GameFi Rankings

Overall:

The Sandbox - SAND already has some immense partnerships created with giants such as Atari, Universal Music Group, and others. The metaverse is being actively developed by the world’s largest builders has a much more favorable player count.
Axie Infinity - AXS saw one of the highest daily player counts out of game on this list, but suffered immensely from the massive Ronin Bridge hack. Outside of the hack, AXS has a high barrier to entry comparatively to other metaverse / gaming titles, but has had one of the highest rates of success in terms of player conversion.

Despite the drawdown, charts like this can't be ignored:

Enjin Coin - ENJ is providing what could be a multi-billion dollar solution for gaming titles in the near future. As more gaming developers wish to enter the blockchain / P2E space, ENJ will already have a solution to fast-track that process.
Gala Games - Despite some tokenomics issues, Gala Games has one of the most sophisticated platforms that caters to pure gamers. Many gamers don't want to deal with blockchain mechanics openly or have it interfere with the gameplay and Gala is doing a good job of offering that.
Merit Circle - Has a sophisticated ecosystem model and already launched some well-renowned scholarship programs to bring in new gamers to GameFi. MC is ahead of YGG in terms of utility for its native token as it offers more of a platform where MC can be considered a medium of exchange.
Flow - FLOW offers a highly sustainable blockchain network and has some of the most impressive NFT partnerships in the space. The gaming side of the blockchain is obviously lacking, however, so for users to bet on FLOW, they need to be betting on the value of art-style NFTs from major brands holding value long term—at least until true gaming titles emerge.
Decentraland - MANA lags behind The Sandbox slightly, but still offers a large metaverse with valuable LAND. Decentraland also benefits from a more favorable graphics package than The Sandbox.
My Neighbor Alice - Out of all the blockchain games on this list, ALICE does the best job of appealing to non-blockchain gamers. The game model is simple yet refined and it actually offers a level of gameplay that other titles don’t have.
Gods Unchained - Unlike other titles on this list, Gods Unchained does have playability. The game is being developed, but it’s amassed a large player community of over 450,000 and fills a niche gaming category as a trading card title. Beyond this, however, growth may appear limited as the game itself hasn’t necessarily improved upon the style of game it is and could fall victim to copycat games.
Otherside - BAYC is undoubtedly the king of NFTs, and with the successful testing of its metaverse concept, it could end up being a leader among metaverse protocols. Of course, graphics will be an issue while on the Ethereum blockchain and the high degree of exclusivity will always limit its overall growth.
Efinity - Efinity by itself offers lower fees and quicker transaction processing than that of its mainnet Enjin. For that reason, Efinity maintains a smaller market share and serves as a secondary solution for users to engage with outside of Polkadot.
Illuvium - ILV has attracted a lot of attention and hype as players patiently wait for a full game launch. The reason it's low on this list is similar to other gaming titles this low: it has no playability. Those purchasing ILV and ILV-native NFTs are betting on the future of this title.
Aavegotchi - While initially highly popular, Aavegotchi has no players and little playability. The main appeal of obtaining a ghost is for yield-generating as it gives users passive income over time.
DeFi Kingdoms - DFK has been at the center of many controversies, but it still lives on as a protocol. The development team have been working diligently to add true playability to the game beyond just being a gamified DEX. Until this happens officially, DFK remains speculative along with Illuvium and Star Atlas
Total users by game
Star Atlas - ATLAS is another gaming title that has hype building behind it with no true proven product. With the game set to release sometime in 2022, long-time backers and eager players may finally get to interact with the game.
Yield Guild Games - YGG is very similar to Merit Circle in a lot of ways, just with less overall utility. The DAO is more centered on the gamers joining and generating revenue for the DAO, acting more like a business than a GameFi protocol. This could lead it getting into trouble with regulators should they ever investigate the space.

Metaverse Protocols

The Sandbox (SAND)

The Sandbox is a virtual world platform where participants (players) can build, monetize, and own their own virtual experiences on the Ethereum blockchain through NFTs and the SAND token. The Sandbox itself is over a decade old, having previously released two mobile iterations called “The Sandbox” (2011) and “The Sandbox Evolution” (2016). Since, the platform has successfully moved to a blockchain base in 2018.

The Sandbox is a subsidiary of Animoca Brands, a $5.9 billion blockchain investment company that streamlines development and adoption for various projects. Hong Kong-based Animoca Brands has continued to raise capital and invest in projects throughout the 2022 bear market. The company has placed its support behind many different upcoming blockchain gaming projects, NFT launches, and other digital assets.

Key Features

The Sandbox features three main components:

VoxEdit Builder - A non-fungible token (NFT) builder for creating in-game assets
Marketplace - Where assets can be bought and sold amongst players
Game Maker Tool - Can create unique interactive games and experiences that can be shared with others

The Sandbox’s native token (SAND) is used on-chain to power many different activities for players. It serves as the medium of exchange for the ecosystem, powering marketplaces, facilitating transactions, and serving as a governance token for stakers.

