Hey Hackers, Horizon has been nominated to HackerNoon's annual awards in Toronto, Ontario. Startup of the Year Please vote for us . here Read more about us below to understand why we deserve your vote. Meet Horizon We founded Horizon in 2017 with the mission to make web3 easy, fun, and accessible for everyone. Our team consists of blockchain leaders who’ve made key contributions to the Ethereum ecosystem, including the ERC-1155 semi-fungible token standard, the ERC-1271 standard for smart and account abstraction wallets, the Niftyswap Protocol, and much more. Our CEO Peter Kieltyka is regarded as one of the top web3 technologists and was recently named a top 10 gaming tycoon by Maclean’s. We’re headquartered in Toronto, Canada, and we have teammates in 17 countries. Horizon is a blockchain infrastructure company with two main products: Sequence, the all-in-one web3 developer stack + smart wallet that makes building web3 games, apps, and experiences easy, and our pioneering video game, Skyweaver, a cross-platform digital trading card game that has been called a “genre-defining digital TCG experience” and “2022’s best blockchain game”. My Role My name is Michael Sanders and I’m Co-founder & Chief Storyteller at Horizon. I’m a long-time tech entrepreneur and have been in the blockchain space for 13 years. At Horizon, we’re making web3 easy, fun, and accessible for users and builders. As Chief Storyteller, I work closely with our CEO Peter Kieltyka, our business development, product, and marketing teams to help bring web3 to the masses by empowering builders and brands with the tools they need to deliver amazing web3 experiences to their users. Awesome content is what will onboard the next billion people to web3, and we enable and accelerate the creation of such content with our Sequence developer platform. We envision web3 as a new dimension that benefits people and businesses around the world, and we believe driving web3 adoption is an important mission. While the challenge is large, we find it incredibly fun, and that’s due to the wonderful team we’ve assembled. Web3 is the future of the Internet, and Horizon’s mission is to make it easy, fun, and accessible for everyone. How We're Disrupting/Improving the Blockchain Industry Horizon’s mission is to make blockchain easy, fun and accessible for users and builders to drive the adoption of web3 and its open, transparent, and symbiotic economies. From cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and social identities to video game items, virtual real estate and digital assets not yet imagined, virtual worlds are becoming more real and valuable than ever. Horizon is committed to providing billions of people with easy and secure access to this new dimension of web3 so everyone can own, use, and enjoy digital assets. With Sequence, we provide developers the tools to build the next generation of Internet economies and experiences where users and creators share in the value generated by the networks they participate in. There are many challenges developers face when building games in web3, ranging from wallets, account creation and onboarding to gas fees, transactions, blockchain data, and marketplaces. We’ve solved all these challenges from the ground up while building our game , and we’ve productized those solutions as the Sequence developer stack + smart wallet. Sequence solves the complexities of web3 onboarding, infrastructure, transactions, and UX, so that developers can leverage our tools, and deliver their users the most seamless and friendly web3 experiences possible. Skyweaver We currently have 67 projects leveraging Sequence technology for their web3 games, applications, and experiences.And, we have hundreds more brands and projects in the pipeline, so stay tuned for more amazing web3 experiences in the near future. Our Predictions/Thoughts on the Blockchain Industry in 2023 Blockchain technology can benefit products, games, apps, individuals, and organizations in a number of ways. As a decentralized, open-source ledger that records transactions and activity permanently, blockchain technology enables greater security and transparency for users. There are a number of use cases that highlight the benefits of blockchain, one of which is how blockchain enriches players’ experiences in games by giving players  ownership over the game items that they buy. And for brands like Starbucks, it allows for more enriching digital rewards in things like loyalty programs, where consumers can redeem digital NFT collectibles and items from brands they have an affinity towards. Web3 enables more connected and enriching community experiences, greater symbiosis between users and creators, more creative expression in digital worlds, cross-brand collaboration in permissionless ways, new forms of exchanging value and organizing around shared values, experimentation in economy design that could start small and later inform global frameworks, and much more. We have just hit the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the benefits and use cases that web3 can bring to consumer experiences. We’re excited by what’s been created to date, and we’re thrilled to enable and accelerate web3 content creation so that we can unlock more amazing and enriching experiences for everyone. We believe gaming will play a huge role in driving the mass adoption of web3. Video games have become a part of culture and our everyday lives. There are over 3 billion gamers in the world, and the number keeps growing. Blockchain technology can allow game devs to give their players ownership over the game items they purchase, allowing players to trade those items, or gift them to friends as they please. There is also the notion of giving gaming communities more agency over the game content developed, and providing core fans