Animoca Brands Expands Crypto Focus to Stablecoins, AI and DePIN for 2026: A Strategic Pivot Beyond Gaming
Introduction: Animoca Brands Charts a New Multi-Sector Course
In a significant strategic evolution, Animoca Brands, a titan in the Web3 gaming arena, is officially broadening its investment horizon. According to Keyvan Peymani, the company’s chief strategy officer, the firm is set to expand its formidable portfolio beyond its gaming roots to encompass stablecoins, artificial intelligence (AI), and Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks (DePIN) as key focuses for 2026. This pivot, announced during a CNBC interview, signals a maturation of the company’s vision, aiming to leverage its extensive ecosystem to capitalize on the most promising and utility-driven sectors within the broader digital asset space. While gaming will remain a core pillar, this deliberate diversification underscores a calculated move to position Animoca at the forefront of the next wave of crypto adoption, driven by institutional utility and real-world applications.
The Foundation: A Web3 Gaming Powerhouse Broadens Its Vision
Animoca Brands was founded in 2014 and has long been synonymous with Web3 gaming. Its early and prescient investments in groundbreaking projects like Axie Infinity, CryptoKitties, Colossal, and Yield Guild Games cemented its status as a foundational force in the sector. Today, this legacy is quantified in its portfolio: of the 628 companies Animoca has invested in, 230 are directly related to gaming.
This deep-seated expertise provides the bedrock for its new strategy. As Peymani stated, the overarching aim is "to always look at how the ecosystem we are a part of is expanding." The company’s strategy is not an abandonment of gaming but an expansion from it, using its capital, network, and operational knowledge to foster growth in adjacent and high-potential verticals. This approach mirrors the natural evolution of many tech giants that start with a single focus and gradually leverage their scale to dominate new markets.
Stablecoins: Aiming for Market Leadership in a Critical Sector
A major near-term focus for Animoca Brands will be the stablecoin sector. Peymani explicitly outlined the company's ambition, stating, “What we aim to do is whenever there is something interesting and exciting happening, as with stablecoins and RWAs [Real-World Assets], that we’re going to become one of the market leaders.”
Context and Background: Stablecoins have evolved from being mere on-ramps for crypto trading to becoming critical infrastructure for decentralized finance (DeFi), cross-border payments, and now, with the growing interest in Real-World Assets (RWAs), a bridge between traditional finance and blockchain. Their value is tied to stable assets like the U.S. dollar, providing price stability in an otherwise volatile market.
Strategic Rationale: For Animoca, diving into stablecoins is a logical step to enhance the utility of its entire ecosystem. A native or heavily supported stablecoin could streamline in-game economies, facilitate seamless DeFi integrations across its portfolio companies, and provide a trusted medium of exchange for its vast user base. By targeting market leadership, Animoca is not just looking to invest in existing stablecoin projects but potentially to shape the development of new ones that are deeply integrated with gaming, AI, and DePIN applications.
Artificial Intelligence: Integrating Intelligence with Blockchain
Artificial intelligence represents another critical pillar of Animoca’s expanded focus. The company already has a growing number of investments in the AI category, recognizing the profound synergy between AI and blockchain technology.
Context and Background: The convergence of AI and Web3 is one of the most discussed trends in the tech world. Blockchain can provide solutions for AI’s key challenges, such as data provenance, model transparency, and fair compensation for data contributors. Conversely, AI can optimize blockchain operations, enhance user experiences in dApps and games, and create entirely new categories of intelligent decentralized applications.
Strategic Rationale: Animoca’s foray into AI is about investing in the underlying infrastructure that will power the next generation of digital experiences. Whether it's AI-driven NPCs in games that offer unique interactions, data marketplaces where users can monetize their data for AI training, or AI tools that simplify Web3 onboarding, Animoca’s investments will likely focus on projects that create tangible utility at the intersection of these two transformative technologies.
DePIN: Building the Decentralized Physical World
Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks (DePIN) is a sector that perfectly aligns with Animoca's goal of creating tangible, real-world utility. DePIN projects use blockchain tokens to incentivize the building and maintenance of physical infrastructure—from wireless networks and energy grids to data storage and sensor networks.
