Roblox founder and CEO David Baszucki sees a future where NFTs come to the popular metaverse gaming platform – and he shared how such a major move could happen.
In an interview with CNBCBaszucki was asked whether the multibillion-dollar platform’s synthetic Robux currency could become a currency that can be used outside of Roblox — and whether NFTs could exist on Roblox and then disappear from the platform.
“There’s a kind of dream here about objects and NFTs moving from platform to platform,” Baszucki said.
He gave the hypothetical example of a celebrity musician Elton John launching limited edition capes for charity on Roblox.
“We can imagine that one day they would disappear off the platform, as an NFT, possibly be sold off the platform, and then come back on the platform,” Baszucki said of the theoretical capes.
“What we do expect is that the creators – whether it’s Elton John or Nike, or anyone else creating a digital asset – play a key role and have a fair degree of control in that process,” the CEO added.
Why should NFTs on Roblox matter? Roblox is one huge platform with a wide reach, especially among a younger audience. Roblox’s daily active user count is up 20% compared to November last year, per CNBC. And in the third quarter of this year, Roblox took over 70 million people spends an average of 2.5 hours on its platform, according to Roblox’s 2023 version of its Digital Expression, Fashion & Beauty Trends Report, published Thursday.
Roblox was launched earlier this year Limits, a new category of virtual wearable products for its platform that can be sold in limited quantities and resold once buyers tire of their purchases. For every Limited resold, a 10% royalty fee is returned to the original creator. Although Limiteds are not NFTs, they share many NFT features, but without the blockchain technology.
As for Robux becoming usable outside of Roblox, it’s already technically possible if third-party sites allow users to log into their Roblox accounts. Some third party sites already use Robux for various purposes, like gambling, without taking clear steps to verify the user’s age. However, Roblox has publicly condemned and previously recounted such use cases Declutter that such sites are prohibited and “have no legal connection with Roblox.”
While Baszucki’s comments about NFTs in Roblox are far from dismissive, they also aren’t a guarantee that Roblox will add blockchain rails for its digital assets. For now, it seems like Roblox’s leadership is open to the idea of interoperable NFTs, but there’s no indication that such a shift is actually in the works.
Roblox has not yet responded Declutter‘s request for comment on the company’s NFT plans.
Edited by Andrew Hayward