Ripple added! Japanese SBI Group announces: eSports members can choose to receive salaries in Ripple.

Japanese financial group and venture capital firm SBI Holdings' subsidiary, SBI e-sports, announced that through a sponsorship agreement with the cryptocurrency exchange SBI VC Trade, members of its esports team will be able to choose to receive their salaries in Ripple (XRP) in the future.

Core Focus on Digital Asset Applications

According to an official announcement by SBI Holdings on September 30th, the group is actively enhancing the influence of digital currencies in the esports industry. Data from market research firm Statista shows that the esports market has been growing rapidly, with revenue increasing from $7.764 billion in 2018 to $9.575 billion last year. By 2023, esports industry revenue is estimated to reach nearly $16 billion.

As a long-term partner of Ripple, SBI e-sports stated:

This sponsorship agreement is one way to diversify their investment portfolio within the blockchain industry. Their goal is to focus on customers, build a healthy market, increase the value of cryptocurrency assets, and enhance asset liquidity.

SBI to Launch Cryptocurrency Fund

SBI Group has had a deep partnership with Ripple, and it was reported earlier that in the cryptocurrency fund SBI plans to launch in the latter half of this year, there will be only three cryptocurrencies, with XRP accounting for as much as 50%, and the rest being Bitcoin and Ethereum. Group Chairman Yoshitaka Kitao previously emphasized, "This will be a product that allows all financial institutions to enter."

Despite continuous news of similar "strategic partnerships," the price of Ripple's XRP has not shown improvement overall this year, remaining almost flat compared to the beginning of the year, and its market value has been surpassed by the stablecoin USDT, currently ranking fourth.

Previously, Ripple faced criticism from the cryptocurrency community due to its long-standing selling mechanism. While Ripple claims to have suspended "programmatic" sales from the XRP Escrow, holders still face selling pressure from Ripple executives.

Asset monitoring platform Whale Alert detected at the end of September that former Ripple executive Chris Larsen transferred $115 million worth of XRP, to which Larsen responded by stating that he transferred the XRP to the institutional custody platform NYDIG.

However, some in the cryptocurrency community pointed out that through NYDIG, XRP could be sold over-the-counter without the need to transfer to prominent exchanges, questioning, "Are you selling or trading?"

There was a significant amount of discussion below Larsen's tweet, but he did not respond extensively.