more engagement opportunities with the games they love - like helping to fund games, features, and development cycles through purchasing digital collectibles. Web3 also unlocks persistent user profiles, identities, and item ownership that can exist across games and continue into the future, even if a specific game ceases operations. There are so many creative paths being explored from lending game items to running new kinds of tournaments, to creating new kinds of game modes around existing game items, to enabling guilds and social coordination, to unlocking new forms of user-generated content, to sharing royalties between studios and users in ways previously not possible. We believe all these factors will contribute to an exciting future for gaming enhanced by web3. Cross-brand collaboration in permissionless ways is really exciting. Imagine NBA2K had web3 items in-game. Adidas could look at the blockchain and see which users own Adidas shoes in-game and then airdrop (i.e. gift) digital collectibles or vouchers to those users. The Nike .Swoosh x Fortnite initiative gives us a glimpse into the future of cross-brand collaborations, and we’re sure this is just the beginning and that we’ll see incredible innovation with respect to how brands deliver value, deepen engagement, and interact and have fun with their communities. With any new technology that is disruptive to an industry, there will always be pushback and skepticism around what the technology can deliver. We think blockchain technology is no different. The first step is to educate and inform: what are the benefits of blockchain technology? How will it improve players’ experiences? Once there is that understanding around how this technology can improve players’ experiences and enrich them in ways never before possible, then it will become clear that web3 and blockchain technology is the future of the gaming industry. There are major game publishers such as Epic Games, Take-Two Interactive, Ubisoft, Square Enix, and many others that believe in web3 and are already thinking about ways that web3 can further enrich players’ experiences in games. We think that it’s a matter of time before most, if not all, game publishers and developers incorporate web3 components into their games. Web3 opens up a whole new way to approach game development and community engagement and we’re excited to be part of it and help builders, brands, and developers on their journey to making awesome web3 experiences. Our all-in-one developer platform + smart wallet, Sequence, helps developers and brands build innovative web3 experiences anyone can enjoy thanks to the user-friendly smart wallet and modular developer platform. Sequence accelerates web3 content creation by giving builders and brands the tools they need to deliver seamless web3 experiences to their users. What word defines the state of Blockchain in 2023? Evolving. The blockchain and web3 space are constantly evolving. Many brands, projects, and games are still in the exploratory phase of how web3 can enrich their users’ experiences. Some brands are taking the leap sooner than others, but we’ll soon see most forward-thinking brands leverage web3 in some way to elevate the experience with their audience. Some will succeed and some won’t, and that’s expected for any new technological era. We’ll test, learn, unlock incredible opportunities, and grow from there. As a company, we’re always evolving and improving our tech stack, and Sequence enables all kinds of web3 games and experiences for brands and builders. We obsess over the developer experience because we want our partners to love using our tools, and we want to solve their web3 needs, so they can stay focused on delivering amazing and engaging experiences to their users. As a result, we’re continually listening to our partners and looking into the future to enhance the Sequence stack, which consists of the Sequence account abstraction wallet, Token & NFT APIs, gasless transactions, blockchain indexer, Marketplace Engine, payment rails, and SDKs for whether you’re building on Web, mobile, Unity, or Unreal Engine. Why we decided to participate in HackerNoon's Startup of the Year awards Industry awareness: Through our participation in this year’s Startup of the Year awards, Horizon has the opportunity to gain industry recognition and exposure through a reputable outlet that covers technology, startups, and innovation. HackerNoon has an incredible audience, and we’re excited to connect with potential partners, users, and community members. Provide value: for any games, brands, or builders looking to enter web3, we have the tools you need to deliver amazing experiences to your community. We’d love to help you get to market faster and enhance your engagement and monetization. Final Thoughts We’re focused on improving the accessibility of Sequence for developers, which in turn will make it easier for more games, apps, and brands to incorporate web3 elements. Our big focus areas right now are expanding the integration options for our wallet so you can embed it even more deeply into your existing app or game, improving our Unity and Unreal Engine SDKs, as well as creating a no-code dashboard so non-technical and technical teammates can launch, manage, and contribute to web3 projects. There is a lot to look forward to! Users and developers can expect more upgrades and product releases that will empower creators to deliver amazing web3 experiences. Vote today! for us

This writer has a vested interest be it monetary, business, or otherwise, with 1 or more of the products or companies mentioned within.

Between Two Computer Monitors: This story includes an interview between the writer and guest/interviewee. 

Making Web3 Easy, Fun, and Accessible for Everyone

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