SAND has a circulating supply of 3 million tokens and has routinely been a leader amongst similar projects in terms of total valuation and its market cap dominance versus other metaverse titles. In addition to the SAND token, there are four other assets:

LAND - An NFT that represents a parcel of usable land within The Sandbox. There are just over 166,000 parcels of LAND with each representing a 96x96 meter plot.
ASSETS - Virtual goods that can be traded on The Sandbox marketplaces.
GEMS - Burnable ERC-20 tokens that can give different attributes, qualities, or abilities to in-game ASSETS.
CATALYSTS - Burnable ERC-20 tokens needed to mint new ASSETS that come with different power levels (more power, larger number of GEMS that can be associated with a particular ASSET).

Pros & Cons

The Sandbox has had fairly consistent positive LAND ownership growth regardless of overall market pressures. Since January 2020, LAND ownership on the platform has increased exponentially to over 20,000 unique owners.

Sandbox ownership: number of unique daily owners

The average price per month has also consistently increased since January 2020. The hottest parcels of LAND have been towards the geographical center of The Sandbox along the center island.

Overall, The Sandbox is still in its early access build, meaning the platform’s still being developed and isn’t yet finished. This creates massive limitations for builders actually creating anything functional in The Sandbox. So, many features of The Sandbox remain skeptical.

The only major playability to date has been Alpha Season 1 & 2 which allowed players to experience gameplay and compete to win SAND. This playability was led directly by The Sandbox team themselves as they approve and lead the experiences rather than from outside builders making use of The Sandbox.

Something else to consider is The Sandbox has an intentional Minecraft-esque style to it. Because of the limitations in processing power of blockchain technology, graphics processing is not at all a priority. To counter this, the platform implemented the simple Minecraft-like style which has emerged as unappealing to some off-chain entities looking to enter the space.

Despite the lack of playability and limited graphics, The Sandbox has attracted top brands like Gucci, Ubisoft, and Adidas. Arguably its most bullish case is with Warner Music Group and a partnership with Snoop Dogg. There are future ambitions to add music playability to the platform to host large virtual concerts.

Q2 2022 LAND Primary Sales have retraced back to levels last seen in Q1 2021. Drop is primarily attributable to lower average auction price on parcels minted in Q2. Source: Messari Dune Analytics Dashboard (@yulesa)

Active participants have continued to wane. Falling prices have reduced speculative demand; the velocity at which digital asset (LAND) transference has slowed in tandem. Source: Messari Dune Analytics Dashboard (@yulesa)

Comments

Sandbox is one of the few metaverse protocols with real utility for LAND and playability through the Alpha season events. There’s tons of real development being done from a team that began in 2011 before GameFi was even a thought. If the developers deliver on music compatibility, we could see Death Row / Universal music group host Sandbox concerts, LAND can be rented out, monetized, and so on—and SAND is needed to buy LAND.

Secondary LAND sales decreased from their peak in Q4 2021, falling ~80% in Q2 2022, following a ~50% quarterly decline in Q1.
Q2 2022 fell to ~$2.15 million on ~375 sales transactions.
Alpha Season 2 concluded in March 2022, with ~ 330,000 players participating in the second alpha test.
The LAND and SAND token contracts have been deployed on Polygon alongside The Sandbox's bridges for token holders to trade assets.

Decentraland (MANA)

Decentraland is a traversable virtual world platform built on the Ethereum blockchain. The platform’s economy is built around the creator economy where the main focus is ownership. Decentraland is similar to The Sandbox in terms of economics, but differs significantly in its usability and art style.

Key Features

Decentraland is heavily geared towards builders and creators choosing to use the space, allowing users to traverse across multiple realms for multiple virtual worlds. Participants can purchase parcels of LAND and exchange assets through on-chain transactions in the platform’s native currency, MANA. The MANA token has multiple use cases on the platform, mainly being the main governance token for the protocol’s DAO. To interact with the platform and acquire LAND, MANA tokens (operating as ERC-20 tokens) must be burned.

Decentraland serves as a platform with the ability to host:

Large-scale virtual events, community meet-ups, etc.
Sophisticated marketplaces for swapping digital assets, art, and collectibles
Monetization opportunities in high-traffic realms

These features have attracted some of the world’s top brands including:

Samsung
Atari
Coca Cola
Nike
MasterCard

Pros & Cons

Decentraland offers a more sophisticated graphics palette and, though lacking the user base, is entirely playable. This has led to a large number of events having already been organized and taking place inside of Decentraland, including the wildly famous, world’s first metaverse fashion week.

Fashion week showcased several global brands coming together for a single virtual event, including:

Forever 21
DKNY
Estée Lauder
Jonathan Simkhai
Mowalola
Collina Strada

In total, Decentraland Fashion Week brought in over 100,000 unique visitors across four days of the event.

One headline-grabbing downside to the Decentraland ecosystem was the loss of Ari Meilich, the previous Co-Founder and CEO of Decentraland. Ari left the project to build Big Time, a competing virtual world to Decentraland.

Additionally, another major downside of Decentraland is its overall low user base. Decentraland also trails The Sandbox in unique owners despite having a larger market cap than MANA. Outside of major events, the platform itself is mostly devoid of users. Without a sufficient user base, there’s little incentive for long-term builds and real, sustainable monetization and creation as users will disappear as events end.

30-day Average Users — 30-day Average Active Users. Source; DappRadar, Steam

At the end of the day, both Decentraland and The Sandbox heavily trail Axie Infinity and are dwarfed by major gaming titles like PUBG: Battlegrounds.

