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GameFi Is Driving the Future of the Metaverse: Here’s Why

GameFi Is Driving the Future of the Metaverse: Here’s Why

The gaming industry is worth billions of dollars, predicted to generate $179.7 billion in 2020, with by comparison the global film industry reaching $100 billion in revenue for the first time in 2019.

 

According to Statista, over 2.7 billion people in the world actively or passively play video games, with China ranked first as the biggest gaming market just ahead of the US. In this dynamic market, the latest innovation, a crossover genre between crypto and gaming is a new breed of play-to-earn games or GameFi. GameFi is a concept that provides monetary incentives to gamers through a play-to-earn model, as opposed to the traditional “play-to-win” model that has been popular in the gaming industry.

 

How is the metaverse taking shape?

The Metaverse concept has also recently gained popularity, thanks in part to incorporating blockchain technology into GameFi, but also clearly driven by the growth of the gaming market. Not surprisingly tech titans dominated by gaming including Microsoft, Samsung, and Sony are joining forces to form the XR Association, which is aimed at bringing this concept of an ‘experiential reality to life.

 

Not to be outdone at the end of June Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made a big bold play, basically laying out the future for Facebook in the metaverse, before changing the company’s name to Meta, reflecting the company’s growing ambitions beyond social media. Zuckerberg declared that “the metaverse will not be created by one company. It will be built by creators and developers making new experiences and digital items that are interoperable and unlock a massively larger creative economy.” Microsoft, worth $2.5 trillion, and $731 billion Nvidia, quickly followed suit with their own metaverse visions, reported Forbes.

 

Of course, anyone who’s seen the movie The Social Network, or has seen recent evidence on how Facebook can do harm through manipulating its online users’ behavior, is certainly going to wonder if the metaverse is going to be safe with a giant like Facebook. As Tim Sweeney, the CEO of leading gaming company Epic, which has raised $1 billion to support their long-term vision of the metaverse, remarked:

 

“This Metaverse is going to be far more pervasive and powerful than anything else. If one central company gains control of this, they will become more powerful than any government, and be a god on Earth.” And as UK-based blockchain startup Outlier Ventures pointed out, the need to have a crypto decentralized core is therefore paramount: “The defining characteristic of a true Metaverse is that it needs its own economy and currencies native to it, where value can be earnt, spent, lent, borrowed or invested interchangeably in both a physical or virtual sense and most importantly without the need for a government.”

 

According to metaverse proponents, the success of GameFi coupled with the growth of NFTs may provide the solution required to make a more inter-operable metaverse which is free from domination by the likes of Facebook a reality. It’s also worth noting that China has itself started to take the metaverse seriously, presenting China with

 

“great opportunities and revolutionary effects,”

 

Zuo Pengfei, a researcher at the state-affiliated Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, argued in a September article. It’s interesting that more recently Zuo, agreed that the metaverse has “an inherent monopoly gene,” and that care must be taken to “avoid the metaverse being monopolized by a few forces”, according to a report in Quartz.

 

What’s also worth considering is that both Facebook, with its Novi wallet and cryptocurrency in the shape of Diem, and the Chinese central bank the PBOC, with its digital yuan, both have the DeFi capacity to monetize gaming in the metaverse to the tune of billions of dollars. So, any more decentralized version of the metaverse, reliant on using cryptocurrencies to power the virtual economy, needs to be aware of that reality from the get-go.

GameFi: Disrupting the online gaming industry

The play-to-earn model has shaken the online gaming industry, with traditional players looking to switch to GameFi projects like Axie Infinity. Cryptocurrencies have already been successfully integrated recently into virtual worlds created by companies such as Decentraland and Sandbox. For example, users in Decentraland can purchase virtual real estate such as theme parks and monetize them using cryptocurrencies.

 

BigONE believes that the rise in popularity of GameFi projects such as Axie Infinity played a significant role in GameFi’s mainstreaming. GameFi has been in the works since 2017, with the introduction of CryptoKitties. Still, it did not go mainstream until this year, with the popular game Axie Infinity reaching a market cap of over $1 billion in 2021. Before “play-to-earn,” gaming assets and tokens could not be used outside the gaming environment and had no real-world value. With GameFi, in-game purchases can now have real value and have applications outside of the gaming environment.

