Crypto Gloss

Aleksander Larsen

Aleksander Leonard Larsen (born in Norway) is the co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Sky Mavis, the Vietnamese gaming studio behind Axie Infinity — the blockchain-based NFT game that defined the 2021 GameFi boom. While co-founders Nguyen Thanh Trung (“Jihoz”) drove growth and ecosystem development, Larsen led Sky Mavis’s operational infrastructure, institutional fundraising, investor relations, and strategic partnerships. A former competitive gamer and esports professional, Larsen brought a Western business perspective to the Vietnamese-founded studio, helping Sky Mavis raise over $160M from investors including Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Paradigm, and Binance — and later securing $150M in post-hack emergency funding after the Ronin bridge exploit in March 2022.

Background

  • Full Name: Aleksander Leonard Larsen
  • Nationality: Norwegian
  • Background: Competitive gaming and esports (former professional gamer); encountered blockchain gaming through early crypto interest
  • Role at Sky Mavis: Co-founder; COO; institutional fundraising lead

Key Contributions

Sky Mavis Operations and Fundraising:

  • Led the institutional funding rounds that capitalized Sky Mavis as a major game studio:
    Series A (2021): $7.5M led by Animoca Brands
    Series B (2021): $152M led by a16z with Paradigm, FTX Ventures, and others — valuing Sky Mavis at $3B
    Emergency raise (2022): $150M post-Ronin hack led by Binance — used to reimburse affected users
  • Built out Sky Mavis’s partnerships with major gaming guilds (Yield Guild Games, Merit Circle), exchanges, and data analytics platforms

Ronin Network:

  • Larsen was a driving force behind the strategic decision to move Axie Infinity off Ethereum mainnet onto the Ronin sidechain — solving the prohibitive gas cost problem that threatened mass user adoption
  • Post-hack, Larsen led the security remediation and public communication effort — representing Sky Mavis to investors, exchanges, and the community through the crisis

Western Bridge Role:

  • As a Norwegian co-founder of a Vietnam-headquartered company, Larsen served as a key cross-cultural bridge — making Sky Mavis more accessible to Western institutional investors and media
  • Frequently represented Sky Mavis at Western crypto conferences (a16z summits, Token 2049, etc.)

Timeline

Year Event
2018 Sky Mavis co-founded in Vietnam; Larsen joins as COO
2019–2020 Early fundraising; AXS token design; Ethereum gameplay
2021 (May) Series A ($7.5M led by Animoca)
2021 (Oct) Series B ($152M led by a16z at $3B valuation)
2021 (Nov) AXS peaks near $160; Axie reaches 2.7M daily players
2022 (Mar) Ronin bridge hacked — $625M stolen; Larsen leads recovery
2022 (Apr) Binance leads $150M emergency raise; users reimbursed
2023–2024 Sky Mavis pivots: Ronin becomes multi-game chain; new titles onboarded

Common Misconceptions

“Larsen is just a business guy, not a builder.”

While Larsen’s role is operational rather than engineering-focused, his esports background gave him genuine product intuition for gaming economies. His instinct for community-first mechanics (like the scholarship system) helped shape Sky Mavis’s growth strategy, not just its cap table.

“Sky Mavis only grew because of DeFi speculation.”

Axie Infinity had genuine retention among subsistence players in the Philippines, Vietnam, and Venezuela who used SLP income to cover basic living expenses — a use case Larsen championed in institutional investor presentations as real-world proof of blockchain’s economic utility.

Criticisms

  • Ronin centralization: At the time of the $625M hack, the Ronin validator set included Sky Mavis-controlled nodes that represented a majority — making the bridge inherently concentrated. Larsen’s team approved this architecture as a speed/cost tradeoff
  • Post-hack communications: Initial disclosure of the Ronin breach took 6 days after the exploit occurred (March 23, 2022) — Sky Mavis first disclosed publicly on March 29 — raising concerns about timeliness of user communication
  • SLP tokenomics: The scholarship economy was ultimately unsustainable due to the lack of an SLP sink mechanism — a gap in economic design that Sky Mavis knew about but did not address quickly enough as user numbers scaled

Social Media Sentiment

Larsen is viewed in the crypto gaming community as a credible operator who handled a catastrophic crisis (the $625M hack) with relative competence — reimbursing users and leading a recovery. His Western identity and esports credibility give him broad institutional credibility. Former scholars and Axie players are more mixed — some blame Sky Mavis leadership (including Larsen) for unsustainable tokenomics and the hack’s centralization risks.

Last updated: 2026-04

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