The blockchain gaming and metaverse giant Animoca Brands just announced it has invested $30 million into a financial app called ‘hi.’ The money will be used to further develop hi products to drive the mass adoption of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology around the world.
Sean Rach, the co-founder of hi said that the collaboration would offer new “opportunities for user onboarding within their ecosystem.” He added that users will be able to make “direct transactions with tokens from the Animoca Brands ecosystem” using hi debit cards.
According to Animoca Brands’ co-founder and executive chairman Yat Siu, the company aims to work with hi to continue developing the hi App and the hi Protocol (a layer-2 solution for Ethereum) to “drive positive impact for the broader Web3 ecosystem.” The investment will be used to help create and deliver new products, as well as make improvements to existing ones.
One of the main focuses of the collaboration is to create an all-in-one service that merges investments, savings, and payments. Both companies are also intent on developing a unique mechanism to authenticate humans. One way they’ll do this is through the hi Protocol’s proof-of-human-identiy (PoHI) solution.
Currently, hi has over 3.5 million users worldwide, with one million of them already verified through Know Your Customer (KYC) checks. The verification of humans is becoming increasingly important as AI technology rapidly advances.
Hi first made Web3 headlines last year when it teamed up with Mastercard to release customized debit cards featuring OG NFT collections liked Bored Apes and CryptoPunks. Beginning in Q3 of 2023, users will be able to personalize their debit cards with their PFP NFTs, and more importantly, they can use their hi debit cards to spend fiat and cryptocurrencies at more than 90 million locations around the world.
A Brief Look at Animoca Brands
Animoca Brands is a Hong Kong-based game software and venture capital company founded in 2014 to develop mobile games. But in 2018, the company pivoted to focus on blockchain-based gaming and non-fungible tokens. Since then, the firm has risen to become one of the most important players in Web3 gaming.
At Rarity Sniper, we’ve covered several stories about the company’s moves in Web3. Here’s a quick review of some of the things Animoca Brands has been up to over the past year:
- July 2023. Animoca Brands Backs Weebox’s ‘San FranTokyo‘ Metaverse
- December 2022. Animoca Brands Announces $2B Metaverse Fund
- November 2022. Animoca Brands’ TinyTap Sells Out Publisher NFTs
- October 2022. Cool Cats Secures Gaming Partnership with Animoca Brands
- October 2022. Animoca Hopes GameFi Will Introduce People to Metaverse
- July 2022. Animoca Brands NFT Game Publisher Raises $75M
Despite the bear market, it looks like Animoca Brands’ move into Web3 has paid off. After its latest funding round in July 2022, the company was valued at $5.9 billion. Of course, only time will if its latest partnership with hi will be successful. But as far as we’re concerned, Animoca Brands is one of the top Web3 companies to watch.