Ethereum Sidechain Ronin Adds Binance Pay to Wallet as 'Pixels' Game Surges

The Ronin crypto wallet mobile app has added a Binance Pay integration that allows users to directly import funds from Binance exchange accounts to their wallets, Ronin developers announced Friday.

The new feature also means mobile users can automatically convert cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum into Ronin ecosystem tokens like AXS and SLP from Axie Infinity, according to the announcement. Ronin is an Ethereum sidechain network built for crypto games.

The Binance exchange itself does not currently list Ronin’s main token, RON—so users will have to buy it on a decentralized exchange (DEX). Binance does list SLP and AXS on its exchange for users in some countries, however.

At time of writing, the Binance Pay integration is only available for the Ronin mobile app. A quick test of the Ronin wallet browser extension on Chrome in the U.S. only shows Ramp or Ronin’s blockchain bridge as options to deposit funds. 

Ronin’s partnership with Binance Pay comes less than two weeks after news broke that Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao would plead guilty to money laundering charges and step down from his role at the exchange. Binance has already announced its new CEO, Richard Teng, and Binance users have withdrawn over $1 billion in funds from the exchange in the wake of its upheaval. 

It’s also worth noting that Binance also won’t be available for customers in the U.S. for much longer, so Ronin’s Binance Pay integration comes primarily for the benefit of mobile users outside of the U.S.

While Binance has seen users pull their funds, Ronin saw a surge in activity and tripled its active user numbers in early November. Interest in Pixels—a browser-based MMORPG that recently migrated to the Ronin blockchain—spiked last month.

While Pixels has faced some challenges with bot users, the game saw nearly $2 million in total NFT land sales across 1,300 transactions and daily unique active wallets in the high five to low six figures, according to data from CryptoSlam, DappRadar, and Ronin co-founder Jeffrey “Jiho” Zirlin.

Edited by Andrew Hayward