AB de Villiers is a household name in the world of cricket, renowned for his swashbuckling batting style and records in the shorter formats of the game. Perhaps less well known is his involvement in the Web3 and cryptocurrency space as he moves on from an illustrious sports career.
The 39-year-old South African sat down for a wide-ranging interview with Cointelegraph as he shifts his attention to the world of Web3. From his love affair with nonfungible tokens (NFTs) to an ambassadorship with a Web3 investment platform, De Villiers has familiarized himself with the ins and outs of the wider cryptocurrency ecosystem.
As the South African explained in the first episode of Crypto and Sport, his personal experience navigating the crypto ecosystem has tossed up some testing deliveries to bat away. It has also led him to become an ambassador for a new Ethereum-based Web3 investment platform looking to open up retail investor access to opportunities in promising new start-ups.
Hands off my Mutant Ape!
De Villiers admits that he kept the crypto space at an arms’ length for a number of years despite the best efforts of Web3 savvy friends and family to compel him to explore the industry as early as 2017.
Related: Planet of the Bored Apes: BAYC’s success morphs into ecosystem
While his brothers pressed him to invest in Ripple’s native XRP in those early days, De Villiers remained skeptical of the crypto ecosystem and kept his distance, until he started exploring trading more seriously after downloading Trading View:
“I started to follow some of my favorite stuff. Obviously the markets as well, gold, commodities, the Nasdaq and S&P 500. I just found a bit of interest, started reading a little bit about the markets around the world and then obviously also crypto, Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP were my first interests.”
A couple of years later, NFTs took off with collections like Bored Ape Yacht Club scoring hundreds of millions of dollars in sales. De Villiers brushed up on the intricacies of the space with the help of a friend working in the industry.
Getting to grips with Metamask and its various wallet and network connections, token swaps and blockchain bridges, De Villiers quickly became enamored with collecting NFTs. Describing his…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Cointelegraph.com News…