Coatue Management’s injection of $300 million into Niantic has bolstered the game maker’s chances of becoming an AR force to be reckoned with. On top of that, the company is lending a bit of its AR credibility to Fold, a bitcoin rewards app, via a development partnership that’s rolling out a new AR experience today. 

Does this recent flurry of activity suggest that Niantic is straining to be seen as something other than the Pokemon Go company? Sure. But I don’t know if the Fold partnership plays to Niantic’s strengths, given that it is manifested in an AR game populated with floating bitcoins and smiling pills that protect players from “shitcoins.”