OKX Blockdream Ventures, the investment arm of world-leading cryptocurrency exchange OKX, today announced it’s investing tens of millions of dollars in WAX Studios. WAX is a carbon neutral blockchain network that supports over 23 million daily transactions across NFT trading, play-to-earn (P2E) gaming, and more. The funding will go towards greater functionality of NFTs in P2E games built on WAX, the development of an exchange for P2E gaming tokens, and upgrades to the WAX Cloud Wallet. With this investment, OKX Blockdream Ventures aims to advance blockchain-based gaming infrastructure to help integrate web3 technology into consumers’ daily lives.
William Quigley, CEO of WAX Studios, said, “This initiative with OKX Blockdream Ventures will further our mission to sustainably scale the WAX ecosystem and across multiple blockchains, bringing blockchain gaming to the mass market. Enthralling gaming experiences, seamless user experiences, and closer, more effective collaboration with game developers will all be facilitated with this initiative, and we look forward to further cementing our position as the most multi-faceted NFT and gaming studio.”
With over 12 million user accounts, WAX has been used by top brands such as NASCAR, Sony, Hasbro, and Mattel to create and sell their respective NFT collections. WAX’s novel vIRL NFTs are distinct from standard NFTs in their dynamic functionality, including app integrations, marketing tools, and e-commerce capabilities.
The capital from OKX Blockdream Ventures will be used to enable the integration of these NFT capabilities into WAX-based video games, ultimately giving more creative leeway to P2E game developers and means of engagement to end-users. The increased NFT functionality within blockchain-based games will create an experience akin to popular web2 games, while offering the ROI opportunity that gamers prioritize in P2E participation. WAX will work alongside innovative game development studios from around the world with proven gaming pedigree that can deliver this level of gameplay, digital fidelity, thoughtful system design, and high production value.
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Additionally, funding from Blockdream will support development of the WAXex exchange, which will specifically list the native tokens of play-to-earn video games that are built on the WAX blockchain. This will make it easier for new blockchain-based games to enter the market, as developers often struggle to get gaming tokens listed on reputable exchanges without a large existing userbase. WAXex will function like any mainstream cryptocurrency exchange while giving gamers a more familiar and accessible experience of using fiat currency to buy WAX’s native WAXP tokens, then using them to acquire any gaming token listed on the exchange. Developers building WAX-based games will get marketing and technical support, with plugins and dev kits for integrating the engines Unity and Unreal, soon to come from WAX Studios.