Animoca Brands names Yat Siu Chief Executive Officer

Animoca Brands has appointed Yat Siu as Chief Executive Officer, while he remains Executive Chairman.

The move marks a leadership shift as the company puts greater emphasis on artificial intelligence agents alongside its existing digital assets and tokenisation businesses.

Siu said the board had decided he would take on the chief executive role while retaining the chairmanship, as Animoca seeks to link AI agents with blockchain-based ownership and payments infrastructure. The change also comes as Evan Auyang steps down as Group President to become Senior Advisor.

In his new role, Siu outlined a strategy centred on products including Minds, the group's consumer-facing agent platform, and AIR, which he described as part of a broader identity, reputation and provenance framework for AI agents. He also highlighted Moca Network as part of the company's digital identity infrastructure.

Animoca argues that AI agents are evolving beyond chat tools into software that can transact, make decisions and act with a degree of autonomy on behalf of users. Siu said this shift could help solve a longstanding Web3 problem: wallet management, signatures, bridging and other blockchain processes have often proved too complex for mainstream users.

The company sees AI agents as a natural-language layer for decentralised systems, allowing users to give instructions in plain language while the technical execution happens in the background. It is presenting that model as a way to connect its longstanding focus on digital property rights with what Siu calls digital agency.

Strategic shift

The leadership change reflects a broader effort to turn that idea into a commercial strategy. Siu said his focus as Chief Executive Officer would be to align long-term vision with operational execution while scaling core businesses and the wider ecosystem.

He said Animoca had built a network of more than 600 portfolio companies over the past decade, along with tokenised infrastructure and consumer reach. Under his leadership, the aim would be to channel those assets into products, practical uses, operational discipline and shareholder returns.

Alongside AI, Animoca is continuing to build an institutional business that links traditional finance and digital markets. Siu said round-the-clock economic activity would require financial infrastructure that can operate continuously, with blockchain providing one element and established financial institutions contributing investment expertise, capital and governance.

Among the initiatives it cited are NUVA and its collaboration with Franklin Templeton, both aimed at widening access to tokenised investments. It also pointed to Anchorpoint Financial, a joint venture with Standard Chartered Bank Hong Kong and HKT, which holds a Hong Kong stablecoin issuer licence intended to support programmable payments and settlement.

In the United Arab Emirates, Siu said Animoca Asset Management AD had received a Financial Services Permission from the Financial Services Regulatory Authority to manage a collective investment fund in Abu Dhabi Global Market. He said the priority was to turn such institutional activity into adoption and sustainable revenue.

Ownership question

A central theme in Siu's message was control over AI agents and the data they rely on. He argued that future agents will need access to highly sensitive financial and personal information to act effectively for users, raising questions about whether those systems should sit within large closed technology platforms or be owned more directly by individuals and businesses.

That stance is consistent with Animoca's longstanding criticism of centralised digital platforms. Siu drew a line between the company's earlier support for blockchain-based ownership and its current view that AI agents should be tied to verifiable identity, on-chain payments and cryptographic proof of origin and authority.

He said blockchain-based systems were better suited than traditional banking to machine-to-machine transactions and always-on economic activity. In that model, an AI agent could hold a wallet, prove ownership, and make or receive payments in real time, while identity and provenance systems establish who created the agent and what authority it has.

Minds appears to be the company's main test case for this thesis. Siu said the beta product launched about six months ago and ranked in the top three in the personal agents category on OpenRouter as of early November. He said the platform allows users to create a customised sovereign agent quickly and without specialist technical knowledge.

Governance work

Animoca also signalled a continued effort to strengthen its financial reporting and governance. Siu said the company had completed its 2022 and 2023 audited financial statements this year and was working to clear its historical backlog in 2027 in support of a possible future relisting on a major public exchange.

The effort follows a period in which Animoca has tried to broaden its business beyond gaming and token investments into regulated financial products, identity infrastructure and now AI-linked services. The updated leadership structure suggests Siu intends to take a more direct operational role as that transition continues.

He also paid tribute to Auyang's contribution during a period of rapid growth and market disruption.

"Evan has been a trusted partner, a dear friend, and an exceptional leader throughout a pivotal chapter of growth and industry turmoil. He was instrumental in maturing our organization and establishing the foundations of our institutional business," said Siu.