 

A key factor contributing to the disruptive power of GameFi is that it is built upon blockchain technology rather than traditional gaming apps built using Java and Unity frameworks. Plus, from a technical perspective, GameFi is generally easier to implement and develop. Such is the threat from GameFi that traditional gaming publishers such as Ubisoft and Epic Games have suggested that GameFi is the future of their blockchain-based games strategy.

 

BigONE believes that this is yet another indicator of GameFi’s meteoric rise and why it is the future of gaming. According to reports from the Philippines, Axie Infinity, the largest GameFi project, is a huge source of income for the people of the Philippines, paying some of the citizens more than the country’s average salary. In addition, reputable investment firms are beginning to invest more in GameFi initiatives, with Solana Ventures, FTX, and Lightspeed announcing a $100 million GameFi fund recently.

 

GameFi and the future of the metaverse

What’s clear is that whoever wins the battle to control the metaverse will need to use some kind of digital currency to power the virtual economy. The more monopolistic the approach the more likely this will result in something like a Novi, a dollar-based stablecoin as the de facto default currency.

 

Despite Zuckerberg’s awareness that by its nature the metaverse is inter-operable, rather than a ‘walled garden’, the amount of money and effort put into this virtual space shows that first-mover advantage will make a difference in the web3 world just as much as the current web 2.0 digital economy, where the likes of Amazon and Google reign supreme.

 

It’s up to the leading GameFi companies like Axie Infinity to show that the more choices there are for users to earn money from gaming or creating, the stronger the metaverse will be for all participants.

 

A more decentralized vision of the metaverse inspired by the likes of GameFi startups such as Axie Infinity would support the kind of metaverse that gamers, DeFi traders would welcome.

 

“While there is room for many different visions of the metaverse I believe GameFi is showing the way, with a decentralized model for gaming and earning money based on trading tokens and NFTs. This is the metaverse where people have greater choice and opportunity, to come together to form their own communities and economies.”

 

 

 

 

 

Original Source: https://hackernoon.com/gamefi-is-driving-the-future-of-the-metaverse-heres-why

Anndy Lian is an early blockchain adopter and experienced serial entrepreneur who is known for his work in the government sector. He is a best selling book author- “NFT: From Zero to Hero” and “Blockchain Revolution 2030”.

Currently, he is appointed as the Chief Digital Advisor at Mongolia Productivity Organization, championing national digitization. Prior to his current appointments, he was the Chairman of BigONE Exchange, a global top 30 ranked crypto spot exchange and was also the Advisory Board Member for Hyundai DAC, the blockchain arm of South Korea’s largest car manufacturer Hyundai Motor Group. Lian played a pivotal role as the Blockchain Advisor for Asian Productivity Organisation (APO), an intergovernmental organization committed to improving productivity in the Asia-Pacific region.

An avid supporter of incubating start-ups, Anndy has also been a private investor for the past eight years. With a growth investment mindset, Anndy strategically demonstrates this in the companies he chooses to be involved with. He believes that what he is doing through blockchain technology currently will revolutionise and redefine traditional businesses. He also believes that the blockchain industry has to be “redecentralised”.

www.anndy.com
j j j

Play-To-Earn Games: The Current State of the GameFi Industry

Play-To-Earn Games: The Current State of the GameFi Industry

As cryptocurrency and DeFi continue to impact the world, several industries are working hard on ways to innovate with decentralized technology. The gaming industry is one of the latest to integrate blockchain, crypto, and NFTs, especially with the growth of the metaverse. The technology has transformed the way gamers trade in-game assets, characters, rewards, and so much more by integrating DeFi, NFT technology, and fundamental blockchain concepts.

