Prices of blockchain gamer projects have tanked in recent days, but investors like the long term … [+] getty If there is one thing that can be said for anything remotely connected to the internet and a computer screen it’s that if it is salacious or is a video game it will probably survive market turmoil.
So for cryptocurrency investors – if there are any left after this week’s news about Coinbase keeping your crypto if it goes bankrupt (they say they’re not at risk of going bankrupt), and Bitcoin BTC +4.3% heading to $25,000 (it is around $29,000 as of this writing) – the sector that looks the most promising is anything related to blockchain gaming or GameFi.
GameFi is kind of like this: imagine you’re playing 2K Sports PGA Golf and you create a golf course and instead of giving it away for free, you can charge people for it. They pay in the 2KSports token, and 2K gets a cut, and you get a cut. If you’re famous, like Tiger Woods, you make millions off the Tiger Woods-designed golf course inside the game. That’s the play-to-earn model if it was part of the traditional console game world.
Other games, like award-winnng Star Atlas (ATLAS), you can create worlds or avatars, and will big money. Screen grab from the Star Atlas trailer. Investors and gamers alike were both turned on by this … [+] Star Atlas In emerging markets like Indonesia, people make a living by playing these games. Some gamers make a couple of hundred bucks a day. Other savvy types pay gamers for entry fees to get set up in play-to-earn gamer worlds like Axie Infinity AXS2 +7.9% (AXS) – it’s like giving $1,000 to a guy who’s good at poker.
“Yes, you can buy players and people are doing exactly that,” says John Sarson, founder of Sarson Funds, a cryptocurrency investing company with offices in Indiana and Massachusetts. “These platforms are morphing into metaverse solutions. They have the potential to become a microeconomy and a micro life,” he says.
Crabada (CRA) – a new game on the Avalanche AVAX +13.5% blockchain – is one of Sarson’s GameFi holdings. They are growing at a pace of roughly 15,000 wallets a day as of April, though the Crabada investors might be scarce these days.
“There have been scholarship programs set up around the world where you pay for some gamer to make money off your crabs in the game and you share the revenue,” Sarson says.
STEPN (GMT) is another GameFi play. It’s a Web3 app people download to their phone to record their physical activity and can earn tokens for walking. Yes, it sounds ridiculous and maybe that is why it fell 26% on Wednesday alone. (Don’t feel bad GMT “hodlers”, CRA fell 38% that same day.)
But, “you got people making like $900 a day on that game,” Sarson says. “Am I serious? Yes, I am very serious.” Crash? What crash? Crabada has recovered fast over the last five days ending May 14. It’s beating … [+] Yahoo! Finance The more people that come into these play-to-earn communities, the more value for those coins. It is no different from traditional equity in that regard. The more people that buy Apple phones over others, the more value investors give to Apple. There is always the risk that Apple becomes the next BlackBerry.
All of these blockchain games are communities and many of them are set up so players can earn cryptocurrency there that they can exchange for fiat – sometimes known as real money.
Some games are more about making money for the players like Crabada, and others are more about community involvement like STEPN where you can earn money but it is more about the game and less about the earnings.
In emerging markets where gamers can earn $100 a day on these apps, that’s a desk job. Imagine that in India and parts of southeast Asia and interior China. There have been multiple articles about gamers in the Philippines that managed to find work during Covid lockdowns by playing Axie Infinity.
The blockchain market is still in its early years. NFT games alone generated $2.32 billion in revenue in the third quarter of 2022, according to the Blockchain Game Alliance. The overall gaming industry is set to reach $203 billion this year.
Blockchain-based games are becoming a bigger piece of the gamer universe so if that grows and crypto is the only way into that market, then it might be a place for investors to […]
source As GameFi Market Crashes, Blockchain Gamers Remain True Believers
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