The crypto market saw a significant decline in 2022, but not all sectors faced the same trajectory. In 2022, the funding market is very active, with capital flowing into the GameFi industry at an unprecedented rate. The overall Q1 funding amount of the GameFi rose 194.19% year on year, with start-up game projects being hotly pursued by capital and the industry developing positively.
Footprint Analytics, a one-stop visual data analytics platform, and DeGame, a Web 3.0 NFT game infrastructure platform, have released the 2022 Q1 GameFi Industry Report, which provides a comprehensive look at the GameFi industry's performance in the first quarter.
The report includes:
- Overall market data and trends
- GameFi-related performance on various blockchains
- Investment and financing developments,
- A detailed look at STEPN, the quarter’s biggest project
Click here to download the full Q1 2022 GameFi Industry Development Report, or read the summary below.
I. The GameFi market was stable
The total market capitalization of all GameFi tokens fell by 15% in Q1 due to market trends, which correlated with fluctuations in BTC market cap. However, the total number of GameFi users remained roughly the same as in 2021 Q4 at around 1.2 million.
The total transaction volume of GameFi projects across all chains in Q1 was $6.322 billion. The top three chains by transaction volume from GameFi were WAX, Hive, and BSC. WAX is in the lead, accounting for 77.7% of the total game volume of each chain combined.
The daily trading volume peaked at $205.8 million on Jan. 9, and declined after.
II. Many chains remain undiversified
In Q1, most chains continued to be dominated in terms of users by a single large, successful project. BSC and Ethereum are exceptions to this trend and have relatively even distribution.
Here are some of those unbalanced ecosystems and their respective head games:
- Wax: Alien Worlds (x% of total users)
- Hive: Splinterlands (99.9% of total users)
- Ronin: Axie (100% of users)
- EOS: Upland (94.1% of users)
III. 2022 Q1 Game Token Liquidity
In Q1 2022, 20% to 30% of tokens listed on centralized exchanges were GameFi project tokens, and the trading volume of the head game tokens is extremely high, occupying the majority of the market share.
The project with the highest daily token trading volume was STEPN, whose governance token, GMT, had an average daily trading volume of nearly $100 million and was by far the best performing chain in terms of token liquidity realization. It was followed by Gala Games, The Sandbox and Decentraland.
IV. 2022 Q1 GameFi Investment Jump by 194.19% YoY
The GameFi market as a whole saw a 194.19% increase in Q1 funding compared with the data last year and a 40.78% decrease on a season-over-season basis. Out of all project categories, indie games—those video games typically created by individuals or smaller development teams,—were at the forefront in terms of both the number and amount of funding than any other category of GameFi project
There were more seed rounds than any other kind in Q1 for GameFi, whereas strategic rounds raised the most total funds. Projects on Polygon received the most funding in amount and quantity, and Animoca Brands was the most active investment institution.
V. STEPN dominated the quarter with innovative gameplay
STEPN, a move-to-earn GameFi app built on Solana officially launched in January and reached 21K daily and 66K monthly user activities in February, which is super fast.
Since its launch in January, the number of new daily top-up users has been growing and the growth rate has accelerated, with the current daily top-up users at around 5-8K. Official wallet GST daily incoming and outgoing amounts reach the level of 10 million USD, daily withdrawals and deposits show a stepped and significant rise at the end of March, but the net inflow and outflow has basically been in a dynamic balance.
Conclusion
While it may seem like GameFi is in a bubble, data from Q1 indicates that the sector has been relatively span compared to the greater crypto industry. The market cap of gaming projects was stable, token liquidity increased, and VCs continued showing significant interest in new projects. Additionally, new use cases in the form of move-to-earn have opened the possibility for more widespread adoption of GameFi.
However, many chains still face difficulty in diversifying their ecosystem, which may pose systemic risk to both the chain and the head GameFi projects that depend on them.
To better understand each of these trends, read the full 2022 Q1 GameFi Industry Report by Footprint Analytics and DeGame.
Source: https://thecapital.io/article/is-the-gamefi-bubble-about-to-burst--2022-q1-gamefi-industry-report-N2UFURnal8J9dg7miIA
