Star Atlas, MoonPay Team on Crypto-Based Metaverse In-Game Payments

Metaverse design company Star Atlas partnered Thursday (June 9) with cryptocurrency payments infrastructure company MoonPay to allow players to buy nonfungible tokens (NFTs) and in-game currency ATLAS with a credit card instantly, according to a joint press release.

MoonPay will be responsible for facilitating fiat-to-crypto payments within the Star Atlas ecosystem, the press release said.

“We’ve always seen the future of the metaverse as a public utility accessible to all,” said Michael Wagner, co-founder and CEO of ATMTA, the principal development studio of Star Atlas, in the company press release.

“We want Star Atlas to be available to the global population, and MoonPay is helping us realize this goal. Being able to purchase Web3 assets with a credit or debit card opens the doors of the metaverse to everyday people around the world,” he said.

MoonPay’s fiat on-ramp helps people buy and sell cryptocurrencies and NFTs. Using MoonPay software, players with no blockchain experience and on-chain gaming experts can buy a Star Atlas spaceship NFT with their credit or debit card and begin exploring the metaverse.

“Our goal at MoonPay has always been to increase cryptocurrency adoption and illustrate the benefit Web3 technology can have in our lives,” said Ivan Soto-Wright, CEO and co-founder of MoonPay, in the joint press release. “Our partnership is a blueprint for the industry to introduce millions to Web3 and move the nearly $200 billion gaming industry forward.

“Web3 will change the ways games are designed and built, the ways we incentivize and engage users and developers and much more,” he said.

Related: Behind the Hype, Metaverse Marketing Offers Dismal ROI

Citi puts the total addressable market value of the metaverse, in all of its incarnations, at $13 trillion by 2030, and Morgan Stanley arrived at a similar figure in February — although it toned down the highlighted number to $8.3 trillion by not factoring in as-yet-undetermined new immersive marketing experiences.

Citi reached that number by assuming the metaverse would replace the internet altogether in less than a decade, adding the value of “internet-related revenue to that of the physical-world activities being displaced.”