Token 2049: The crypto trend Animoca Brands is watching this year

According to Omar Elissar, Animoca Brands’ managing director for the Middle East and head of global strategic partnerships, Animoca Brands is looking at tokenization of real-world assets (RWAs), artificial intelligence (AI) projects, and trends in the gaming space for investment and development.

In an interview with reporters at the Token2049 conference, Elissar said the company is exploring areas such as stablecoins, tokenization of real-world assets, the intersection of AI and cryptocurrencies, alternative use cases such as decentralized science, and Web3 games.

The executive said that gaming is “part of our DNA.” Reflecting on the current state of the Web3 gaming industry, he said: “While there has been less publicity in recent times, the development work behind the scenes has not stopped. Several of the recent games have been very interesting and fun, which just solves one of the main doubts people have about Web3 games.”

Animoca Brands is one of the most important crypto-native venture capital firms in the field and can serve as a bellwether for crypto investors to understand hot or emerging market trends.

Animoca Brands Signs Stablecoin and Blockchain Agreements

In February 2025, Animoca Brands, Standard Chartered Bank and Hong Kong Telecom (HKT) signed an agreement to develop a Hong Kong dollar stablecoin that will be overcollateralized and pegged to the Hong Kong dollar at a 1:1 ratio.

The stablecoin must first be approved by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) before it can begin trading. Hong Kong's financial authorities are currently developing comprehensive stablecoin regulations.

On March 27, Animoca Brands signed an agreement with Soneium, a Layer-1 blockchain network developed by Japanese technology company Sony, to develop a digital identity system that features pictures of anime characters that can be assigned to on-chain users to represent identity.

Animoca reported that its "booking" revenue increased by 12% year-on-year in fiscal 2024 - a figure that includes all revenue plus the sum of revenue that has been booked but not yet received.