These days, the blockchain gaming circles in Japan and South Korea are buzzing: Nexon has issued tokens.
Binance and Upbit have simultaneously listed NXPC, the platform token of Nexon's blockchain gaming platform NEXPACE, marking Upbit's first game project since Big Time two years ago, breaking its unwritten rule of 'never touching blockchain game tokens'.
It should be noted that Upbit is the entry-level exchange for South Korean retail investors, consistently ranking among the top five in global trading volume, while behind Nexon stands the childhood memories of an entire East Asian internet.

It is not a white-label GameFi project, but the **real Nexon that created (Dungeon & Fighter), (MapleStory), (CSOL), (KartRider)**. This veteran South Korean game company was founded in 1994, headquartered in Tokyo, and controls over 260 million registered players globally and decades of accumulated game content assets.

Now, Nexon decides to enter the blockchain gaming space, not quietly building chains, but directly launching on Binance + Upbit, engaging in a direct confrontation.

Interestingly, among the early Bitcoin players, there was a group that were DNF gold farming studios.
Back then, no one knew what Bitcoin was, only that it could be exchanged for money. When Bitcoin was first mined, these DNF gold farming teams filled their mining rigs and privately traded the mined coins in QQ groups. More than a decade later, blockchain games and old game manufacturers meet again on Avalanche's L1 network.

What is NEXPACE?
NEXPACE is a Web3 gaming platform launched by Nexon, currently running on Avalanche's dedicated subnet Henesys, focusing on a 'Game-as-a-Service' platform system. Its first product is **(MapleStory N)**, a blockchain version of MapleStory.

This is not Nexon's first foray into the crypto space. As early as 2021, it used its own funds to buy 1,700 Bitcoins (about $100 million), becoming one of the first large Japanese and Korean gaming companies to publicly hold BTC, and has reiterated in subsequent financial reports its 'firm optimism about the combination of Web3 and gaming'.
And now, with NXPC officially launching on trading platforms, it means that it has transformed from a crypto asset investor at the shareholder level to a direct operator of the blockchain gaming asset system.
Why is it important?
Nexon issues tokens, representing a **'disruptive leap from grassroots entrepreneurship to leading industry cycles'** in the blockchain gaming ecosystem.

Previously, the blockchain gaming market was dominated by independent teams and small studios, with unstable product updates, weak content quality, and chaotic token value logic. Even with a million daily active users, liquidity could not be sustained.
However, Nexon is a different scale. This company can sustain five generations of operational teams with one IP, and can run a complete lifecycle business model with 'enhancement scrolls + item shop'. Now, it introduces the same system into blockchain games, creating a complete closed loop from content supply to asset system as soon as the setup is complete.

In addition, its launch pace is very rapid. **NEXPACE's first blockchain game (MapleStory N) will launch on May 15, 2025,** and NXPC has already opened trading early on the Alpha platform. Issuing tokens a day before launch, with gameplay and financial models aligned with Web2, this pace is something traditional manufacturers can achieve.

A bigger trend?

Since 2024, South Korea's major exchanges have clearly begun to open up to the blockchain gaming sector: WeMade, Big Time, and Nexpace have been successively listed. Combined with national policies, chaebol preferences, and retail investor structures, blockchain games are likely to become strategic theme assets in the South Korean market.

The core issue of Web3 games in the past was 'can it run?', but now the question has become 'who can run it first?'. Nexon's actions will set an example for the entire sector:
No longer relying on blank white papers to raise funds, but using existing content assets and operational experience to create a product closed loop;
No longer waiting for Web3 to 'educate users', but directly using blockchain games to 'recall old players'.
If it succeeds, a number of long-dormant manufacturers (such as NCsoft, Kakao Games, Com2us) are likely to quickly enter the market, ushering in a golden age of 'mobile game-like' blockchain games.
In conclusion
This industry has been turning for almost 15 years.
Back then, gold farming guilds and mining studio groups traded BTC privately in QQ groups, and no one thought this was the embryonic form of a new system.
Now, a group of companies that started with (DNF) are looking to reorganize these old memories into a new world on Avalanche.
Perhaps the future 'first stock of blockchain games' will no longer be a startup team telling new stories, but those who already have stories, telling them further.