Yat Siu will take over as chief executive of Animoca Brands on Dec. 1, 2026. He will keep the executive chairman role. The company said the move puts him in charge of daily operations and project development. The board will still handle strategy, governance and compliance oversight.
Evan Auyang, group president since 2021, will become a senior adviser reporting to the board. Robby Yung, a former Animoca CEO, appears on the new senior executive team as CEO of investments and CEO of The Sandbox. Animoca says its portfolio covers more than 600 companies and digital assets. It also builds projects such as The Sandbox and Anichess.
Three business lines take shape
Animoca is grouping its strategy around three areas. One is Minds, a personal AI agent platform. Siu said Minds launched in beta about six months ago. His argument is simple: agents can let people give instructions in normal language instead of handling wallets, fees and bridging themselves. That could make crypto tools less awkward for mainstream users, though the hard part is making sure agents act safely.
The second area is institutional digital money and investment products. The third is Moca Network and AIR, which Animoca says provide identity, credentials and permissions for agents to transact securely and verifiably. These pieces are meant to fit together. An agent without identity and permissions is hard to trust. A permission system without useful products is just plumbing.
Institutional products move forward
The institutional work is already under way. Animoca has been co-developing NUVA, a marketplace for tokenized real-world assets, with Provenance Blockchain Labs. Siu has also pointed to the company’s collaboration with Franklin Templeton as a way to broaden access to tokenized investments. That work may take time. Tokenized assets have drawn interest, but adoption still depends on distribution, rules and plain demand.
For the existing portfolio, Siu listed product focus, real-world utility, operational discipline and capital efficiency as priorities. He wants institutional capabilities to turn into adoption and sustainable revenue. The longer-term aim is AI agents that can access investments, allocate capital and transact for users. The timing of the CEO change is unusual, perhaps, but not shocking. Animoca has been pushing beyond game tokens and venture bets. I think the real test is whether the new structure helps ship products people use, not just announce a broader plan.
