Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision is ‘not yet a metaverse play,’ Decrypt editor-in-chief says

Decrypt Editor-in-Chief Dan Roberts joins Yahoo Finance Live to discuss crypto and betting on the metaverse after Microsoft acquires Activision Blizzard.

Video Transcript

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EMILY MCCORMICK: This Microsoft-Activision deal is a great segue to our next guest because Microsoft's bet on gaming is also being seen as a push into the metaverse. And for this and more, we're bringing on Decrypt Editor-in-Chief Dan Roberts. Dan, thank you so much for joining us as always. What's your take on this tie-up between Microsoft and Activision Blizzard. Because as you point out, Activision isn't quite into metaverse gaming just yet.

DAN ROBERTS: Well, I'm glad you asked, Emily. And good to be back with you, guys. It's really not yet a metaverse play. But it's interesting to see that that's how Microsoft and Satya Nadella are framing it. And, you know, if I'm having a little bit of cynicism here, it's because every big company now in tech sees what's happening with crypto and NFTs, web3, if you want to call it that, and the metaverse. And this is all one big Venn diagram that has a lot of overlap. But they're trying to frame all their deals now and their moves as a metaverse play.

And as you said, Activision Blizzard really hasn't gone into metaverse gaming yet. But that's how Microsoft is framing this deal. So, A, it's a hint at what they want to do in the future. But, B, it's a reminder that some of these big old tech giants would like to show, we're on the bleeding edge. We're hip to the newest tech. Yeah, we know about metaverse. We're doing metaverse stuff.

And so it's kind of funny. I mean, the initial coverage of this deal was kind of taking it at face value. And then "The New York Times" and some others even tweaked their initial headlines because, again, it's not yet a metaverse deal. Activision Blizzard is not seen as a gaming company that has jumped into the metaverse. But now obviously, we're seeing that Microsoft would like it to be.

So it's all kind of theoretical for now. But to me, it's just the latest reminder that the metaverse as a concept, yes, it's become a little bit of a shallow buzzword. But it's also become big enough or popular enough that big companies would like to be there. They're trying to stake a claim ahead of time and say, we're going to be big in the metaverse.

ADAM SHAPIRO: Dan, I'm going to switch gears. I was listening to the podcast, "gm!" Congratulations on launching that this morning. And you had-- I'm not going to say his name correctly. But the fact that he's 30 and probably one of the wealthiest people on the planet, Sam Bankman-Fried, talking about what's going to happen next. And what's the takeaway for you? And how often the podcast-- is that going to be daily? Is it going to be weekly?

DAN ROBERTS: Well, thanks for listening, Adam. It's going to start as twice a month. One big, candid deep dive conversation with a big name in crypto each episode. You said Sam's name correctly. Although in crypto, everyone just calls Sam Bankman-Fried, SBF, SBF of FTX.

And he really has come seemingly out of nowhere. I mean, the company didn't exist four years ago. And now as we know it, is on a huge sports marketing spending spree, you know, slapped its name on the Miami Heat arena. The FTX logo is on every Major League Baseball umpire now. So we talked about that.

We also talked about what blockchains are going to be big in 2022, of course, besides just Bitcoin and Ethereum. And he talks about Solana, which you have there in your caption. That's correct. He's been a big booster of Solana, which was also our Coin of the Year at Decrypt for 2021. He also thinks Avalanche is going to do well.

These are sometimes framed as Ethereum killers. But that might not be the right way to think about them. They're more like additional smart contract blockchains that would like to do what Ethereum does and maybe can do it faster and cheaper. But, of course, it's easier to have faster times and lower fees when you don't have nearly the volume in the users that Ethereum does. So I think this is going to be a really interesting battleground in the years to come is kind of the battle over smart contract blockchains.

Bitcoin is likely going to remain the kind of alpha and the omega in terms of crypto investments. But most people nowadays see it as just that, an investment that you buy and hold on to. Although I should mention there are some people trying to make the Bitcoin blockchain a layer for other decentralized apps, as well.

EMILY MCCORMICK: Dan, I want to switch gears again and ask about another new headline here. A new partnership between Coinbase and Mastercard is going to be letting users make purchases on the Coinbase NFT marketplace through Mastercard without having to personally own cryptocurrencies. But you will still need a wallet to store the NFT after you buy it. So do you expect that this move is going to increase NFT transaction volume and ownership?

DAN ROBERTS: I think it might. And one way to think of this is Coinbase trying to do what Top Shot did. And it feels like eons ago now, but at the start of the first big NFT boom, which was almost a year ago, it was March of last year, it was really NBA Top Shot that was seeing all the volume and was the big leader in the space.

And what Top Shot had done, which was smart-- and that was run by Dapper Labs through a partnership with the NBA-- was you could buy Top Shot NFTs, which are really just video clips of NBA highlights, with dollars, with a credit card. You didn't have to worry about the crypto part. Now, of course, crypto purists would say, well, what's the point here? I mean, come on! But what they're trying to do is make it more friendly and mainstream to onboard users who, if you tell them, go to OpenSea and buy some ETH and use your MetaMask Chrome browser wallet to pay for NFTs with ETH, a lot of people are like, it's too many steps, it's intimidating.

So Coinbase is preparing to launch their own NFT marketplace. They would certainly like to compete with OpenSea, which, by the way, has set a new record for monthly volume this month, and we're only halfway through the month. $3 and 1/2 billion in volume on OpenSea. So even while crypto prices are in a slump to start the new year, NFTs are booming.

And I think what Coinbase wants to do with Mastercard is get people who, they don't want to worry about crypto, but they've heard about NFTs, they've heard that's cool, I'd like to try and buy one. So I suspect you're going to be able to buy it just with a Mastercard credit card, which some critics might say, that's too easy, you're going to have people spending dumb money. And they are teasing some other kind of integrations and rewards to come for Mastercard holders.

ADAM SHAPIRO: Dan, as we say thank you, just got to let you know two takeaways from the podcast. One, he didn't know anything, he admitted he didn't know anything about Bitcoin when he started. And then he lives in the Bahamas. He had me at lives in the Bahamas. When it's warm, you can't go wrong. All right, Dan, good to see you. Dan Roberts, just a reminder, is the editor-in-chief over at--