Blockchain gaming company Animoka Brands is coming to Bitcoin

Hong Kong-based gaming software company Animoka Brands is entering the Bitcoin industry by supporting the Opal Foundation's new Bitcoin ecosystem protocol.

Animoka Brands took to X on April 30 to announce that the company is “coming to Bitcoin,” expressing its ambition to become the “biggest Web3 ecosystem” for gaming built on Bitcoin.

The company's move to Bitcoin includes the Opal Protocol and the BLIF token, which will be the Opal Protocol Runes Token and launched by Animoka and Metaverse's technology platform Darwise.

In the announcement, Animoca described the upcoming BLIF as a token to enable “real digital life” on Bitcoin and announced that Bitcoin (BTC) is ready for Web3.

Yat Siu, Executive Chairman and Co-Founder of Animoca, added, “With the advent of Ordinals, Bitcoin took the giant leap from simply being a way to store value to becoming a cultural store in the Web3 era.

“The exciting work of the OPAL protocol and increasing our presence on the Bitcoin chain will help advance our vision of an open metaverse where everyone can enjoy digital property rights and benefit from the power of network effects.”

The six Animoka Brands portfolio companies have joined Genesis as members, said the company's X thread. Additionally, the announcement noted that all future Bitcoin-based projects from Animoka Brands will be partnered with the Opal Foundation.

In the year Launched in 2024, the Opal protocol positions itself as a “decentralized ecosystem protocol on top of Bitcoin, powered by BLIF.” His “writing paper” reads:

“The OPAL protocol is not just a digital playground; it is a seamless blend of virtual and real-life experiences designed to be a digital extension of reality where banking, entertainment, education and social interaction coexist.

According to an Opal spokesperson from the Opal Telegram group, the launch date for the Opal protocol and BLIF weather will be announced at a later date.

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Although the Opal protocol has not yet launched, the X profile counts over 270,000 subscribers at the time of writing.

“We are proud to have Animoka Brands as our first strategic launch partner as the Opal Foundation helps connect their vision to establish the open Opal protocol to Bitcoin and ordinals,” the company said on its website.

Cointelegraph reached out to Animoca for comment on the news but did not receive a response at the time of publication.

The announcement of Animoca's foray into bitcoin comes at the April 30 trading debut of the spot Bitcoin and Ether (ETH) exchange-traded funds (ETF) in Hong Kong.

On its first day of launch, ETFs recorded smaller volumes compared to those seen by Bitcoin ETFs in the United States in January 2024.

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