The latest installment of GTA has been announced. There has been speculation for years about cryptocurrencies and NFTs in the game. Why this is highly unlikely.

190 million copies sold, eight billion dollars in sales: Grand Theft Auto 5 was the second most successful game of all time. Now, after a decade, the next installment is in the starting blocks. A first trailer has been announced for December. Insiders and experts expect the game to come out in late 2024 or early 2025. And one big question has been in play for years: will GTA 6 then implement cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin? Or NFTs? Probably not. But for different reasons than expected.

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Rumors of cryptocurrencies in the game first surfaced in 2021, spread by a reliable insider, Tom Henderson. You would be paid for some missions in Bitcoin and Co. Later, there were also rumors of NFTs as items that could be bought or sold. None of these rumors were ever officially confirmed. Gaming platform Game Rant thinks it is more likely that cryptocurrencies will appear in GTA 6 in another form: as a spotlight in the storyline. The series is known for its satire of American society.

Many of the largest game companies are slowly venturing into Web3. Ubisoft experiments, Square Enix is restructuring its entire business model, Electronic Arts is flirting with NFTs in its popular sports games. Take Two, the publisher of Grand Theft Auto, has already released a Web3 game with its development studio Zynga. GTA Online also briefly featured NFTs and cryptocurrencies, albeit implemented by fans. The creators, Rockstar Games, immediately banned them.

What speaks against crypto in Grand Theft Auto?

Cryptocurrencies and NFTs still have an extremely bad reputation in the video game industry. At best: an exploitative business model. Often just: a rip-off. And even if Rockstar Games were to make sense of crypto, the integration would likely make them a target of the U.S. securities regulator, the SEC. The SEC has been hunting down any U.S. companies that integrate or work with cryptocurrencies for months. PayPal was the most recent target. The company launched its own stablecoin, PYUSD. Such a risk would be difficult to communicate to Rockstar Games shareholders. Rockstar Games is considered very conservative when it comes to legal issues.

Grand Theft Auto 6 will presumably be set in a fictional Miami called Vice City, with two main characters, a man and a woman. The player will be able to switch between them, as in the previous installment. The game will be released in several episodes. So far, not much more is known.