 

The new play-to-earn (also known as ‘GameFi’) concept allows users to convert their in-game assets and rewards to real money that can be spent in the real world. The GameFi world has grown significantly, and it is predicted to have a huge impact on the worldwide gaming market, which is expected to reach $314.40 billion by 2026. Reputable investment firms are interested in investing in GameFi initiatives because they perceive it as a viable entry point for new consumers into the worlds of blockchain and Web 3.0. During Electronic Arts’ recent earnings call, CEO Andrew Wilson suggested that while the market for NFTs and play-to-earn was still early, it did point to the future development of gaming. “The play-to-earn or the NFT conversation is still really, really early…there’s at some level, a lot of hype about it. I do think it will be an important part of the future of our industry on a go-forward basis,” Wilson added.

 

Solana Ventures, FTX, and Lightspeed recently announced the formation of a $100 million joint GameFi fund. This fund will be intended to invest in GameFi initiatives that utilize the Solana blockchain. BigONE would like to discuss the current condition of the GameFi industry with our users in this article and how the play-to-earn model can help onboard the next 1 billion people to blockchain and the metaverse.

 

The Rise of ‘Play-to-Earn’ Games

Play-to-earn games have disrupted the traditional gaming market by allowing users to earn money for completing pre-determined objectives while playing games. According to a study, more than 75% of online gamers wished to exchange their virtual assets for a currency that could be utilized across multiple platforms. The ‘play-to-earn’ model has altered the structure of the gaming industry. Players can trade and exchange their virtual assets on various exchange platforms.

 

Prior to the advent of the Play-to-Earn model, in-game tokens and assets had no real-world value. Because the reality is that the commercial first movers in gaming had their own proprietary currencies. What makes GameFi so attractive to the new wave of gaming developers is that it can be automated without any centralized intervention. This means that the play-to-earn model has long-term attractions, allowing game developers and players to invest time and money, knowing the underlying blockchain platform won’t change without community consensus. “Today, only a tiny fraction of online users and gamers even have a crypto wallet, and almost no brands and games issue NFTs. But irrespective of multi-month dips in the blockchain/crypto/NFT economy, we see more of these groups embrace blockchain-based experiences each month. This produces a virtual cycle that drives more users to register a wallet, mint an NFT, or integrate crypto assets”, concluded metaverse expert Michael Ball. In other words, the incorporation of cryptocurrency allows users to add value to their in-game assets. Traditional games were only for entertainment and thrills; the play-to-earn model introduced the benefit of earning money while still having fun.

 

Axie Infinity’s Leading Role

The ‘play-to-earn’ games have become a popular entry point for users new to the cryptocurrency space, thereby promoting the adoption of blockchain technology. The third quarter of 2021 saw a rapid increase in GameFi revenue thanks to Axie Infinity’s gross income of $781.6 million. The Axie Infinity token also reached an all-time high of $155 after starting the year with a value of $0.54.

 

The metaverse-powered gaming project enables players to breed, raise, and trade cute digital pets called Axies. The idea of the game is to get small love potions (SLP) to create new Axies. In turn, SLP is itself a crypto token that can be sold on an exchange, with top players earning up to 1,500 SLPs a day. As a further revenue stream, the game also allows you Axie can also be sold as an NFT, plus other in-game items. The monthly trading volume of all Axie Infinity NFTs is around $170 million. Finally, there is another cryptocurrency from the game called the Axie Infinity shard (AXS). Holders of AXS can vote on governance, allowing Axie Infinity players to vote on proposed upgrades, and players can also use it to stake in the community treasury.

 

What’s more, the business’s core revenue and the performance of AXS are closely correlated. “The interplay between own Axie’s revenues and AXS price is noticeable,” wrote Jeremy Ong and Jayden Andrew, analysts at crypto-focused research firm Delphi Digital. “This makes sense given the majority of revenues come from Axie breeding fees paid in AXS to the treasury, which significantly decreases the circulating supply of AXS – causing a supply-side squeeze.” Data intelligence firm IntoTheBlock noted that the number of Axie Infinity token holders has grown by 400% since November 2020 – up from zero to over 16,000 addresses.

