A new player enters the world of video games

Passionate about video games and technology, Jerome de Tychey (ENS Paris-Saclay, 2008) is the proud founder and CEO of Cometh. The French startup is revolutionizing the gaming industry by integrating Ethereum blockchain technology, allowing players to own their digital assets.

As a teenager, Jérôme dreamed of becoming a professional gamer. "But in the early 2000s, only a small hundred players worldwide could claim to make a living from it," he recalls. He put his passion on hold to pursue his studies, first in scientific preparatory classes and then at École normale supérieure Paris-Saclay in Economics and Management, maintaining an "engineer's curiosity" acquired through computer hardware won in tournaments.

Soon, the student found a second passion for an emerging technology that links economics and computer science. "Presented as innovations in the field of currency, I heard about bitcoin and blockchain for the first time in 2013 during a research conference on monetary theory at ENS." Little known to the public at the time, bitcoin, a cryptocurrency, was even portrayed in the French media as the preferred exchange unit for terrorists and drug traffickers on the Internet. "But when I discovered that bitcoin could be directly managed on the blockchain, I thought, wow, this is amazing! Even though it's a small economy, you can track everything that happens, unlike the currency we handle day by day, the one that lives in our pockets, bank accounts, or phones.’’

With cryptography not part of his curriculum, the young graduate decided to "dig" into it himself, acquiring new knowledge as a "hobby," taking Stanford University's MOOC courses in parallel with his teaching duties at various institutions (he is currently an associate professor in economics at Cnam - Conservatoire national des arts et métiers) and later alongside his initial roles (at the Ministry of Economy, Finance and Industrial and Digital Sovereignty, and then at the company Rexecode). "ENS students, regardless of their discipline, generally share a homogeneous foundation of initial knowledge in terms of quality and rigor. If someone talks to me about their research in fluid mechanics during a student party, I won't understand everything, but I feel capable of delving into it later. At ENS, declares Jérôme de Tychey de la Ferté Préval, there is no taboo or self-censorship. We learn to learn quickly."

Jérôme becomes an expert in the open-source Ethereum* blockchain technology, contributing to its evolution. In 2016, he becomes the president of Ethereum France. "From this point of view, my 'ENS label' allowed me to be credible with my interlocutors from the beginning of my career," he affirms. His career truly begins in the blockchain sector in 2016, just as the ecosystem starts to industrialize in France. "Consulting firms became interested, including EY, which hired me to set up a team on the subject." The following year, he was hired by Consensys, an American company, to build and lead the team (up to a hundred people) at its Paris office. Three years later, in 2000, Jérôme de Tychey joined Ledger (800 employees), a French unicorn and a world leader in the manufacture of secure cryptocurrency storage wallets, to lead the fundraising tour and contribute to the development of Ethereum.

L’apparition de Cometh

To alleviate the boredom of numerous air travels during these various positions, Jérôme de Tychey starts playing video games again. At the same time, the entrepreneurial spirit beckons through his wife's encouragement, pushing him to leverage his expertise in the video game industry and become his own boss. Jérôme sells his shares in Ledger and creates COMETH** in December 2020, a company developing video games based on the Ethereum blockchain: either providing technology to gaming industry players or developing its own games. "We are currently witnessing the fourth technological revolution in video games since the 1980s, after player networking, the advent of 3D, and mobile applications," he explains. Thanks to bitcoin, players own digital items acquired while playing. It's a new ownership paradigm, a new way of owning digitally: for me, this is the main innovation brought by blockchain. It makes gaming one of its application domains with immense potential."

With the main client being FDJ - La Française des Jeux, Jérôme now employs 35 people at Cometh. The startup raised $10 million in 2022 to develop its games and aims to become the number one blockchain technology provider for all major names in the gaming industry in the coming years, similar to the major names in the 3D sector. Today, he is actively seeking collaborators. People from ENS? "Yes, of course! Their qualities are exceptional. At ENS Paris-Saclay, we know what it takes to take ownership of a subject and get up to speed with the state of research. This proximity and open-mindedness go hand in hand to innovate and anticipate in a market undergoing a (r)evolution," he concludes.

Cometh 

The startup was founded in 2020 by Jérôme de Tychey de la Ferté-Préval (class of 2008). Cometh is a studio developing video games and innovative software for the gaming industry. Cometh is also a strategy and exploration game where players earn valuable tokens and crafting items. It leverages the decentralized finance ecosystem to create a persistent and sustainable outer space. The startup specializes in the applications and integration of the Ethereum blockchain, with all its essential features playing a role and also utilizing scaling solutions to handle millions of users.

Ethereum 

Ethereum is an open-source blockchain platform that allows the creation of decentralized applications and smart contracts. Smart contracts are self-executing computer programs that automatically run when certain conditions are met. Ethereum uses its own cryptocurrency called "Ether" (ETH) to pay for transaction and contract fees on the platform. This blockchain allows developers to create smart contracts using a variant of the Solidity programming language.

* Smart contracts are self-executing computer programs that automatically run when certain conditions are met. Ethereum uses its own cryptocurrency called "Ether" (ETH).

** This name refers to the verb 'to come' in Old English, the cryptocurrency ETH (Ether) from Ethereum, and finally, a comet in reference to the space battles of the startup's first video game.