Axie Infinity (AXS)

Axie Infinity is a Pokemon-inspired play-to-earn (P2E) virtual world built by Sky Mavis. Axie Infinity is Ethereum-based, allowing players to collect, breed, battle, and trade in-game “pets” referred to as Axies. All Axies and other in-game assets are represented as ERC-20 tokens or ERC-721 tokens (NFTs).

Key Features

Platforms like Decentraland and The Sandbox have established themselves as leading virtual worlds in which builders can create experiences. Axie Infinity took this the extra step further and included true playability within its virtual world. The economics are geared towards the earnable “Play-to-Earn” style blockchain game, allowing users to earn rewards for contributing and using Axie Infinity.

Axie Infinity uses a dual token system for its functionality. Those two tokens are:

Axie Infinity Shard (AXS)
Smooth Love Potion (SLP)

Rewards in Axie Infinity come from its native token AXS. It serves as the governance token for the platform, is used in on-chain incentives, and can be used for transactions within marketplaces. The other in-game ERC-20 is SLP, a token that can be burned & used for breeding new Axies.

In terms of real playability and the P2E aspect of Axie Infinity, the SLP token is awarded to players for:

Participating in “adventure mode”
Winning battles against other axies

Pros & Cons

Axie Infinity has been the leading gaming protocol in the space since its launch. In fact, Axie was able to accomplish something almost no other gaming / metaverse protocol was able to do: attract non-blockchain gamers.

Most of the gaming industry has been firmly against blockchain gaming and P2E. There are mixed reasons for this, some of which include:

Lack of any real playability
Worse graphics
Confusion as to the value of NFTs and tokens

For Axie Infinity to actually attract off-chain players is a noteworthy feat. This was driven in large part by the Axie Scholarship program that helped use millions of dollars to promote educational content based on GameFi. This attracted a sizable amount of early adopters, players, and enthusiasts.

A major blow to Axie Infinity came from the March 2022 hack of the Ronin Bridge, the single largest crypto hack in history. With over $600 million stolen in both ETH and USDC, many Axie Infinity users saw their funds completely disappear.

Since the hack, Sky Mavis and Axie have worked diligently to restore users’ lost funds \and work with authorities. As of July 2022, Axie Infinity has not only restored all of the lost funds, but they’ve also just re-launched the Ronin Bridge with new security measures.

Axie Infinity Revenue June 2021–June 2022. Extreme volatility within the ecosystem has made it much harder for Axie to retain players. Source: Messari, Token Terminal.

Metaverse token returns since June 1. Source: Kaiko asset prices.

Axie Infinity is also planning on expanding on its metaverse side by introducing LAND purchases for users. This will establish it as more of a protocol close to The Sandbox or Decentraland, except it’ll have substantially more user playability. These LAND plots will let users own their own part of Axie Infinity, giving them the ability to gather resources and craft items to support their adventures.

Otherside (APE)

The Otherside metaverse is one of the more unique developments in the space. Otherside is entirely based around the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT collection, arguably the most well-known NFT collection in the world with an entry floor of over 90 ETH (~$100,000) and a market cap of ~$1 billion.

Key Features

The Otherside metaverse is highly exclusive as, in order to participate, you must own a BAYC NFT. The metaverse itself is currently in development. It's stated to be similar to a massive multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) as a gamified metaverse.

A key part of the metaverse is the BAYC NFTs will be turned into fully playable characters, where thousands of players can interact while owning the metaverse itself through LAND (in this case Otherdeeds). There are 100,000 plots of land available in Otherside, all with different features. The initial launch of LAND available for purchase notoriously “shut down” the Ethereum network by spiking gas fees upwards of thousands of dollars.

The metaverse itself was voted by the BAYC community to remain a part of the Ethereum ecosystem and is powered by Ape Coin (APE).

Pros & Cons

BAYC has routinely led the world as the most popular—and exclusive—NFT collection ever. The Otherside metaverse will be no different. Growth itself is obviously extremely limited; only so many BAYC NFTs exist, meaning only so many players could ever be a part of Otherside.

That said, Otherside is meant to be a highly exclusive world. Thus, it’ll always have that desirability for outsiders wanting to be a part of it. Because of this, as long as demand from outsiders remains strong, the floor price and value of BAYC, Ape Coin, and Otherside should appreciate over time.

The most prominent quality of Otherside is the strength of the community behind it. Most NFT collections simply lack the community and organization that BAYC & Otherside has. This is what has propelled it to its superstar status. In the first week of July 2022, Otherside officially went through a successful test where thousands of holders were able to play and interact with each other. The test itself was not without its own drawbacks and glitches, but it demonstrated the concept itself is viable.

Otherside gameplay demonstration. Source: NFTVerse_

Illuvium (ILV)

Illuvium is a gamified virtual world that features both a playable open world RPG and an auto-battler. Another protocol seemingly inspired by Pokemon and similar to Axie Infinity, players can battle and capture in-game creatures called illuvials which are converted into collectible NFTs. Illuvium was founded in 2020 and is expected to launch its full product sometime in 2022.

Key Features

Built on the Ethereum blockchain, Illuvium focuses heavily on player ownership of both the game itself and in-game assets. The Illuvium metaverse features a few key aspects:

ILV ERC-20 token
Collectible Illuvial creatures (NFTs)
Purchasable LAND

Illuvium differs from Axie Infinity in that it has an additional focus on in-game trading and exchanges. Players themselves will be able to traverse the open world of Illuvium and battle illuvials with the hopes of defeating and capturing them. Additionally, players can battle illuvials for the opportunity to win ETH.

