As the hype around non-fungible tokens (NFTs) has grown, high-profile brands around the world have rushed to stake their own claim in the world of digital tokens. To match this rising demand, major tech companies across the board have hustled to integrate NFT display, sale, and trading on their own platforms and products, hoping to become their existing customers’ go-to for all things NFT.
One major tech holdout, however, has been Microsoft. In a statement issued in late July by Mojang, the Microsoft-owned company behind the massively popular computer game Minecraft, it was announced that there will be no NFT support in the Minecraft world. According to the statement, NFTs would only promote division among players, as they are “not inclusive of all our community and create a scenario of the haves and the have-nots.”
Mojang is hardly the only Microsoft voice coming out against the proliferation of NFTs. In June, company co-founder Bill Gates dismissed the utility of the digital tokens, characterizing them as “100% based on greater fool theory”—that is, a scam that can only be profitable by selling it to a buyer more foolish than oneself.
