Industry Trend: Virtual Currencies

By | June 24, 2014
This entry is part 20 of 30 in the series Trends

Currently reading Skinner’s Digital Bank and noting down the trend around virtual currencies such as game currencies and Bitcoin.  The most notable trend is the number of failures, which is why I tend to limit my time spent on this space.

Gaming / social currencies covered in Digital Bank:

  • NHN in Japan – Line Coins
  • KakaoTalk in Korea – Choco
  • Tencent’s in China – QQ
  • DeNa in Japan – Moba
  • Facebook – Zynga credits
  • World of Warcraft – Diablo Gold
  • Amazon Coins.

Recent acquisitions noted:

  • VISA acquired PlaySpan, a company with a payment platform that handles transactions for digital goods
  • American Express has purchased Sometrics , a company that helps video game makers establish virtual currencies.

 

Series Navigation<< Industry Trend: Social & Mobile PaymentsIndustry Trend: Social Finance >>

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