’s COO and president is leaving the company to become CEO of the NFT company behind Bored Ape Yacht Club

Daniel Alegre, who has been Activision Blizzard’s COO and President since 2020, will leave when his contract expires next year on March 31, 2023. Alegre already announced on December 16, 2023 that he would be leaving to pursue another opportunity. At the time, he didn’t give too many details about exactly what this opportunity is. That is until he revealed that he wanted to join Yuga Labs. For those unfamiliar, Yuga Labs is the company behind the infamous Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs.

Alegre is not only joining Yuga Labs, but he is taking over as the company’s CEO. Nicole Muniz, its former CEO, will remain as a partner and strategic advisor to the company. Alegre had the following to say about his upcoming position:

Since bursting onto the scene with Bored Ape Yacht Club in 2021, Yuga Labs has quickly made a name for itself through a powerful combination of storytelling and community building. The company’s pipeline of products, partnerships and IP represents a tremendous opportunity to define the metaverse in a way that empowers creators and gives users true ownership of their identity and digital assets. I look forward to working with the passionate, creative team at Yuga to innovate, inspire and shape the future of the internet together.

If taken at face value, people could see this move as Alegre branching out into the NFT market. They can also see this as him helping a well-known blockchain company develop. However, it could also be that he was preparing for the ongoing acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft. The deal is currently under review, thanks to the FTC blocking it, as well as investigations by both the UK and the EU. Should the deal go through, there is nothing to prevent Microsoft from removing some of its employees. After all, Bobby Kotick, Activision Blizzard’s CEO, is the only executive with change of control protection. That is, Kotick will receive an enormous sum of money if he is removed from office.

Going back, this move by Alegre could be a contingency plan for this possibility. It is possible that he has already made plans to account for the acquisition. This is of course just speculation on my part. What is not, however, is that Alegre is definitely leaving Activision Blizzard and joining Yuga Labs next year. What happens next is something we will have to wait until next year.

That’s all the information we have about Alegre leaving Activision Blizzard to join an NFT company. If you want to stay up to date with gaming news, check out our gaming news articles.