Hong Kong blockchain gaming firm Animoca sets sights on recovery after listless 2023
Hong Kong blockchain investment and video gaming firm Animoca Brands is looking at a recovery in 2024 after its fortunes took a tumble last year, as the collapse of a number of cryptocurrency enterprises set back the city's nascent digital-asset market.
Animoca, which operates several non-fungible token games and has invested in hundreds of blockchain start-ups, on Wednesday reported that its 2023 bookings - including revenue and various digital-asset sales - totalled US$280 million, down 30 per cent from US$402 million in 2022, according to the company's latest unaudited financial statement.
The firm attributed that decline to a slowdown of activity in the virtual-asset market and the fallout faced by crypto firms, following the high-profile meltdown of cryptocurrency exchange FTX and the implosion of stablecoins such as TerraUSD and its sister coin Luna.
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Animoca said its cash and stablecoin balance declined to US$175 million at the end of 2023, from US$194 million as of April 30 last year.
Still, the company's situation appears to have recovered in the first quarter this year, according to its financial statement.
Bookings in the first three months of the year jumped 72 per cent to US$90 million, up from US$52 million in the same period last year. Its cash and stablecoin balance also increased to US$291 million at the end of March.
Animoca's ability to weather last year's storm in the industry has bolstered its confidence in the digital-asset market's recovery, while weighing its options for a potential public listing in 2025.
Bitcoin prices, for example, have risen 30 per cent since the beginning of this year, despite dropping 14 per cent over the past month amid another crypto sell-off. The first and most commonly traded cryptocurrency reached a record-high of US$73,000 in March.
Based in Cyberport, Animoca has said that it is "confident" of returning to the public market, possibly in Hong Kong or the Middle East, as early as late next year, the South China Morning Post reported last month. Founded in 2014, the company was delisted in Australia in March 2020 amid scrutiny of its cryptocurrency activities.
That listing plan, however, is still at an early stage, as Animoca has not yet hired an adviser for a potential initial public offering, co-founder Yat Siu said last month.
This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2024 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
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