Speculators can also wager on battles with the hopes of winning ETH. Outside of battles, players can purchase LAND within Illuvium, allowing each player to own a piece of the physical world itself.

As of August 2022, the Illuvium native token, ILV, has a market cap of $74 million with a low maximum supply of 10 million tokens.

Pros & Cons

Illuvium is highly speculative as the actual protocol hasn’t yet launched any usable features. Currently, interested parties may purchase unspecified plots of LAND, but can't engage in trading on illuvials at all.

The actual playability is unknown. Illuvium itself is also betting on the acceptance and adoption of decentralized ownership of the platform and in-game assets as a main driver for player usage. This is something that's still relatively unproven amongst off-chain gamers outside of Axie Infinity.

What is known is Illuvium had one of the highest volume days when it closed its Balancer public sale, surpassing $90 million. Until the actual virtual world / game itself is launched, Illuvium should be considered speculative at best.

An important pro about Illuvium lies with its development team. The Warwick brothers have direct ties to the fast-growing DeFi protocol Synthetix (SNX). The brothers have outlined their own plans with Illuvium to overtake Axie Infinity and have the ties to Synthetix that can assist in driving usability and adoption over time.

Creator Platforms & Gaming Accelerators

Enjin Coin (ENJ)

Enjin originally started as a gaming company in 2009 with the official launch of the Enjin network. Enjin began as a community gaming platform where individuals could construct websites, forums, and applications. In 2017, the company decided to move into the blockchain industry with an ICO that raised nearly $20 million from the sale of its native token, ENJ.

Enjin launched on the Ethereum blockchain with ENJ being an ERC-20 token. Enjin was the original proposer of the ERC-1155 token standard, a token that's now routinely used on its network.

Key Features

Enjin’s main focus is the creation and deployment of NFTs for gaming titles. To accomplish this, Enjin offers a suite of products and features on its network, including:

Platform - Lets users to create in-game assets in advance and offer them to other existing players through crowdfunding methods.
Marketplace - Facilitates the trading of in-game assets (NFTs) and other collectibles between users.
Enjin Wallet - The network’s secure cryptocurrency wallet that can be used to interact with the platform.
JumpNet - A Proof-of-Authority consensus blockchain allowing instant, gasless transactions. It operates through the private version of the ENJ token, JENJ.

Enjin Coin (ENJ) is the third-largest blockchain gaming protocol in the space and fourth-largest NFT-based platform. The ENJ token holds a respectable market cap of ~$500 million and a maximum total supply of 1 billion tokens. ENJ is most commonly used to back the value of ERC-1155 assets, giving it a unique utility.

Pros & Cons

Enjin provides a solution to what could be a very in-demand service in the coming years. Enjin was the original creator of the ERC-1155 token which is at the heart of the protocol. Every ERC-1155 token is backed by ENJ, promoting stability in the value of the asset itself.

In the future, any gaming title wishing to integrate with blockchains and a P2E structure could use Enjin’s ERC-1155 tokens as a solution. To date, Enjin has minted over 1 billion assets that are all backed by ENJ.

There’s a good side and bad side to backing the actual assets with ENJ tokens. For typical gamers, the value of their collected assets are 100% dependent on the value of the ENJ token itself. If the token goes through a market contraction, so too do the in-game assets.

An additional obstacle for Enjin is the relative difficulty for external platforms to use the ERC-1155 tokens as in-game assets for their games. Not all titles can leverage this exact technology and could be hindered by Ethereum’s gas fees. For this reason, Efinity was created, but that requires going through an entirely different blockchain network. So, the process for developers may come off as slightly convoluted.

Flow (FLOW)

Flow is an independent blockchain and smart contract platform that caters towards blockchain gaming projects and NFT collections. The Flow network uses a multi-role architecture design to scale, fast-tracking the work of a miner or validator into four distinct roles that are all accomplished through staking Flow’s native token FLOW.

Key Features

Flow is the industry-leading protocol for NFTs, taking a top ranking above Decentraland, Axie Infinity, and Enjin Coin. The native token FLOW powers the platform. FLOW has a market cap of $1.6 billion, making the platform the 12th-largest smart contract platform on the market. This puts Flow above Tezos, Fantom, and other well-known networks.

Flow’s best feature is its world-class NFT collections including:

The NBA (NBA Top Shot)
The NFL (NFL ALL DAY)
UFC (UFC Strike)

Other leading collections include BALLERZ and Matrix World. In total, Flow has over $1 billion in NFT sales on secondary markets.

Pros & Cons

Flow is undoubtedly one of the best blockchains for NFTs. No other network can boast partnerships with the NBA, NFL, and UFC for with users to engage. The blockchain infrastructure itself is also relatively sophisticated and the chain is scalable due to its architecture.

Additionally, the Flow network is one of the most sustainable in the space, using only 0.18 gWh of energy annually, verified in 2021 by Deloitte. To visualize this energy usage, conducting a single Google search uses the same amount of energy as minting 12.5 NFTs on Flow.

