The Japanese financial services giant SBI Holdings’ subsidiary SBI e-Sports is bringing Ripple’s native digital currency XRP into the eSports industry as it has inked a sponsorship deal with SBI VC Trade which is a venture capital firm.
SBI e-Sports to pay player salaries with XRP
According to an official announcement made by SBI Holdings, SBI VC Trade and SBI e-Sports have made a partnership agreement with each other with SBI VC Trade to serve as a sponsor of e-sports’ teams.
As per the sponsorship deal, the logo of SBI VC Trade will be added onto the website of the SBI e-Sports as well as on the uniforms of its teams.
Moreover, the company has said to use cryptocurrency instead of fiat currency for paying the salaries of players. Players now will be able to receive their salaries in the form of XRP the native digital currency of the blockchain payment technology company Ripple. As the official announcement states:
“Through this partnership, if a player belonging to “SBI e-Sports” wishes to do so, the annual salary will be paid by the crypto asset “XRP”.
In this way, the fourth-ranked digital currency by market capitalization would be able to make its way into the growing industry of e-sports. This will further boost the mainstream adoption of XRP. The e-sports market has been witnessing rapid growth over the course of the recent time. Last year, its annual revenue reached $957.5 million rising from $776.4 million which was the total revenue witnessed by the e-sports industry in the year 2018.
Moreover, SBI Holdings is a partner of the blockchain behemoth Ripple and therefore, it supports its native digital currency XRP. At the beginning of this year, it provided its shareholders an opportunity to get XRP as a benefit.
Ripple’s XRP has gained a lot of traction worldwide in recent times because of its ability to be used for intra as well as inter-bank payments and settlements as it is more scalable and faster than other digital currencies according to its company.