Animoca Brands looks to capitalise on growing cryptocurrency knowledge gap

Game developer Animoca Brands (ASX: AB1) is adding another string to its gaming bow by beginning development of a “gamified multiple cryptocurrency mobile app”.

Animoca has partnered with leading Japanese boutique software development and advisory firm Red Robot to develop, market and operate a gamified multiple cryptocurrency wallet mobile app, specifically designed for audiences with little knowledge of cryptocurrencies.

The cryptocurrency market has ballooned to over US$430 billion and more than 1,500 different cryptocurrency variants over the past few years on the back of growing consumer interest in a technology that offers financial flexibility and liberation from centralised accounting.

A cryptocurrency wallet is an application used to store private and public keys and interact with various blockchains while storing cryptocurrencies. On a global scale, there has been an exponential rise in the number of cryptocurrencies available to consumers (to the extent that financial regulators have taken fright) but the rate at which knowledge and understanding of the technology is being embraced by consumers has been far slower – thereby creating potential security and privacy issues, not to mention over-exuberant risk-taking.

Trouble in paradise

The rapid rise in the number and value of these cryptocurrencies has resulted in a highly fragmented landscape that is confusing and inaccessible for many consumers, and Animoca wants to step in and capitalise on this evolving market gap.

“This is an exciting opportunity for us in an incredibly dynamic and promising sector. We look forward to leveraging the expertise of Red Robot as we develop an app for everyday consumers. Our goal is to demystify the fields of cryptocurrency and blockchain and render them accessible to anyone,” said Yat Siu, co-founder and director of Animoca.

The app to be developed by Animoca and Red Robot will target audiences who have little knowledge of cryptocurrency and will educate users utilising gamification principles to lower the barriers of entry to cryptocurrency trading.

The app will be multifunctional and provide a mobile-based wallet as its first function, enabling users to store, send and receive digital currencies as well as monitoring their balances in real-time. The app will also educate consumers in the handling of cryptocurrencies while offering “built-in game functions to familiarise users with blockchain and cryptocurrency-based systems”.

Animoca said that as players progress through the app, they will earn in-game cryptocurrency rewards, which they can use to learn about digital currencies and related products like crypto-games and crypto-collectables.

According to Animoca, it is leveraging the capabilities in artificial intelligence and blockchain technologies that it gained through its investment in US-based software firm Fuel Powered, which is working on the back-end development of the app.

Shares in the game developer closed the day at A$0.046 – down 2%.