Nexon Purchases $100 Million Worth Of Bitcoin

Nexon has a lot of money to throw around, and it's been making acquisitions since declaring their intentions last year. And when you've got a billion-plus to spend, why not toss some of it at cryptocurrency?

I mean, there are reasons why not, but that hasn't stopped Nexon from buying up $100 million worth of the (virtual) stuff. In a blog post, CEO Owen Mahoney broke the purchase down from a financial standpoint, saying that the company is aware of the "future buying power of our cash in a world of potential currency debasement," seeing Bitcoin as "a form of cash likely to retain its value, even if it is not yet widely-recognized as such." At least he's being honest about the pure financial reasons for the move, rather than expounding at length about how it's "good for fans of our games" or some other malarkey. (Would that be "Mahoney malarkey?")

The $100 million investment represents "less than 2% of our total cash-and-equivalents on hand," Mahoney said, which amounts to "$5 billion of cash and cash-equivalents, primarily in the form of JP¥, US$ and KRW."

And while I'm a cryptocurrency skeptic, Mahoney did raise a salient point at the end of his piece. He stated that, in the not-too-distant past, people would ask "Why would anyone pay for a purely virtual in-game item?" Now, the question is, why would anyone consider a virtual currency to have any value? Maybe it won't be too long before Bitcoin and others are as universally accepted as debit cards are now. You might even be able to use some of it to purchase some land in the Amazon Desert (formerly Rainforest).