Microsoft has invested in a new Korean Blockchain prospect
Microsoft has officially invested in the blockchain. Their recent venture comes in the form of the new up-and-coming Korean blockchain company, We made.
Wemade recently raised $46 million in funding. Microsoft’s contribution to this sum was 14.8 million dollars for this a significant contribution from the technology giant.
The other two companies that jumped on the funding bandwagon were Shinhan Asset Management and Kiwoom Securities.
“This is a meaningful investment by reputable financial and strategic investors with a proven track record. Wemade and Wemix will continue to make efforts to attract more capital and actively invest to build the global digital economy platform.” – We made CEO Henry Chang
Image credit | We made
Who is Wemade?
Founded way back in 2000 when we saw the internet bubble of the time burst, Wemade has specialized in creating PC and mobile games for over a decade now.
Some of the Wemades titles include:
- Digimon Battle Online
- MIR4
- Riders of Icarus
Wemade made itself known back in 2018 with its MIR4 title, some would consider them an early entrant into the blockchain game. MIR4 is an MMORPG game played by millions around the world.
Despite the funding, Wemade has managed to create its own blockchain gaming ‘Mainnet’ called Wemix where players can auction off and bid on NFT collectibles that can be used within the Wemade ecosystem of game titles.
Furthermore, players can verify and obtain information about transactions made on the blockchain. This gives full transparency to those who use Wemade’s products and services.
Wemix is in talks to release its own token economy and has also released its own Stablecoin, ‘Wemix’. The stablecoin is backed by the USDC and allows the maintenance of the Wemix token while demand and trading volumes may be low.
A change in tone from Microsoft?
In the past, names in the Microsoft camp were very vocal about their opinions on NFTs, crypto and blockchain technology.
Mojangthe company behind Minecraft and aside from the Microsoft Studios conglomerate of game developers, spoke out about their stance on NFTs on Minecraft.
“We made some comments in Minecraft about how we view NFTs in this area because we saw people doing things that we thought were exploitative in our product – we said we don’t want that,” – Mojang
With the many horror stories that have come from the NFT space, it comes as no surprise that a name like Mojang took this stance. Their main user base is generally young children, making them highly vulnerable to tech-related scams. Without a higher authority over the NFT space, it makes it difficult for people to get justice if they fall victim to an NFT/Crypto scam. Decentralized concepts can work both ways.
It will be cool to see how this new relationship between Microsoft and Wemade is shaped. The emergence of web2 companies in the blockchain is a great sign for all types of games while adding to an ever-growing list of contributors. Their initial stance on blockchain technology may have changed with this recent venture, but keep your eyes peeled to see how this partnership develops in the long run!
