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Ari Meilich

Ari Meilich is the co-founder of Decentraland and the founder of Big Time Studios, the studio behind the action RPG Big Time and the web3 distribution platform Open Loot. Since 2020 he has shifted his centre of gravity from the metaverse to gaming.

Riccardo CuratoloBy Riccardo Curatolo 2 min read How we work
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Who he is

Ari Meilich is an Argentine-American entrepreneur among the first to bring the concept of a "virtual world on blockchain" to a mass audience. In 2017 he co-founded, with Esteban Ordano, Decentraland, the decentralised metaverse based on Ethereum, leading the project until April 2020. Having left the operational leadership of Decentraland, he founded Big Time Studios, a video game development company aiming at AAA-quality multiplayer productions in which players own their digital assets: the flagship title is Big Time, a free-to-play action RPG with NFTs and the BIGTIME token, alongside the distribution platform Open Loot. Before his crypto career he studied neuroscience at Hunter College and worked as an analyst at the fund CRV.

Current role

Founder of Big Time Studios and public face of the Open Loot platform: in December 2024, as CEO, he announced the 150 million dollar Open Loot Fund to finance third-party web3 games, and 2026 company profiles continue to list him as the company's founder (Verified: September 2026). Some public signals (his LinkedIn profile) suggest a possible step back from the operational role over 2025-2026. His role as an advisor to Decentraland has no recent confirmation.

Career path

  • 2015-2017 — Market analyst at CRV, then co-founder of Benchrise.
  • 2017-2020 — Co-founder and project lead of Decentraland: 24 million dollar ICO in 2017, public launch of the virtual world in February 2020, departure from operational leadership in April 2020.
  • 2020-today — Founder of Big Time Studios (with Thor Alexander): early access launch of Big Time in 2021, BIGTIME token in 2023, Open Loot platform.

Recent developments and controversies

  • December 2024 — Big Time Studios announces the 150 million dollar Open Loot Fund, a new allocation on top of the 10 million already invested in platform games; the company reports more than 100 million dollars of revenue generated since Big Time's preseason launch.
  • No established legal or regulatory controversy against him appears publicly (Verified: September 2026).

FAQ

Is Ari Meilich still involved in Decentraland? No, not in its management: he left the project's leadership in April 2020. Decentraland is today run by the Decentraland Foundation and its DAO; the simple advisory role attributed to Meilich has no recent confirmation.

What does Big Time Studios do? It develops Big Time, a free-to-play multiplayer action RPG in which in-game items are tradable NFTs, and runs Open Loot, a distribution platform and marketplace for third-party web3 games, backed by a 150 million dollar fund announced at the end of 2024.

See also

Verified sources

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