Context and Background: DePIN moves blockchain beyond purely digital assets and into the physical realm. It offers a novel economic model for building critical infrastructure by leveraging community participation rather than centralized corporate capital. This model has already proven successful in projects like Helium (wireless networks) and Filecoin (decentralized storage).
Strategic Rationale: By investing in DePIN, Animoca Brands is betting on a future where blockchain technology directly facilitates and governs physical world operations. This could have direct applications within its gaming metaverse ambitions—imagine players contributing to decentralized cloud gaming infrastructure or IoT networks that interact with game worlds. Peymani’s comments suggest Animoca will seek out "game-changing" projects in this space that can scale and integrate with its broader digital ecosystem.
Gaming Remains King: Sustained Bullishness on the Core Business
Despite this ambitious diversification, Animoca Brands is not stepping back from its origins. Peymani was unequivocal about the company’s continued commitment to Web3 gaming.
“We’re still very bullish on what’s going to happen in games and how people can truly benefit from their time and energy and effort and money that they spend in those games to have an asset that lives beyond in the Web3 space,” he said.
This sustained focus is crucial. The 230 gaming-related companies in its portfolio represent not just historical success but an active pipeline for innovation. The true power of Animoca’s strategy may lie in the interoperability between its sectors: a stablecoin developed for DePIN could be used for in-game purchases; an AI project could enhance gaming narratives; and a successful game could drive adoption for all other verticals. Gaming acts as both a reliable revenue stream and a massive user-acquisition channel for its new ventures.
The Macro Backdrop: Institutional Adoption and Regulatory Tailwinds
Animoca’s strategic shift does not occur in a vacuum. It is strategically timed to coincide with two major macro developments: increasing institutional participation and evolving regulatory clarity.
Institutional Utility Over Mere Exposure: Animoca founder Yat Siu provided critical context on this front. He told Cointelegraph that institutional participation will be “very important” for the next phase of growth but clarified that "It’s going to be institutional adoption in terms of utility, because of the market structure bill." This highlights a move beyond institutions simply buying Bitcoin for portfolio exposure toward them building products and services that utilize blockchain technology—a trend that directly benefits utility-focused sectors like DePIN, AI, and stablecoins.
Regulatory Clarity: The draft crypto market structure bill released by US lawmakers on Nov. 11 aims to delineate how agencies will regulate crypto assets. With a Senate vote expected in December, this legislation could provide the regulatory certainty that large institutions need to engage more deeply with the crypto ecosystem, thereby validating Animoca’s focus on these new verticals.
Furthermore, the broader venture capital landscape is showing robust signs of life. Galaxy Digital reported that the third quarter of 2025 saw a 290% quarter-on-quarter jump in crypto venture funding, reaching $4.8 billion—the strongest quarter since Q1 of that year. This surge in capital creates a fertile environment for Animoca to both invest in and raise capital for its expanding ambitions.
Strategic Conclusion: Building an Interconnected Web3 Future
Animoca Brands' expansion into stablecoins, AI, and DePIN for 2026 is more than a simple portfolio diversification; it is a holistic strategy to build an interconnected Web3 future. The company is methodically positioning itself at the nexus of several high-growth trends that are poised to define the next chapter of digital innovation.
By maintaining its dominance in gaming while aggressively pursuing leadership in financial infrastructure (stablecoins), intelligent systems (AI), and real-world infrastructure (DePIN), Animoca is constructing a self-reinforcing ecosystem. Each vertical strengthens the others, creating a network effect that could be significantly more valuable than the sum of its parts.
For readers and market observers, the key developments to watch will be:
- Specific Investments: The nature of the first major deals Animoca announces in these new sectors will reveal the precise direction and thesis behind its strategy.
- The Nasdaq Listing: The planned reverse merger with Currenc Group to go public on Nasdaq could provide Animoca with greater access to capital and institutional credibility to execute this expansive vision.
- Integration Milestones: How successfully Animoca can foster interoperability between its gaming projects and its new investments in AI, DePIN, and stablecoins will be the ultimate test of this strategy's success.
Animoca Brands is not just following trends; it is leveraging its unparalleled ecosystem to actively participate in shaping them. Its move signals a belief that the future of Web3 lies not in isolated sectors but in their powerful convergence.