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Tom Wiggins

Tom Wiggins

Tom Wiggins is a freelance journalist and former deputy editor of Stuff magazine. He now writes about technology and football for the likes of Shortlist, FourFourTwo, Metro, The Red Bulletin and Professional Engineering, and loves finding excuses to combine the two.

Stories by Tom Wiggins

  • Image: Undeads

    How Undeads Metaverse Aims to Win Over Traditional Gamers

    Leo Kahn has always played games. Whether it was Super Mario Bros. on his Nintendo growing up, or when looking to unwind after a tough day as CEO of Undeads, gaming has been a constant fixture in his life. But whenever he’s tried to connect his love of all things blockchain with his passion for gaming he’s always come away feeling dissatisfied. The problem with existing crypto games, Kahn suggests, is that they don’t prioritise gameplay, which means you end up with clunky, disjointed experiences...

  • Urbanball. Image: EX-Sports

    EX Sports’ New NFT Street Football Game is About Much More Than Just Scoring Goals

    Millions of kids around the world dream of playing professional soccer when they grow up—but most don’t have to overcome the obstacles faced by 12-year-old Mikey Poulli.  At a routine eye check-up when he was just seven years old, Poulli was diagnosed with a rare degenerative retinal disorder called rod-cone dystrophy. Specialists thought it would take many years for his sight to deteriorate completely, but within 18 months the young Arsenal fan, who lives in north London with his parents, was t...

  • Live music. Image: Token Traxx

    How Token Traxx Rewards Music Creators, Curators and Collectors

    Ever since Thomas Edison invented the phonograph in 1877, music and technology have gone together like Simon and Garfunkel, Morrissey and Marr, or the Gallagher brothers. But just like those legendary duos, the relationship between the two hasn’t always been easy. The past two decades since the explosion of the Internet have been particularly tumultuous, with illegal file-sharing on platforms like Napster and Limewire bringing the industry to its knees in the early noughties. And while the intro...

  • Séan Garnier. Image: EX Sports

    How EX Sports NFTs Are Changing The Game for Niche Athletes

    Freestyle footballer Séan Garnier could teach the Premier League a thing or two. Indeed, some of the world’s most famous soccer players have joined Garnier’s millions of social media followers in begging him to teach them his mind-blowing tricks. Now, Garnier’s using the emerging technology of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to take his skills directly to his fanbase—and revolutionize the way that professional athletes are funded. After injuries forced Garnier to quit the club game, his talent for tr...

    Brought to you by EX Sports
    5 min read
    Tom Wiggins
  • In Zed Run, NFTs represent digital racehorses. Image: Virtually Human

    From Neigh to Zed: How Digital Horse Racing Became an NFT Favorite

    It all began with a poster in a Chinese restaurant in Australia. Chris Laurent, co-founder of Sydney-based Virtually Human Studio and creator of NFT horse-racing game Zed Run, was picking up his dinner one night in late 2017 when he spotted an advertisement for a local stud farm on the wall. It offered a stallion for breeding, with a fee of AUS $15,000. Laurent, a horse-racing enthusiast who was doing consultancy work for an Australian bookmaker at the time, took a closer look at the poster and...

    Deep DivesLong Reads
    8 min read
    Tom Wiggins
  • Decentraland uses the MANA cryptocurrency (Image: Decentraland)

    Decentraland: Review & Beginner's Guide

    Whether it’s Minecraft, Animal Crossing, or No Man’s Sky, it seems the real world outside just isn’t enough for some people. The latest in this long line of virtual environments is Decentraland—a 3D world built on blockchain and governed by a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). It lets you explore and build like Minecraft, and socialize like Second Life—but Decentraland isn’t like other virtual worlds because the users own it. At least, some of them do. The Decentraland game world is s...

    ReviewsGames
    7 min read
    Tom Wiggins
  • Twitter has fallen victim to security breaches on several occasions (Image: Shutterstock)

    6 times Twitter's security was breached

    If the slightly wonky wording didn’t give it away, the sudden urge by some of the world’s richest people to give away free Bitcoin should have. On 15 July 2020, the Twitter accounts of high-profile individuals including Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Mike Bloomberg, plus corporations such as Apple and Uber, all tweeted messages with almost identical wording: “I am giving back to my community due to COVID-19. All Bitcoin sent to my address below will be sent back doubled.” It had all the hallmarks of...

    Deep DivesLong Reads
    6 min read
    Tom Wiggins
  • Juventus has teamed up with Socios to give fans a greater say (Image: Cristiano Barni/Shutterstock)

    How blockchain is changing the face of soccer

    What do Afghanistan, Moldova, Turkmenistan, Cuba and North Korea all have in common? Give up? They’re the only five countries out of the 193 recognized by the UN that had no TV coverage of the 2018/19 Premier League soccer season.  Evidently the beautiful game has never been more popular, but for every fan in the stands at Old Trafford, Anfield or Stamford Bridge, there are many more scattered around the globe.  These fans might live thousands of miles from where their chosen teams play, but as...

    Deep DivesLong Reads
    6 min read
    Tom Wiggins