Meet the man trying to turn around the world’s most notorious NFT project

A “comically bad” Kiwi-born NFT scheme has been taken over by an overseas studio which says it will try to turn the project around.

Pixelmon was a metaverse game concept created by Hamilton man Martin van Blerk.

He sold NFT art for it, raising more than $100 million in cryptocurrency with people buying NFT characters, but a “comically bad” art reveal saw some investors lose thousands of dollars — and earned van Blerk the hate of the internet.

In an exclusive interview with 1NEWS several months later, van Blerk admitted he was out of his depth but said he was committed to turning the project around.

“I’ve taken steps not only to realize that, OK, maybe I was out of my depth, but to say, ‘OK, how can I do the best thing going forward and what steps can I take to bring in people who have experience ‘.”

That meant getting external help.

Now it has been revealed that LiquidX, a new studio that invests in NFT projects, has acquired 60 percent of Pixelmon, and its co-founder, Giulio Xiloyannis, will become its new CEO.

Xiloyannis, former COO of Zalora – one of Malaysia’s largest fashion e-retailers, spoke to 1News.

He told reporter Logan Church that he recognized that those involved with Pixelmon from the start did not have the expertise to make their vision a reality.

“There’s often a big disconnect between the vision … and the delivery of that vision,” he said.

He said that throughout its existence, Pixelmon’s online community was incredibly engaged, even after the disappointing art reveal.

“The advantage lies in how much people want this.”

From a personal perspective, Xiloyannis has put his reputation on the line, not only publicly supporting but also becoming directly involved in this project.

But for a co-founder of a new NFT studio, he saw an opportunity.

“What better track record than turning around one of the projects that luckily or unluckily got the most negative news exposure in the room.”

And to do that, Xiloyannis has built a team—quickly.

“There is currently a team of about 45 full-time employees working on the Pixelmon project. Of that, about 35 have come on board in the last three months. Of those, 80% come from the traditional video game space,” he said.

It included game designers, developers, writers and producers, among others.

“That’s the core competence we need to put together.”

An external communications company now also handled PR for the project, including writing press releases.

And since the art reveal, Xiloyannis said the team had been busy redesigning art, releasing a new demo, as well as new digital assets.

“We actually redid and republished the entire collection art.”

And he said it had been well received.

“If you just track the noise now about the project – they are happy.”

His goal was now to work on developing the project over the next few years. Like many modern titles, they plan to continue updating the game after it is eventually released.

“This project can never miss promises again.”

As for Martin van Blerk, Xiloyannis said he remained a shareholder and a founder.