2021 Flow energy consumption. Source: OnFlow

The major downside of Flow is the lack of actual games on the network with playability, which includes:

Chainmonsters
Zeedz
Enemy Metal
Dark Country
The Football Club
Racing Time

The problem is many of these protocols are gamified NFT trading platforms. That said, there are very few protocols within the space with any playability at all and Flow’s only purpose is to provide the underlying infrastructure for developers to use and build on top of. This is very similar to the nature of The Sandbox or Decentraland providing platforms for builders to create virtual experiences.

Merit Circle (MC)

Merit Circle operates as a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) with two main focuses: 1) accelerating adoption of P2E titles through educational opportunities, and 2) functioning as a profit-seeking investor aiming to grow the Merit Circle treasury. Merit Circle’s unique value proposition comes from its use of ‘scholarships,’ a form of in-game asset loan to encourage players to adopt blockchain-based gaming titles. The first of these scholarships was launched in July 2021 for Axie Infinity (Axie 420 Scholarship).

Key Features

Merit Circle DAO consists of four distinct components:

Investments (MC Investments)
Development & Incubation (MC Studios)
Gaming (MC Gaming)
Trading (MC Marketplace)

Through the Merit Circle treasury, the DAO essentially doubles down on creating value from its investments by spearheading the adoption push for protocols, projects, and games that it supports directly. This is the basis behind its scholarship model. The DAO also takes a part in publishing projects through Merit Circle Studios.

Through investments, development, and incubation, MC DAO is able to grow its own treasury and create value for holders of its native token, MC. The MC token has a ~$100 million market cap with a max supply of 925,922,704 MC. Those holding the MC token can participate in governance of the DAO and staking to earn awards.

Merit Circle actively supports a number of upcoming blockchain gaming titles including:

Dapper Dinos
Cantina Royale
Axes Metaverse
Shrapnel
Blockstars

Pros & Cons

Merit Circle has a unique business model in the blockchain gaming sector. It's hard to argue against the success the DAO has had thus far. They have nearly 4,000 gamers under their belt from across the world using the MC scholarship model to earn income in P2E titles. So far, those gamers have generated over $2 million across 50 different games.

The Merit Circle DAO also manages over $100 million in digital assets that includes NFTs, in-game collectibles, and other valuable digital assets that can assist gamers in earning additional income in certain games. This can be extremely valuable depending on the title.

Take Axie Infinity for instance. Having suitable upgrades that gives a player a greater chance of winning battles means that player will generate more income. Merit Circle is acting as a certain booster for players to propel higher within P2E games.

The downside of this model for the gamers themselves is Merit Circle’s cut. The MC DAO takes a 30% cut from everything each gamer earns from their work within P2E titles. For investors, there must be a higher degree of trust in the DAO itself as well to engage in sound investment strategies. This can become risky when making investments in a highly volatile market such as NFTs.

Efinity (EFI)

Efinity is a Proof-of-Stake blockchain network that specializes in NFTs. The chain was created by Enjin Pte Ltd., the gaming organization that went on to start Enjin Coin. The blockchain itself is a Polkadot network parachain built to support NFTs from:

Ethereum
Polkadot
Kusama
Enjin’s Jumpnet

Efinity was officially launched with the distribution of its native token, EFI, in August 2021. Following the token launch, the platform created a $100 million Efinity Metaverse Fund in November 2021 to engage in metaverse, NFT, and blockchain gaming-related investments.

Key Features

Efinity is a blockchain network developed by Enjin and works as a parachain off Polkadot. Therefore, Efinity uses Polkadot’s Relay Chain to offload computing resources to confirm the validity of transactions. This ultimately leads to much lower user transaction costs.

Participants use the EFI token for:

Running a node to secure the network
Governance of Efinity
Within the Efinity marketplace
Developers who propose new projects and receive grants from Efinity’s community pool

The token itself has a ~$55 million market cap and a circulating supply of 2 billion EFI. The token itself will most commonly be used to mint and exchange new NFTs.

In addition to EFI tokenomics, Efinity also offers a cross-chain bridge to Ethereum. This gives the network an on-ramp to potentially billions of dollars in value across various NFT projects. Aside from simply minting and moving NFTs, Efinity offers buyers and sellers a stack of tools to facilitate commerce. Individuals may trade NFTs across blockchains.

Enjin buyers and sellers market. Source: Efinity white paper

Pros & Cons

Efinity relies heavily on the Polkadot mainnet architecture for competitive pricing and low network fees. Being a parachain offers many advantages in terms of scalability and security comparatively to Ethereum. Where Ethereum block space is in high demand, Efinity benefits from less load, granting users the ability to mint and trade NFTs without overpaying in fees.

Efinity alone doesn’t necessarily offer any robust, unique value proposition for the NFT market by itself. Additionally, the native token EFI had a relatively centralized distribution of the total supply, with 45% going to early investors and the team. Another 50% is held by the ecosystem or staking pools.

Of course, this only matters for governance over the protocol. The token itself is sufficient for the average user just looking for low fees to mint NFTs. For that pure purpose alone, Efinity offers a competitive model.

Yield Guild Games (YGG)

Yield Guild Games is a gaming accelerator that seeks to provide an on-ramp for those in emerging economies looking to engage with P2E titles. Yield Guild Games operates as a DAO, attempting to strike down barriers to entry for gamers. They do this by acting as a capital market layer, acquiring NFTs that are productive and valuable to titles like Axie Infinity.

