Roblox dismisses rumors of XRP support

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Roblox has denied rumors of the game accepting XRP as an in-game payment method. The confusion started when BitPay, a cryptocurrency payment service, posted on social media that XRP could be used for in-game transactions through Xsolla, mentioning Roblox and Smite in their announcement.

Roblox’s company representative clarified via email that the claim was not accurate.

The email reads, “While Xsolla is one of Roblox’s payment providers, we do not enable Bitcoin, including Ripple, on the platform. BitPay’s social post that most articles are referencing is inaccurate and has been removed.”

BitPay has since deleted the social media post, which said, “Xsolla now accepts XRP with BitPay as a payment method for their games such as Smite and Roblox.

“You can use your favourite cryptocurrency to buy, play, and enjoy gaming like never before.”

BitPay apologized for the claim, acknowledging the widespread confusion among cryptocurrency enthusiasts and gamers.

When asked why the tweet was deleted, BitPay CMO Bill Zielke disclosed the reason via email, saying, “There was an error in the tweet. We will have more tweets about merchants accepting crypto in the near future. Stay tuned.”

As reported by Decrypt, another Roblox spokesperson also confirmed this misinformation, saying, “Unfortunately, we’ve seen quite a few articles on this and the info is inaccurate.”

The spokesperson confirmed that Xsolla is one of Roblox’s payment providers but clarified that Roblox had yet to provide support for cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or XRP as a payment method.

Roblox’s daily user count reaches 65 million

Roblox saw both successes and setbacks in the past years. Recent data from Demandsage show that the platform had a peak of 65 million daily users in the second quarter of this year. According to Roblox’s SEC filing (Form S-1) for Q2 2021, the platform boasts 11.8 million daily active users in Europe.

In September, Roblox’s value reached $17 billion, with total earnings for the first semester of the year being $1.3 billion. These numbers stem from Roblox’s core business model, which centers around its in-game currency, Robux. Robux can be earned, used within the platform and converted to real-world currency of USD.

Roblox also generates revenue from users purchasing Robux, subscribing to Roblox Premium and collecting commissions from successful developer transactions.

The successes followed a tumultuous year. In Q3 of 2022, Roblox reported losses of $297.8 million. Furthermore, Roblox also encountered security issues, with at least 900 Discord servers compromised by phishing attacks since December 2021. These breaches resulted in the theft of at least $73 million in NFTs and cryptocurrencies. Most of the hackers were under the age of 18.

Roblox powered by 9.5 million developers

As reported by Backlinko, Roblox now has 9.5 million developers, a significant rise from 1.7 million in March 2017. They had only about 634,000 developers in 2016.

In Q2 2021, developers on Roblox earned over $129 million, marking an almost eight times increase since early 2018. In 2020, Roblox developers made over $328 million.

Between September 2019 and September 2020, over 960,000 community developers received virtual currencies from the platform. Out of this group, 3,800 qualified to exchange Robux for real-world currency, with 2,800 of them making the exchange for U.S. dollars.

Most community developers on Roblox, around 99.47 percent, earn less than $1,000 annually. Yet, in the past year, 32 Roblox developers earned over a million dollars.

Developers create Roblox games using Roblox Studio and the Roblox engine. According to Roblox’s internal data, there are over 40 million games on the platform.

Adopt Me! is currently the most popular game on Roblox, with 25.40 billion visits. Other top entries include Tower of Hell with 14.49 billion visits, MeepCity with 11.78 billion visits and Brookhaven with 11.39 billion visits.