Minecraft will not allow NFTs in the game
Important takeaways
- Minecraft said today that it would not allow the use of NFTs and blockchain technology on its in-game servers.
- The development team cited concerns about equal access and the speculative nature of the NFT market.
- Minecraft developers at Climate Replay have previously expressed concern about the environmental impact of NFTs.
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Minecraft said in an announcement today that it will not allow the use of NFTs in the popular voxel sandbox game.
Minecraft rejects NFT integration
Minecraft said that “integrations of NFTs with Minecraft in general are not something we will support or allow.”
It added that blockchain technologies are not allowed on the client and server applications, and that in-game content and mods cannot be used to “create a scarce digital resource.”
Minecraft noted that server owners could charge for server access, but said all players should have the same experience. NFTs conflict with this goal as the technology “can create models of scarcity and exclusion,” it argued.
The team also warned about the speculative nature of NFT prices, suggesting that NFTs “could end up costing players who buy them.” It also warned of fraud and price gouging.
Minecraft noted that various third-party companies have already launched non-fungible tokens tied to the game, including NFTs distributed for playing on game servers and NFTs for completing tasks outside of the game.
While the team may not be able to control the use of NFTs outside of the platform, it said that these projects “do not conform to [our] values of creative inclusion and playing together.”
Ecological concerns raised earlier
Minecraft did not mention any concerns about the environmental impact of NFTs in today’s announcement.
However, Climate Replay – a group made up mainly of Minecraft developers – published a petition in April addressing the issue. There, Climate Replay called NFTs “intentionally ineffective” with a “concrete, significant environmental impact” and an “unnecessary expenditure of physical resources.”
Most NFTs are circulated on Ethereum, which uses approximately 78 TWh of energy per year to process transactions. Although some companies have chosen to use second-layer networks with lower energy requirements, the problem remains a concern for many.
As such, Minecraft’s resistance to NFTs covers almost every reason, from accessibility to environment.
Not all hope is lost for NFT fans. Surprisingly, Minecraft owner Microsoft collaborated with Enjin last year on a project involving Minecraft-integrated NFTs. This effort could pave the way for a more refined policy in the future.
Disclosure: At the time of writing, the author of this piece owned BTC, ETH and other cryptocurrencies.
