Robbie Ferguson is one of the co-founders of Immutable X, a blockchain-based protocol that aims to provide a scalable and secure solution for creating and trading non-fungible tokens on the Ethereum blockchain. He is part of the alumni of the 2019 Forbes 30 under 30 Asia list. ^[1]

Early Life & Education

Ferguson is a university dropout, previously studying a Bachelor of Advanced Science and a Bachelor of Laws at the University of Sydney. He was awarded an Academic Scholarship for being the highest ranked student in the Australian Tertiary Admissions. ^[2][3]

Career

Ferguson spent over a year in Data Analytics and Blockchain with KPMG Australia and is an active member of YPO Sydney Pacific and a Thiel Fellow with The Thiel Foundation. ^[4]

Immutable X

Robbie Ferguson and his brother James have been building tech companies together for almost a decade. With a mutual interest in gaming since their childhood, including games with in-game economies like Runescape, Maplestory, and Neopets, the duo developed a solid technological foundation. They collaborated on multiple startups, including a self-wagering application for League of Legends and a machine-learning Shopify competitor that optimized store optimization. In 2014, they came across Bitcoin, and in 2015, they discovered Ethereum, which instantly captivated them with its potential for innovation. ^[4]

During their university years, the siblings engaged in building cryptocurrency trading and arbitrage bots for a period of two years. However, their focus shifted in mid-2017 when they took notice of the emergence of CryptoPunks, which marked a significant moment in the evolution of NFTs. They recognized the potential of this groundbreaking technology, as it represented one of the earliest examples of NFTs, and were motivated to further explore this exciting new field. ^[4]

“Although it was purely experimental, we saw this as the first real opportunity to build a meaningful mainstream use-case with crypto technology: using NFTs to allow players to truly own and trade their in-game items.”

They created Gods Unchained, a project aimed at showcasing the capabilities of NFTs in the gaming industry. They experienced problems with scaling on layer-1 Ethereum and decided to build a platform that would solve this problem for game developers building games on web3, thus founding Immutable.  ^[4]