Google\u2019s decision to allow developers to expand the ways nonfungible tokens can be used in their games on the Play Store was met with a collective sigh of relief on crypto Twitter.<\/p>\n
NFT investors, who have for months watched the prices of their collections fall and interest in this colourful corner of the digital-asset market wane, see the changes in Google\u2019s policy as a sign that the market is not dead yet.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re so back<\/a><\/strong>,\u201d said Kyle McCollom, a co-founder at a Brooklyn-based crypto startup.<\/p>\n \u201cYou thought NFTs were dead?\u201d\u00a0tweeted<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0Daniel Borovik, creator of multiple collections listed on OpenSea, the largest marketplace by volume for nonfungible tokens.<\/p>\n In\u00a0a blog post<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0published Wednesday, Alphabet Inc.\u2019s Google said it will allow developers to offer games where players can buy, sell and earn tokenized digital assets\u2014like nonfungible tokens\u2014subject to specific guidelines.<\/p>\n NFTs once ranked among the crypto industry\u2019s hottest assets, attracting the attention of celebrities like Madonna, Justin Bieber and\u00a0superstar DJ Steve Aoki<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n But in the months since the collapse of FTX, the digital assets most closely associated with cartoonish pictures of apes have since seen their value and\u00a0popularity plummet<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n Monthly global sales volumes for NFTs fell 38% to $653 million in June compared with the same period last year, according to blockchain data provider CryptoSlam.<\/p>\n Google has had a mixed strategy on blockchain and crypto: Google Play still\u00a0bans crypto mining apps<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>from its marketplace, while Google Cloud in 2021\u00a0teamed up<\/a>\u00a0with Dapper Labs, the creator of the NBA Top Shot digital collectibles.<\/p>\n The move to clarify its policies also further aligns Google with main rival Apple Inc., which\u00a0introduced new App Store guidelines<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0in October on crypto trading, as well as on the use of NFTs within apps and games.<\/p>\n Both Google and Apple have been lambasted by the crypto and gaming industries for\u00a0high fees<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0on in-app transactions.<\/p>\n Brian Armstrong, chief executive officer of crypto exchange Coinbase, publicly criticised Apple<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>last year over these in-app transaction rules, citing their \u201capp store monopoly.\u201d<\/p>\n Google Play\u2019s updated guidelines, which\u00a0go into effect<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>Dec. 7, say that games can support transactions involving tokenized assets under the platform\u2019s existing\u00a0Real-Money Gambling, Games, and Contests policy<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n Developers will have to follow specific rules, such as ensuring that the value of an NFT is made clear to a player at the time of purchase.<\/p>\n NFT investors, who have for months watched the prices of their collections fall and interest in this colourful corner of the digital-asset market wane, see the changes in Google\u2019s policy as a sign that the market is not dead yet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341034,"featured_media":484955,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44696],"tags":[167,9557,69137,72060],"class_list":["post-500065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cryptocurrency","tag-google","tag-google-play-store","tag-non-fungible-tokens-nft","tag-opensea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500065"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341034"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500065"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500065\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":500087,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500065\/revisions\/500087"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/484955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Now read: Bored Ape thief charged for stealing R8.44 million in crypto and NFTs<\/a><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"