Key Features

Yield Guild Games operates through its own native token, YGG. YGG is an ERC-20 token that's used to purchase and back Yield Guild’s assets they acquire for gaming titles and metaverse projects. The token’s main utility is as a governance token. YGG is the eight-largest gaming protocol and holds a market cap of ~$75 million.

Over time, Yield Guild intends to pass along cashflows of the token and the DAO operations to token holders themselves over time. Cashflows and value can be generated from:

Yield-generating assets
Revenue streams from in-game earnings, sponsorships, merchandise sales, etc.

The value proposition that Yield Guild offers is similar in fashion to what Metric Circle offers. For some gaming titles, there’s a steep entry cost for players to be able to actually generate any yields or participate in the base functionality of certain games. Yield Guild began its journey by focusing on Axie Infinity, The Sandbox, and League of Kingdoms.

Since, Yield Guild has been involved with the following gaming titles:

Illuvium
Ember Sword
Guild of Guardians
Splinterlands
Star Atlas
Aavegotchi
Nitro League

Pros & Cons

The core philosophy behind Yield Guild is admirable. Blockchain gaming and P2E opportunities have been a popular choice amongst those in emerging markets looking to find a reliable income stream. With Yield Guild’s value proposition, it’ll make it much easier for players to generate revenues with the arsenal of in-game assets, upgrades, and advantages Yield Guild’s collecting.

The major downside to Yield Guild’s model stems from the YGG token. From a regulatory standpoint, redirecting earnings from its yield-generating NFT assets to token holders could be seen as a form of dividend. This leaves Yield Guild vulnerable to regulatory scrutiny for failing the Howey Test for Securities.

Gaming Protocols / P2E

Gala (GALA)

Gala Games is a gaming studio that focuses specifically on non-intrusive blockchain gaming. The ‘non-intrusive’ part means Gala makes an intentional effort to “hide” the blockchain element of the gaming titles, ensuring players’ first focus is simply on how fun it is to play.

Gala Games was started in 2019 to builda full gaming ecosystem, giving players full control over the games and in-game assets themselves in a Play-to-Earn (P2E) style economic model. Gala has also been developing its own blockchain called “GalaChain” to improve upon its titles’ scalability and affordability over the Ethereum chain.

Key Features

Gala Games is an Ethereum-based protocol that operates through its own native token, GALA. The GALA token powers the ecosystem, giving users the following:

Governance over Gala Games
Rewards to Founder Nodes
Serves as the in-game currency standard
Used as medium of exchange on Gala marketplaces

Gala Games has compatibility with two of the largest chains in the ecosystem: Binance Smart Chain and Ethereum. Gala itself is the fourth-largest gaming protocol in the space, holding a market cap of ~$400 million with a max total supply of 50 billion tokens.

The ecosystem itself is operated by a dual-node configuration:

Founder Nodes - With a maximum of 50,000 available, these nodes can't be run unless an individual purchases a license (costs 287,000 GALA). These node licenses give owners the ability to earn compensation for securing the Gala Games network and will be tradable as NFTs.
Game Nodes - Work very similar to Founder Nodes except they're game-specific. People can purchase specific game nodes they enjoy, but pricing is based on the free market trading of the license.

Random distribution algorithm — Gala games random distribution algorithm.

Gala Games boasts partnerships with some major brands including Under Armour and TV series The Walking Dead. Other gaming titles available on the platform include:

Townstar (playable)
Spider Tanks (playable)

Titles in development include:

Fortitude
Grit
Battlestar Galactica
Eternal Paradox
Superior
Legends Reborn
Mirandus
Legacy
Last Expedition
Echoes of Empire

Pros & Cons

Gala Games has built a relatively robust ecosystem of gaming titles for players to enjoy. Outside of Axie Infinity, Gala is one of the more widely popular platforms for P2E opportunities and blockchain gaming. Unfortunately, Gala Games is much more centralized in terms of tokenomics than it may seem on the surface.

From a node perspective, the network is actually highly distributed. There are over 26,000 nodes living and securing the network day-to-day. This is a significant number; higher than almost any blockchain network to date. The problem is the high barrier to entry for normal users to run nodes. It's also reasonable to assume one individual could purchase multiple node licenses and remove them from circulation.

The bigger confusion for GALA token holders is the actual economics behind the coin. Nearly 90% of GALA tokens are held by top-100 wallets, showing that, from a distribution standpoint, the GALA token is highly concentrated. Additionally, holding GALA gives no equity incentives over the Gala Games ecosystem directly. This is accomplished by purchasing a Founder Node license.

For most gamers, this is more than likely not an issue. The barrier to entry for seasoned crypto and blockchain experts is much lower than chains like NEAR and it removes the need for players themselves to have to worry about network governance and other factors.

My Neighbor Alice (ALICE)

My Neighbor Alice is a blockchain-based multiplayer builder game where users can interact, buy, and own virtual islands and build in-game items. Alice is directly inspired by titles like Animal Crossing and aims to provide a gaming platform that can introduce millions of gamers to blockchain.

The game itself is designed to be player-owned and -governed, giving them decision-making power over the Alice DAO. It was originally launched by a game studio called Antler Interactive.

