Meet David Yu, ECOMI CEO

June 20th, 2018. Rhys Skellern. Team. 3min Read

“Collectables have a uniquely social aspect that brings people together through a common interest,” said Yu. “With ECOMI Collect’s exclusive ability to bring digital collectables to life using AR, we anticipate that this will be a defining feature for the collectable community.”

ECOMI, a blockchain company committed to creating the world’s best platform to pay, protect, and collect, today announced the ECOMI Collect platform for licensed crypto collectables inspired by David Yu, CEO of ECOMI and his passion as an avid collector.ECOMI Collect allows users to easily and securely purchase, trade, sell, and own licensed digital collectables, from their favorite brands such as tokidoki. Through ECOMI Collect, digital assets can exist safely in the app, and even more so on the Secure Wallet, with recorded ownership and maximum protection. Owners can also manage, share, and bring their digital collectables to life using augmented reality (AR).

Licensed Collectibles?

ECOMI has already announced a partnership with digital creators, such as tokidoki, and are in the process of finalizing contracts with other well-known brands and licenses across art, gaming, animation, and film. The company intends to capture the premium end of the digital collectables market with five main categories, including film and television content, animation, gaming, evergreen characters, and digital art.

"In all my years of collecting, the demand for collectables has never faded, but they have constantly changed mediums,” said Yu. “I believe that digital collectables are only just emerging, and we will see it reach the same popularity as tangible collectables.”

With more than two decades of experience in the gaming and licensing business, Yu has been involved in licensing and retail, working with intellectual property, and transforming unique gaming and collectable licenses into globally recognized brands.‍As an avid collector and with business savvy that has followed him from a young age, Yu has continued as a serial entrepreneur since he began at the age of 17. Nearly all of his 17 entities are still running.‍Yu got his start in 1997 when he first established Games R Us Ltd. (NZ). He transformed Star Wars and Star Trek memorabilia, as well as various vintage toys and comics, into an entertainment and hobby store for fellow collectors. Later, Yu established Retail Management.Group Ltd. (RMG Ltd.) as a supply chain for manufacturing and distribution, from food and beverage to cosmetics products, in Australia, New Zealand, China and other Asian markets. These early experiences helped Yu to establish and cement relationships with well-known brands in the licensing and retail spaces.

Why Are Collectibles Becoming Digital?

Although we’ve been living in a digital world for a long time, collectible items have been slow to come to the party. Up until now, it has been impossible to truly authenticate digital commodities. Not only has this become possible with the blockchain, but it has also led to a number of other practicalities that stand to revolutionise the collectible industry:

Distribution is now possible, instantly, and on a global scale through platforms such as ECOMI Collect.
Lower operating costs. As a physical product is no longer required to provide the same inherit value, creators and licensors of collectibles are able to increase their brand awareness on a grander scale, with less outlay.
Digital collectibles, artworks and intellectual property are now fully protected, as each item can be traced to its origins. This means digital collectibles can be authenticated and verified, protecting both the creators and the owners from scams and fakes.
The rarity of collectibles translates onto digital platforms. Thanks to NFTs it is possible to produce a limited number of tokens, with each being individually identifiable. This means character series and limited editions can be created, as well as opening the potential for signed digital artworks.
Digital collectibles have returned property rights to the digital economy.

Augmented Reality

ECOMI Collect aims to visualise crypto-digital collectables using the latest in Augmented Reality (AR) technologies, which now come standard with Apple and Samsung phones. With quality, licensed materials, ECOMI will create an experience like no other, bringing to life one-of-a-kind licensed crypto-digital collectables, right in front of the owners eyes.Each crypto-digital collectables will have animated properties, such as movement and a limited range of actions. Future releases of ECOMI Collect will allow collectable owners to augment their collectables, with new clothes or props, and eventually, collectables will be able to interact with each other - for example two collectable owners could battle their one-of-a-kind Stormtroopers in the AR / 3D space.

Own Digital Collectibles with ECOMI Collect

Up until now, interacting with the blockchain and digital collectibles has been a hard and confusing sequence, requiring new users to:

Understand and purchase tokens
Create wallets to store these tokens
Use these native tokens to purchase collectibles
Work out how to store them
Protect their collectibles from cyber criminals

For digital collectibles to truly be adopted by mainstream audiences, the process has to be simplified to the point that new users don’t even realise the underlying technologies exist, let alone understand them.

ECOMI Collect is the first platform designed to fill this gap. This decentralised application brings all of the benefits of the blockchain (security, verifiable ownership, immutable ledgers etc…) to the user in a familiar and easy to use interface. Other key points of difference include:

Marketing licensed and recognisable digital collectibles- a worlds first in the digital collectible space.
Allowing users to buy, swap and sell digital collectibles and commodities from their smart phone.
ECOMI Collect is designed to work in conjunction with the Secure Wallet and ECOMI One cold storage devices. This adds an extra layer of protection by keeping your NFT’s in secure offline storage, whilst providing the convenience of portability and instant access.
The platform even has an augmented reality function, so you can bring your collectibles to life, display them in your showroom, and share them with friends/socials!