Microsoft crypto plans: leaked documents reveal plans for an Xbox crypto wallet

Get all the essential market news and expert opinions in one place with our daily newsletter. Receive a comprehensive recap of the day’s top stories directly to your inbox. Sign up here!

(Kitco News) – Tech behemoth Microsoft has inadvertently revealed its plans to integrate a crypto wallet with the popular Xbox gaming console, leaked internal documents posted on the Resetera gaming forum last week show.

According to a report from The Verge, unredacted documents in the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) case against Microsoft – where the regulator is attempting to block the company’s $69 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard – included communications between Xbox executives that detail plans for a new disc-less Xbox Series X, a gyro controller, and a next-gen hybrid Xbox to be released in 2028.

Also included in the documents was an Xbox roadmap from May 2022 that detailed plans to integrate a cryptocurrency wallet into the next version of the console.

The leak has been called the “biggest in Xbox history” because unredacted emails like this don’t usually appear in the public domain.

Xbox chief Phil Spencer emailed Microsoft employees about the leak last Tuesday, saying the plans “were unintentionally disclosed” as part of the FTC v. Microsoft case.

“I know this is disappointing, even if many of the documents are well over a year old and our plans have evolved,” Spencer said. “I also know we all take the confidentiality of our plans and our partners’ information very seriously. This leak obviously is not us living up to that expectation.”

Spencer also addressed the leak on X (formerly Twitter), saying, “We’ve seen the conversation around old emails and documents. It is hard to see our team’s work shared in this way because so much has changed and there’s so much to be excited about right now and in the future. We will share the real plans when we are ready.”

“Digital assets and gaming have always been closely tied in concept,” said Michael Silberberg, head of investor relations at AltTabCapital. “This isn’t just about this one niche of the game ecosystem either. Across the gaming industry, in-game micro-transactions account for nearly ? of all gaming revenue globally. Microsoft’s inclusion of cross-chain wallets in Xbox will allow the next generation of game developers to enable players to create and retain real value from in-game worlds, facilitating actual digital asset ownership, decentralized player-driven markets, and reduced fraud in digital economies.”

Integrating crypto “can disrupt and supercharge the $76B (2023) in-game microtransaction market,” he added. “Opening the gaming digital marketplace to crypto assets has the potential to increase the number of participants by 2.5 billion gamers in the digital assets market, which will not only increase the number of transactions but strengthen the position of digital assets in the global economy.”

While the leak made the plans more official in the eyes of the public, rumors have been circulating for years that Microsoft and its competitors like Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google were planning to add support for cryptocurrencies in the future as blockchain technology adoption grows.

The heavy-handed effort by regulators in the U.S. to squash Facebook’s plans to launch its own stablecoin in 2019 and the onset of a crypto winter following the bull market of 2021 have put many of those plans on the back burner.

However, the recent flurry of spot Bitcoin ETF applications by some of the world’s largest asset managers to go along with banks like JPMorgan and Citi announcing plans to launch blockchain-based deposit tokens have reignited interest in the asset class. Based on this and other recent developments, it wouldn’t be surprising to see an official announcement from Microsoft and Xbox regarding future plans to integrate a crypto wallet with their software.

Microsoft is also rumored to be working on integrating a non-custodial Ethereum (ETH) wallet into its Edge browser, but details on that development, including a potential release date, are scarce.

In February, the company partnered with Ankr, a decentralized blockchain infrastructure provider, to provide a novel node hosting service on the Microsoft Azure Marketplace in order to support enterprises and organizations that need access to blockchain data. Through the collaboration, developers are able to develop on Ankr’s RPCs and middleware platform for decentralized apps (DApps) and use Microsoft’s cloud platform to meet their scaling needs.

RPC nodes, such as those offered by Ankr, allow decentralized applications to link to blockchains and access user data. For this reason, they serve as a critical piece of infrastructure for the blockchain sector.

In August, Microsoft partnered with Aptos Labs, the firm behind the development of products and applications on the layer-1 blockchain network Aptos, with the goal of accelerating global web3 adoption using Microsoft Azure OpenAI service through the creation of an artificial intelligence chatbot, dubbed “Aptos Assistant.”

Aptos Labs created the Aptos Assistant to help simplify the process of onboarding new users into Web3, including creating wallets to complete the onboarding process, converting fiat currency to cryptocurrency, and understanding how blockchain and decentralization benefit users personally.

“Aptos Assistant will enable users to seamlessly onboard into web3 by asking any kind of question regarding the Aptos blockchain ecosystem using natural language,” the companies said. “It will also be available to guide developers as they build smart contracts and decentralized apps – and direct them toward relevant, accessible resources.”