Ishant Ayadassen, founder and CEO of Aya Trades, is a young Mauritian entrepreneur who operates several businesses in the metaverse. Solicited by many when it comes to talking about cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and the metaverse in Mauritius, he has fully embraced and mastered how to be a successful business man in this new era of technology and digital art. In this article, he shares his journey on how he grew several businesses in a virtual world (Lootverse) and he also talks about a passion project that aims at making investing in the U.S. stock market more accessible to Mauritians and Africans at large.
About Aya Trades LLC and how did it start
It all started in January 2021, back when Aya Trades was an educational platform that was set up in the US to teach people about trading. Within the span of a year, Aya Trades LLC became a holding company as new businesses were developed and the educational aspect was put on hold. Currently, Aya Trades runs 6 businesses: Aya Curators, Aya Developments, Loot Origins, Loot Analytics, Lootnance, and Afreeca Invest. The first 5 operate in Lootverse, a virtual parallel world within the metaverse, and the last one is a real-world business that will allow Mauritians to easily trade U.S. stocks. The team currently consists of a young and dynamic team of 20 people with an average age of 25.
About Afreeca Invest and what inspired it
Afreeca Invest is a trading app that will allow Mauritians and Africans at large to buy shares in some of the world’s biggest companies. The goal is to democratize access to the U.S. stock market by providing a user-friendly mobile app that allows people to trade instantly, safely, and with a small budget (as little as $1). Ishant was inspired to come back to Mauritius to provide this service to Mauritians after discovering Robinhood – a trading app that changed his life back when he was studying in the US. When he realized trading could become a good way for him to generate passive income while still studying, he decided to get into economics and finance and teach himself trading. He enjoyed the process of analyzing the stock market, evaluating risk, understanding statistics, and keeping up with daily financial news so much that it became natural for him to dedicate a significant portion of his time to trading.
He eventually ended up living off options trading for two years and became a licensed stock broker in the US after getting his Series 7 license. At the same time, he was also sharing snapshots of his gains on social media and was getting a lot of messages from people who were also interested in investing in the stock market. Although he wanted to help them, he knew they didn’t have access to a trading app in Mauritius where they would be able to easily start investing with a low budget. For that reason, he decided to come back to Mauritius and provide them with the tool they need by developing Afreeca Invest.
About the 5 metaverse projects and how Ishant go involved in the first place
Back in 2021, he was approached by a friend of his who was starting a metaverse project called Lootverse. He was quickly fascinated by the vision for this new world and started helping build it. He got so engrossed into it that in May 2021, he even wrote a book on what Lootverse was at the time, and got appointed as an advisor. Later, he also acquired one of the 4 curator seats on the platform and launched Aya Curators, before eventually setting up the other businesses:
Aya Curators finds talented creators around the world and lists their work as NFTs in the Loot Arena within lootverse.com. The Loot Arena is where miners battle-bid on auctions to win NFTs and convert their USDC to BUN, then to LTT, the Lootversian currency.
Aya Developments caters for architectural needs in Lootverse. From crafting the interior of one apartment to creating a whole city, the aim is to provide the most creative and realistic virtual designs.
Loot Origins acts as the Historian of Lootverse. With a rich catalog of artists and storytellers, it creates the history of Lootverse through stories and visual representations. It also provides a range of weapons, shields and race cars which are used as utility items in play-to-earn games.
Loot Analytics collects and analyzes public data for all Aya Trades brands. In the future, they plan to release this service to other users and businesses in Lootverse so Lootizens can better understand the world.
Lootnance is an in-world exchange that enables miners, users and businesses in Lootverse to transact in different ways between one another. It acts as the financial backbone of the world and is currently the only platform where LTT can be bought and sold from within Lootverse.
Words of advice for other young people interested in the metaverse
“Get in as early as you can. If you really believe that the metaverse will play a huge role in the future, then my advice is to get involved now to get the best from it. The metaverse trend offers immense potential to revolutionize our lifestyles and we’ve seen its development accelerate even post-pandemic. Inform yourself about this new world, do some research on different metaverse projects, and then choose which one you’d like to get involved in. While some believe the metaverse is just about trading NFTs and that the hype won’t last, others who are truly involved know that the purpose of the metaverse goes way beyond that. It’s an opportunity to re-invent how the world functions by experimenting in a virtual world where traditional rules don’t apply. It will open doors for higher levels of efficiency in education, medicine, economies, and believe it or not, even for stronger social interactions between people and a cleaner planet.”