FTX CEO Bullish on Top Tier Gaming Studio Integrating Crypto, $100M Initiative Announced for Web 3 Gaming on Solana
Every major game studio is extremely actively looking into introducing crypto into their system, and while it will be a slow beginning, “they will eventually take the plunge somehow,” said Sam Bankman Fried.
Solana Ventures and Sam Bankman Fried’s crypto derivatives platform FTX and Lightspeed Venture Partners announced a $100 million investment initiative for Web 3 gaming.
“The metaverse is real, and it will be decentralized,” commented Raj Gokal, co-founder and COO at Solana Labs, as he announced the $100 mln fund focused on gaming applications built on Solana blockchain.
Faraway, a new Web 3 gaming studio, is the first to benefit from this initiative which raised $21 million and is preparing to launch its first game, Mini Royale: Nations, a live multiplayer title on Solana.
“In the last few months, we’ve seen talented game builders leave their jobs at Riot, EA, Scopely, and other established gaming firms to build Web 3 games on Solana. We are excited to collaborate with Lightspeed and FTX to support and accelerate this new wave of builders.”
Anatoly Yakovenko CEO of Solana Labs
Solana is amping up its efforts to attract gaming talent amidst the growing popularity of the virtual world after social media giant Facebook and Nike and Microsoft, made their respective Metaverse announcements in the past few weeks.
Lightspeed, which has invested $300 million in crypto and early-stage gaming companies, believes high-performance blockchains like Solana are capable of delivering the Web 2 experience gamers expect while providing the advantages of decentralized Web 3 systems. SOL 7.35% Solana / USD SOLUSD $ 248.50
$18.267.35% Volume 3.17 b Change $18.26 Open $248.50 Circulating 301.21 m Market Cap 74.85 b 27 min FTX CEO Bullish on Top Tier Gaming Studio Integrating Crypto, $100M Initiative Announced for Web 3 Gaming on Solana 1 d Institutions Exploring Yield Opportunities Across Layer 1s With “Greater Borrowing Appetite” for ETH – Genesis Q3 Report 1 d Grayscale Adds Avalanche (AVAX) and Terra (LUNA) to its Investment Product Consideration List
Every Major Game Studio Taking The Plunge
In an interview with Bloomberg, Bankman Fried, CEO and founder of FTX, commented on blockchain gaming, saying a really big difference between crypto companies trying to make a game and gaming companies trying to introduce crypto is that “it’s really hard to make a really engaging video game.”
Bankman Fried is actually “pretty bullish” on gaming publishers looking to introduce crypto into their system.
“Why I’m really excited is you take a top tier gaming studio that’s making a great game and wants to have market mechanics and it wants to have real user ownership of the digital assets in it and wants to use your blockchain technology and payment rails and NFTs to enable that. That is where I would guess you’re going to see the biggest adoption early on.”
As for why these companies planning to integrate crypto are going to follow through on the operation, markets can be extremely engaging, and adding markets to a game can really help make the game more engaging for users, said Bankman Fried.
While many games already have economies built into them, they’re extremely illiquid because it’s some random video game trying to build an economy out of nothing.
But if you get access through an integrated financial system that even people who aren’t playing the game can get access to outside of the game as well, that can create a more liquid marketplace, he said.
Besides making payments easy, creating a real social identity around in-game ownership and using NFTs to bring the street to the user in a real direct ownership and intractable sense is why these crypto companies will follow through on their crypto inclusion, according to FTX founder.
“I don’t know when but I can say that almost every major game studio is extremely actively actually looking into doing something tech wise here. It’s not going to happen tomorrow. These are going to be the low trickle at the beginning. But I think almost all of them have decided that they will eventually take the plunge somehow, some way.”
AnTy
