Will this ultimately prove to be a significant step for mainstream adoption, or a publicity stunt?
SBI esports, a subsidiary of Japanese financial services conglomerate SBI Group, announced that its esports players would receive salaries in Ripple (XRP) going forward as part of a sponsorship deal with venture capital firm, VC Trade.
According to the official announcement, player salaries will be paid via crypto instead of fiat in order to strengthen the company’s presence among esports players who also use digital currencies.
SBI esports, which is a long-time Ripple partner, said that this sponsorship deal is a way to diversify its portfolio within the blockchain industry. Their goal is to “create and nurture a healthy market based on customer-centricity, improve prices, and expand liquidity.”
As of press time, XRP holds a market capitalization of $10,827,898,158, making it the fourth largest crypto in the category of market cap, according to CoinMarketCap.
Back in 2019, Ripple’s developer ecosystem, Project Xpring, and the game-centric blockchain platform, Forte, jointly established a $100 million fund to support game developers.
Mac Ocampo, head of growth at blockchain entertainment studio Virtually Human Studio, previously lamented to Cointelegraph that “not all gamers are crypto traders, and not all crypto traders are gamers” — something he felt was a major challenge faced by the gaming industry.
