blocktribune.com
br>
Digital asset custodian Hex Trust has joined forces with game developer Animoca Brands to provide institutional digital asset wallets and financial services for online gamers.
Hex Trust provides bank-grade custody for digital assets in Asia. Led by veteran banking technologists and award-winning financial services experts, Hex Trust has built Hex Safe, a proprietary bank-grade platform that delivers custody, financing, and brokerage solutions for financial institutions, digital asset service providers, and private clients.
Animoca Brands leverages gamification, blockchain, and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to develop and market a portfolio of mobile games and apps for smartphones and tablets in Asia and Europe. Animoca Brands develops and publishes a broad portfolio of products including the REVV token and SAND token; original games including The Sandbox, Crazy Kings, and Crazy Defense Heroes; and products utilizing popular intellectual properties including Formula 1, Marvel, WWE, Power Rangers, MotoGP, and Doraemon. Animoca Brands’ portfolio of blockchain investments and partnerships includes Sky Mavis (Axie Infinity), Dapper Labs (CryptoKitties and NBA Top Shot), OpenSea, Harmony, Bitski, and Alien Worlds.
The two companies have formed a joint venture to provide institutional wallets for GameFi. Hex Trust will provide its secure digital asset wallet technology and custody infrastructure to connect seamlessly with Animoca Brands’ blockchain-based games to support the growth of the rapidly expanding GameFi ecosystem.
One of the most significant issues facing the blockchain gaming industry today is the lack of online wallet solutions that conveniently and safely store users’ gaming-based crypto tokens while providing access to financial services. Hex Trust and Animoca Brands are collaborating to solve this problem and seeking to tap into a multi-billion dollar opportunity.
Play-to-earn blockchain-based games such as Axie Infinity and The Sandbox are going mainstream, boasting millions of daily active users and aggregating billions of dollars worth of transactions. One of the driving factors behind the growth of GameFi titles is that these games enable users to own their in-game content and enjoy benefits from that content.
The metaverse is becoming one of the fastest-growing sectors as companies like Coca-cola, The New York Times, Sotheby’s and Facebook have joined the race to build metaverse products. The opportunities in the metaverse are various, but gaming is the entrance point currently bringing in the masses, attracted by the popularity of game reward models made possible by blockchain. There are an estimated 3.24 billion gamers worldwide, and the video game industry is estimated to be worth over US$268 billion by 2025 (Sources: Statista, NewZoo, 2021).
Yat Siu, the executive chairman and co-founder of Animoca Brands, commented: “Animoca Brands seeks to create a new asset class, play-to-earn economies and a more equitable digital framework in order to contribute to making the open metaverse a reality. The joint venture with Hex Trust will enable gamers to access a greater range of financial opportunities and services without the complexity and concerns that first-time blockchain users might encounter when first entering the world of DeFi and GameFi.”
Alessio Quaglini, CEO and co-founder of Hex Trust, commented: “GameFi is proving to be the second killer app and will further increase adoption of blockchain outside, or in parallel with, financial markets. We believe that GameFi will follow the same process of institutionalization we experienced in the cryptocurrency market and we want Hex Trust to be at the forefront of this incredibly interesting market. This partnership will be a deep collaboration that will bring cutting-edge solutions to millions of clients.”