Japanese esport players to receive wages in XRP

All esports players under SBI esports will start receiving their salaries in the Ripple cryptocurrency

The SBI esports, a subsidiary of the Japanese financial services conglomerate SBI Group, has revealed that its esports players will start receiving their salaries in Ripple (XRP). This is in line with a sponsorship deal that they scored with the venture capital firm, VC Trade.

The official announcement explains that the salaries of the esports players will be compensated using cryptocurrencies instead of traditional fiat. The goal of this move is to further establish the company’s presence among esports players who are also interested in cryptocurrencies.

The esports subsidiary, which is also a long time partner of Ripple, stated that this sponsorship deal is an opportunity for them to diversify their portfolio within the blockchain industry. SBI esports hopes that this move contributes toward their vision of “creating and nurturing a healthy market based on customer-centricity, improving prices, and expanding liquidity”.

There have been attempts to bridge the gap between digital currencies and the gaming industry. Many gaming pundits and crypto enthusiasts believe that non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and gaming platforms are a good combination. NFTs are tokens based on the blockchain. They are unique and cannot be replaced for something else.

Mac Ocampo, the head of growth at Virtually Human Studio, a blockchain entertainment studio, emphasised the compatibility between NFTs and video games.

“NFTs have always been associated with gaming platforms and most people were playing games during that time. While it’s quite insensitive to say that it has contributed to the growth and sales of NFT platforms and blockchain games, we have to admit that more users are now familiar on how in-game purchases work and the value that NFTs give to the gaming space,” he explained.

There have been several developments made to further integrate NFTs into mainstream gaming. In December 2019, Microsoft announced that its gaming platform, Azure, would be rewarding its participants with NFT’s based on the Ethereum blockchain.

An announcement from the firm explained that Azure Heroes “aims to reward individuals for verifiable acts of impact such as coaching, creating demos, building sample code, blogging about Azure or completing certain challenges. Community members that have demonstrated their contributions will be recognised with badges across a number of categories”.

This move also appears to be aimed towards rewarding its growing community of video game developers.

Microsoft collaborated with Enjin, a blockchain gaming startup, on the creation of the NFTs.