Japan approves first gaming token: ENJIN rises 150 per cent

On 19 January, Enjin (ENJ) became the first gaming token to be legally approved for trading by the Japanese Virtual Currency Exchange Association (JVCEA). Following this, ENJ saw huge gains, with the price rising 150.27 percent in the last seven days alone.

According to a press release issued by Enjin yesterday (Tuesday), ENJIN is the first gaming token to receive the green light from the Japan Virtual Currency Exchange Association (JVCEA). This means that the cryptocurrency Crypto Engine will be available for trading on Japan’s largest and most regulated crypto exchange, Coincheck, from 26 January. Enjin was able to benefit enormously from this news. In the last 24 hours, ENJ rose from US$0.2977 to US$0.4122 at press time.

On a weekly basis, the gaming cryptocurrency even rose by over 150 per cent and thus has a current market capitalisation of 389 million US dollars.

What can the gaming token Enjin do?

In October, BTC-ECHO already presented three most promising NFT projects and even then Enjin took first place – but what exactly can the gaming token do? ENJ is a so-called store of value token that can be deposited in the Enjin ecosystem for the creation of non-fungible tokens (NFT). The resulting NFTs are very versatile, from gaming items to virtual real estate, ENJ can be used for virtually anything in virtual space. Furthermore, the generated NFTs are tradable and can be integrated across games. ENJ therefore has the potential to be the fuel of a new virtual economy.

Enjin first entered the Japanese market in 2019, collaborating with Tokyo-based blockchain company HashPort in an attempt to break into the Japanese gaming sector. Since then, Enjin has been doing everything it can to get approval from the JVCEA for ENJ’s listing – it has finally succeeded. Maxim Blagov, CEO of Enjin, is now hopeful that Enjin will make a breakthrough in Japan and made the following statement:

From Super Mario to Pokémon to Final Fantasy, Japan is home to groundbreaking games. We believe that some of the best blockchain games in the world will come from the Japanese gaming industry. We will help them make the most of blockchain technology.

Japan is the third largest gaming market in the world. Enjin now seems to be the cryptocurrency best positioned to penetrate this market.

Enjin Japan Gaming

Furthermore, the press release indicates that Enjin is not only planning to expand further in the gaming sector, but also to be part of the fast-growing NFT art industry. This is currently booming and only in mid-December a digital art collection was sold for a total of 3.5 million US dollars.

In addition, the gaming token ENJ has repeatedly made headlines in the past. Since 2019, ENJ and some decentralised applications (dApps) of the crypto project have been an integral part of the Samsung crypto wallet.

Block.one has 140,000 BTC on its balance sheet, which is twice the value of the entire EOS market cap: should we buy the asset?

EOS’s performance has been quite disappointing during the last few weeks‘ rally, so much so that the cryptocurrency has dropped out of the Top 10 by market cap: nevertheless, one industry executive believes that EOS is one of the best digital assets to invest in right now.

Jeff Dorman, Chartered Financial Analyst and CIO of Arca, made these Bitcoin Champion statements based on Block.one’s extensive Bitcoin holdings.

Before delving into the matter, Dorman noted that EOS is the only major crypto asset, aside from XRP, that has not made significant gains during this rally. Over the past twelve months, the price of EOS has fallen by 26%, and losses have even increased recently, following the resignation of CTO Dan Larimer.

Given that many ‚zombie projects‘ are up 300% to 1,000%, Dorman believes EOS provides a good opportunity from a risk/reward perspective.

According to data compiled by financial comparison platform Bankr.nl, Block.one owns 140,000 BTC, worth an estimated $5.25 billion at the current price level. Dorman compared the market cap of EOS with that of Bitcoins held by Block.one:

„At a current value of $2.77, EOS’s market capitalisation is $2.6 billion, which represents only 47% of the value of their BTC holdings. This means that by buying $EOS, you are effectively buying $BTC at $18,771. This is a significant discount.“
Dorman said that generating a return on investment (ROI) from Book Value is essentially like making a bet on what the company’s management will do with that capital. He added that Block.one and the EOS team has done little to instil confidence in the market.

At this point, EOS and Block.one CEO Brendan Blumer need to either create value for token holders as soon as possible, or return the capital. If not, they risk significant legal problems.

Not everyone agreed with Dorman, however. Some pointed out that investing in EOS is not the same as buying BTC:

„To be clear, buying Bitcoin is NOT the same as buying EOS. Block One owns 10% of the supply of EOS tokens, they update the EOSIO code. But EOS is a public blockchain. And B1 does not reward EOS token holders with their Bitcoin holdings.“
The huge amount of Bitcoin on Block.one’s balance sheets may explain what well-known crypto podcaster Peter McCormack said:

„EOS was nothing more than a scam to the detriment of Bitcoin.“
At the time of writing this article, EOS is trading at $2.80, down almost 10% from last week.