Animoca Brands is expanding its digital hoard, swallowing gaming and collectibles studio Somo to dive deeper into Web3-native entertainment.
The deal plugs Somo into Animoca’s sprawling, chaotic metaverse ecosystem, adding a lineup of playable, streamable, and tradable collectibles to the pile. Animoca plans to wire the studio into its global network of gaming, media, and digital asset partners for cross-promotion and shared infrastructure, basically hoping some of that alpha rubs off.
“SOMO is building the cultural operating system for collectibles, which complements our existing portfolio,” said Animoca Brands co-founder and executive chairman Yat Siu. “By bringing SOMO into the Animoca Brands ecosystem, we aim to connect it to our global network of games, communities, and partners.” Translation: another brick for the empire.
The acquisition comes as the NFT market shows signs of a pulse after a brutal 2025 bear market that left many wallets in cryo-sleep. According to CoinGecko, total NFT market capitalization climbed roughly 20% in the first two weeks of 2026, rising from about $2.5 billion on Jan. 1 to over $3 billion by mid-January.
Most of those gains arrived in a single 24-hour window, when the market added around $300 million in value alongside an 18.7% jump in daily trading volume. Traders pointed to renewed interest in established collections, a pickup in high-value sales, and new token-linked NFT drops as catalysts. Still, skeptics are questioning whether this is the start of a new cycle or just a dead-cat bounce after months of depressed valuations.
Even with the recent pop, the sector remains far below its former glory. The NFT market cap currently sits at approximately $7.3 billion, down about 59% year over year.