Key Features

My Neighbor Alice was intentionally designed to cater to non-blockchain natives, meaning zero prior knowledge of cryptocurrencies, NFTs, or other blockchain concepts are needed. The game itself is free to play, allowing anybody to begin participating. LAND purchases aren’t necessary to play. Plus, the game has reserved 50% of the available plots for rentals or public uses.

Six different types of virtual islands in My Neighbor Alice. Source: Cointelegraph/My Neighbor Alice

Users can engage in a number of different activities, such as:

Gathering collectibles
Fishing and farming
Purchasing upgrades through missions, competitions, or activities

The game itself has four core features:

Avatars - Playable characters within the game that can be customized
Virtual Islands - Islands within the game can be visited, hold in-game activities, and be purchased by the user as LAND
In-Game Assets - Collectibles, upgrades, and other items of value. These assets can then be traded between players on the Alice marketplace
ALICE Token - The game’s native token and can be used to purchase in-game items, earned through various in-game activities, and staked for awards. The token gives holders power over the DAO through governance.

Overall, My Neighbor Alice is the 10th-largest gaming asset in the space. ALICE holds a market cap of around ~$40 million with a max total supply of 100 million tokens.

Pros & Cons

My Neighbor Alice is currently in development, but it’s already executed public token sales and multiple LAND sales. Being a free-to-play title, this will help My Neighbor Alice attracta larger portion of the non-crypto crowd.

The land sales that’ve been conducted has shown that LAND, at least through this initial launch, is highly obtainable for interested players. LAND costs 50 ALICE tokens (just over $100), so a player that's interested in the title long-term could very easily acquire ownership of the game. This is much harder in major titles like Axie Infinity, The Sandbox, and others.

The downside for Alice is the game is only available through Binance Smart Chain. This creates some limitations, but with the cross-chain infrastructure that already exists in 2022, this is ultimately less of an issue than it used to be. The other negative to consider is the game itself is still mostly experimental as it's in development. The release of Alpha v1 access has just recently commenced.

Aavegotchi (GHST)

Aavegotchi is an open-source NFT gaming protocol. The NFTs themselves are on-chain collectible ghosts staked with aTokens, the interest-bearing token of the DeFi protocol, Aave. Aavegotchis can be purchased on a secondary market for the protocol’s native token, GHST. Aavegotchis can also be acquired by purchasing an asset called a ‘portal’ and summoning one.

Key Features

Aavegotchis are verifiably rare, interest-bearing ERC-721 tokens (NFTs) native to the Ethereum / Polygon blockchains. Aavegotchis all have some form of rarity balance that determine their underlying value based on these three attributes:

Collateral stake associated with the ghost
Traits of the ghost (brain size, energy, spookiness, etc.)
Ghost wearables (armor, badges, etc.)

Aavegatchi Socrates — Aavegatchi example Socrates

The GHST token itself has a handful of different utilities for Aavegotchi, most notably for the buying and selling of assets within Aavegotchi. This includes for ghosts themselves, portals, upgrades, and other items of value.

The token doubles as a governance token, allowing players to stake it for awards in addition to having decision-making power over the Aavegotchi DAO. GHST has a $60 million market cap of ~$60 million with a low maximum total supply of 48,903,762 tokens.

Besides staking, players can also earn GHST through a process called “rarity farming.” This is a game mechanism in which players compete to raise the rarest ghosts, upgrading their ghosts with wearables and engaging in minigames to win prizes.

Aavegotchi also just launched the Alpha version of its own metaverse called the “Gotchiverse.” Within the metaverse, Aavegotchi owners will be able to engage with other owners, purchase LAND, and participate in activities.

Pros & Cons

The Aavegotchi ghosts themselves are interest-bearing assets, so simply owning one will generate a passive yield over time. Outside of passive income, the only true playability right now is through rarity farming which is nothing more than yield-farming. With the Alpha launch of the Gotchiverse on March 31, 2022, this could change in time.

Aavegotchis are relatively expensive to acquire on secondary markets with some going for upwards of $1,500. Portals aren’t cheap either, as most costs hundreds in GHST. The biggest downside to Aavegotchi is the complete lack of any real players. The minigames exist and the platform has some usability, but the players just aren’t there.

On any given day, the daily player count has been tallied ~2500 or so people. The GHST token itself also comes off as a bit unnecessary without the immersion of a real metaverse. Being on the Polygon sidechain, it would be much easier for users to simply use MATIC rather than convert into GHST.

DeFi Kingdoms (JEWEL)

DeFi Kingdoms is a Play-to-Earn (P2E) game located on both the Harmony and Avalanche blockchains. The game itself is powered through a dual token system: JEWEL on Harmony and CRYSTAL on Avalanche. Players can engage in various yield-generating activities within the game, completing quests, purchasing in-game assets, and more.

DeFi Kingdoms aims to move away from its current gamified DEX model and push into a fully operable MMORPG title later in its roadmap. This would bring real playability to the game itself, allowing users to purchase LAND, engage with a full storyline, and create actual utility for in-game assets outside of yield generation.

