GTA 6 to Integrate Cryptocurrency by 2024?

Take2 has outlined ambitious plans for the 2025 fiscal year, aspiring to pioneer a new epoch by releasing a slew of groundbreaking games. The company is adamant that the imminent future will bring about new benchmarks for the entirety of the gaming industry. Consequently, Take2 is forecasting an order intake of $8 billion, which could translate into a clean profit exceeding $1 billion.

The company's 2025 fiscal year will commence on April 1, 2024, and conclude on March 31, 2025. Experts from Forbes are convinced that the launch of GTA 6 will transpire within this timeframe, thereby generating the spectacular revenues forecasted by Take2.

The analysts' predictions hinge on the commercial triumph of Grand Theft Auto 5. In 2013, Rockstar sold upwards of 11 million copies of GTA 5 within the first 24 hours of its launch, racking up $815 million. By a month and a half post-launch, GTA 5 sales soared to 29 million copies, outperforming the entire sales volume of its preceding series, GTA 4. Ultimately, Grand Theft Auto 5 emerged as the undisputed best-selling game of all time, spanning across three generations of consoles.

It is important to note that Rockstar Games has been toiling on GTA 6 for an astonishing 10 years. The gaming industry landscape has shifted dramatically during this period. It is clear that the Grand Theft Auto 6 concept, which was originally conceived in 2013, demanded substantial modifications by 2023. Throughout these years, Rockstar was largely reticent about GTA 6, sharing only the most generic information.

Hence, it comes as no surprise that fans' conjecture goes beyond the release date of GTA 6. The internet is once again abuzz with whispers of the publisher's intention to weave its own cryptocurrency into the fabric of the new Grand Theft Auto series.

Why "again"? These speculations first emerged during the bull market cycle in 2021. Tom Henderson, the founder of Insider Gaming, leaked this information referencing a source inside Rockstar Games. He suggested that after completing specific missions, players might earn rewards in Bitcoin. Furthermore, GTA 6 players could experiment with being cryptocurrency brokers. This notion seems logical, considering players trade stocks on LCN and BAWSAQ, exchanges within the game's universe. Other rumors claimed that Rockstar Games was developing its own blockchain and native token $RSTAR, and there was no mention of Bitcoin. However, over the past two years, none of these leaks have been confirmed.

Given this, it is unsurprising that the recent speculations about GTA 6 entering the Play-To-Earn (P2E) sector have been met with skepticism rather than excitement among fans. A user named @goddessinflesh on Twitter expressed doubts about Rockstar developing its flagship project towards blockchain technology.

However, she reminded the gaming community of two significant developments. First, Rockstar updated its policy on game mods on Role-Playing (RP) servers in November 2022. The new policy bans the use of cryptocurrency, NFTs, loot boxes, etc. The question arises whether this decision was influenced by the tense relationship with cryptocurrencies during the bearish cycle and high-profile bankruptcies, or is the company paving the way for its own cryptocurrency initiatives?

Secondly, it was revealed in September of the previous year that Dan Houser, the co-founder of Rockstar Games, became an investor in a web3 company, Revolving Games. He also took an advisory role in a blockchain game project. Houser left Rockstar three years ago, which implies that the company surely had a key person who was capable and willing to create blockchain games. However, there's no definitive answer from the expert community or GTA fans on whether Houser managed to implement his ideas within Rockstar.

Yet, Take2 finally did comment on the new wave of rumors surrounding GTA 6.