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Minus One · 2 min · Jun 4, 2025

Roblox held off on NFTs because 3D assets lacked standards

David Baszucki says Roblox passed on going all in on NFTs because 3D asset technology and fidelity were still early. Without a standard for sharing assets, he says, the idea was not ready.

David Baszucki

David Baszucki is chief blocksmith at Roblox.

Co-founded Roblox and has led it as CEO since 2004, serving more than 100M daily users.

  • DI

    Dylan Itzikowitz, Host · Principal, SPC

About this segment

David Baszucki says Roblox passed on going all in on NFTs because 3D asset technology and fidelity were still early. Without a standard for sharing assets, he says, the idea was not ready.

From “David Baszucki: Roblox, Minus One, Digital Economy, & the Metaverse”, Jun 4, 2025. Watch the full episode

“There's not going to really be a standard way to share these shoes.”
David Baszuckiat 47:42 · Minus One47:42

Takeaways

  1. The team did not see a need to adopt NFTs at the time.
  2. Asset fidelity and fit on avatars were still developing.
  3. Roblox saw no standard way to share 3D assets across platforms.

In this episode

Full episode
  1. 10:34Roblox seeded its first viral loop with about $100 a day4:10
  2. 14:41Roblox built its creator economy when growth stopped paying3:56
  3. 27:02Roblox is turning its platform data into creator tools and NPCs3:22
  4. 48:09Creator earnings are spreading beyond the top developers2:14
  5. 21:27Older users arrive through the creator ecosystem2:20
  6. 42:26Roblox made email and meeting punctuality cultural norms2:07

  7. 45:42Roblox held off on NFTs because 3D assets lacked standards2:13

  8. 52:03Roblox chose native clients for 3D performance2:28Up next

Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

  1. 45:46

    and also the asset sharing community, they both embody a very strong Web3 spirit. So have you also thought about launching your own stablecoin and then combine it to the real world? We have thought about that. I would say we did not go all in on the NFT sitch three or four years ago because we felt we did not need to. I don't know if we need to right now. It's worth thinking about. It could be interesting.

  2. 46:29

    We have started thinking about that. And so I think the one thing we have started thinking about, it would really be cool if an eight-year-old who was on Roblox had like a carbon Roblox card and like pulled out their Roblox carbon card. So yeah. In terms of platform shifts, did you discuss Web3 and NFTs? And why do you, I mean, you made the right call, obviously, but why did you decide not to go all in on it?

  3. 46:57

    I think there was definitely several board meetings where things were super hot there. And we, you know, things were like super frothy. And I think there was also a vision or a hope, which is very altruistic, that this pair of shoes would go to any platform and have value and all of that. But I think we came to the notion that for 3D assets particularly, the technology is still very, very early. The fidelity of these assets, whether they're physically constructed, whether we're simulating the elastic of the shoes, how they fit on an avatar, it's still very, very early.

  4. 47:42

    And for quite a while, the technology is going to be moving. There's not going to really be a standard way to share these shoes. So that made us pull back from that notion.