Gaming Gift Cards Are Like Crypto – and Not in a Good Way

In crypto – especially in the category of blockchain interoperability – we think a lot about fragmented currencies: ETH providing security across multiple layer-2s; USDC in multiple, non-fungible wrapped versions (abcUSDC, xyzUSDC). So-called real-world assets also experience similar fragmentation: a dollar in your pocket is not the same as a dollar in the bank.

Take gift cards. You’re probably holding a few after the holidays and if you are, you’re not alone. A Bankrate survey earlier this year estimated $23 billion is sitting in unused gift cards across the US. That’s about 0.1 percent of the M2 money supply.

Stripping away the colorful plastic packaging, gift cards are a number, some 16 to 30 digits in length, that provides access to a digital equivalent of cash. They’re somewhere between cryptocurrency and a debit card: not as secure or uncensorable as bitcoin or ether, but you don’t need a bank account to use them and they can be bought and sold with minimal information exchanged.

This opens up some interesting wrinkles in the world of commerce on the internet, one of which I recently stumbled upon, involving metaverse activities and unbanked members of my household.

The Fortnite V-Bucks Gift Card: The Worst UX in Payments?

I have teens and tweens in the house and that means I deal in metaverse currencies, specifically Fortnite V-Bucks. The in-game currency is Fortnite publisher Epic Games’ main vessel for turning FOMO into dollars.

For young players of Fortnite, the metaverse of Web3 and $META hype is here today: the game really is a “third place.” The virtual goods (“skins”) that signify status or identity in Fortnite can be just as crucial as any clothes or accessories available in real life.

The result is a steady stream of requests across my phone, accompanied by a wrinkled bill or a CashApp transfer. I fulfill the requests by adding dollars from my credit card to the Microsoft account for Xbox in-game purchases. The kids are playing Fortnite, and I’m playing my favorite game, which is a text-based roleplaying game called Web2 Payments.

V-Bucks: Default transaction flows for unbanked tweens

I play Web2 Payments almost daily in one form or another. But, the other day, one of my kids found a workaround that cut me out of the flow: the Fortnite V-Bucks gift…