DeFi Kingdoms castle and grounds. Source: DeFi Kingdoms

Key Features

DeFi Kingdoms operates as a cross-chain platform between the Harmony ONE network and the Avalanche AVAX network. The developers have created two different “realms” within the game to represent this:

Serendale realm on Harmony
Crystalvale realm on Avalanche

Players can bridge their assets between the two realms now, including characters and other in-game assets, to participate in quests and other activities throughout DeFi Kingdoms. The game has four core assets to its functionality:

JEWEL Token - JEWEL is the main token of DeFi Kingdoms and can be used in a few different varieties to generate yield on Serendale. This includes storing it with the DFK Bank or delegating it to liquidity pools within Gardens.
CRYSTAL Token - CRYSTAL powers the DEX and farms on Crystalvale, allowing players to mint new heroes and engage in activities on Avalanche.
Mintable Heroes (NFTs) - Heroes are NFTs that'll eventually represent fully playable characters within the game. They can be used for quests and contain different traits, stats, and skills.
Kingdom Plots (LAND) - A major objective of the roadmap was completed with the creation and release of Kingdom Plots, a form of LAND NFT that lets players own parts of the DeFi Kingdom virtual realms. These plots will allow players to eventually construct buildings, foster upgrades, and create equipment.

Pros & Cons

The long-running criticism by DeFi Kingdoms users has always been the lack of any real gameplay. Most users are just simply not interested in a gamified DEX as it just adds unnecessary complexity to basic DEX functionalities. The DeFi Kingdom developers have worked hard to address this problem.

A major positive about the project has stemmed from two key decisions by the developers:

Branching to the Avalanche blockchain to foster new partnerships and opportunities away from just Harmony
Creating and implementing features on the new roadmap to reinforce user confidence

DeFi Kingdoms has successfully implemented three out of six phases of its roadmap. The last of these phases is to include actual game play functions, including a battle system, player-versus-player combat, and more.

The negative part of DeFi Kingdoms, outside of the lack of gameplay, has been seen in the tokenomics. The DFK community were outraged during a major collapse in the value of JEWEL as it appeared they were being rug-pulled by developers. This turned out not to be the case, but with a market cap of only $14 million, the project can't afford any more controversies.

Gods Unchained (GODS)

Gods Unchained is a free-to-play trading card game that offers similar mechanics to Magic The Gathering. Players collect and trade cards, build decks, and compete in battles against other players to earn awards. These awards are paid out in the game’s native token, GODS. Gods Unchained is being built by game developer Immutable.

Key Features

Gods Unchained focuses on transferring the ownership of in-game assets to players in the form of collectibles. Players can either purchase card packs themselves or buy and sell collectibles from other players on the marketplace.

The game has three distinct features:

GODS token
Collectible trading cards (NFTs)
Marketplace

Gods Unchained was developed on the Ethereum blockchain, so all in-game assets take the form of ERC-721 tokens. The native token of Gods Unchained is an ERC-20 token. GODS has a market cap of ~$20 million with a maximum supply of 500 million tokens. The game recently began moving assets to ImmutableX starting in July 2021.

Pros & Cons

The most impressive facet of Gods Unchained is its strong community. The game has built up a community of over 450,000 gamers. Packs themselves are inexpensive; at least for lower tier packs. The more valuable packs come with higher price tags on the marketplace, but this is to be expected.

Another plus for Gods Unchained is the strength of its developer Immutable and the project’s supervisor, Chris Clay. Clay was a Former Director for Magic The Gathering, hence the comparable gameplay models. For ImmutableX, it's a layer-2 network with lower gas fees and has formed some powerful partnerships.

ImmutableX has partnered with all of the following:

Iluvium
Marvel Entertainment
Disney
Guild of Guardians

The main concerns with Gods Unchained are the potential barrier to entry for new players and the game technically still being in development. The barrier to entry stems from new players simply not having the assets to compete with long-standing players.

While this is obviously a common theme in virtually any multiplayer title, in P2E games this can pose a potentially insurmountable monetary gap for new. This problem is precisely what is being addressed by protocols such as Yield Guild.

Star Atlas (ATLAS)

Star Atlas is a virtual gaming MMORPG built on top of the Solana blockchain. The game itself is a strategy-style RPG (role-playing gaming) with a space-faring setting where you can explore a galactic universe. The game itself is rumored to have a metaverse build where players can interact in an open virtual world. The project is still in the very early stages of development.

Key Features

Star Atlas has three main blockchain-based components to its game:

ATLAS Token
POLIS Token
In-game assets (Solana-based NFTs)

The ATLAS token powers the game itself. It can be used in a variety of ways within the game, such as purchasing equipment, LAND, spaceships, and so on. The token also powers the Star Atlas NFT marketplace where users can buy and sell digital goods. The POLIS token serves as the governance token for the Star Atlas platform.

ATLAS holds a market cap of ~$15 million and a maximu supply of 36 billion tokens. POLIS adds an additional $9 million. The game itself hasn’t launched at all, meaning interested parties can only engage with the protocol by betting on the value of available NFTs within the marketplace.

Pros & Cons

The concept behind the game is highly ambitious. The trailer release attracted a lot of interest and surpassed over a million views. Outside of a very basic minigame available off the main website, the game currently has no other playability.

Anyone purchasing NFTs, LAND, and other goods for the game are betting on the playability before it ever launches, similar to anyone who has ever preordered a game prior to release. Until there's true playability following an official launch, the project should be considered nothing more than highly speculative. The project is rumored to launch sometime in 2022.

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