 

The rapid growth of the GameFi sector has piqued the interest of various investors, who want to profit by contributing funding to develop ‘play-to-earn’ games, most notably the Solana-based GameFi fund. While Facebook’s name change to Meta and its vision for a metaverse future is also driving the gaming market. It appears that AngelONE, the crypto venture investment arm of BigONE Exchange, has gone a little ‘meta’ itself by listing Enjinstarter (EJS), a GameFi launchpad dedicated to growing “a thriving ecosystem for blockchain gaming.” The aim of Enjinstarter, built on Enjin’s jumpnet blockchain, is firmly grounded in the play-to-earn global community, designed to introduce new ways for players to earn crypto in a fun, engaging way. The Enjinstarter listing successfully raised 100% of its target on November 8. AngelONE partner Susu Gu, said that supporting GameFi projects such as Enjinstarter was nothing new, as it fell into their mission to find quality investments for crypto investors. However, the success of games such as Axie Infinity, coupled with the long-term vision of a gaming-led interoperable metaverse, had prompted investor interest. “While this will, in turn, bring in more funds into this field, as the $100 million joint GameFi fund shows, it’s not a return to the days of ICOs in 2017 and 2018 where a white paper and a website was enough to attract funding.”

 

Chairman of BigONE Exchange, Anndy Lian, said that with so much money invested in GameFi projects, it would soon evolve from a sector to an industry in its own right. “Not surprisingly, there are companies attempting to jump on the GameFi bandwagon to cash on it. At BigONE we believe that GameFi is not a passing fad but integral to the way the gaming-led metaverse will evolve by providing a better gaming experience for players due to its increased level of security and the opportunity to make money.” Lian added that despite the recent Naavik study detailing the slowdown in the average earnings of players, the game was likely to lock in long-term user retention so long as it could continue to deliver GameFi earnings to players.

 

The GameFi space is ever changing. New challenges and new projects pop up daily for example DeFi Kingdoms, a game built on the blockchain, designed with useable NFTs has been a strong contender to Axie’s supremacy. Or game platform enabler like PlanckX who is able to help traditional games get into the play-to-earn space.

 

I am hopeful to see more growth in 2022. Let’s review this in December to see if it comes true.

 

 

Original Source: https://hackernoon.com/play-to-earn-games-the-current-state-of-the-gamefi-industry

Anndy Lian is an early blockchain adopter and experienced serial entrepreneur who is known for his work in the government sector. He is a best selling book author- “NFT: From Zero to Hero” and “Blockchain Revolution 2030”.

Currently, he is appointed as the Chief Digital Advisor at Mongolia Productivity Organization, championing national digitization. Prior to his current appointments, he was the Chairman of BigONE Exchange, a global top 30 ranked crypto spot exchange and was also the Advisory Board Member for Hyundai DAC, the blockchain arm of South Korea’s largest car manufacturer Hyundai Motor Group. Lian played a pivotal role as the Blockchain Advisor for Asian Productivity Organisation (APO), an intergovernmental organization committed to improving productivity in the Asia-Pacific region.

An avid supporter of incubating start-ups, Anndy has also been a private investor for the past eight years. With a growth investment mindset, Anndy strategically demonstrates this in the companies he chooses to be involved with. He believes that what he is doing through blockchain technology currently will revolutionise and redefine traditional businesses. He also believes that the blockchain industry has to be “redecentralised”.

www.anndy.com
j j j

Anndy Lian Speaks at Tradeup Conference: Gamefi- The Future of Crypto

Anndy Lian Speaks at Tradeup Conference: Gamefi- The Future of Crypto

As you are new to cryptocurrency trading you will have already come across and invested in the likes of Bitcoin and Ether, and started to research on alternatives such as Litecoin, which is regarded as an improved version of Bitcoin.

You’ve no doubt also decided on a sound crypto investment plan, with sufficient financial reserves to deal with losses, and set up an account with a reputable secure exchange such as BigONE to manage your trading activities.

And now having reviewed all the various options you are keen to find out what the next big thing in crypto is, which is exactly what I’m here to talk about. So, without further introduction, let’s take a deep dive into the world of meme coins, the metaverse, DeFi and an emerging exciting sector in gaming called play-as-you-earn, also known as GameFi.

But to start by setting the context, so you are the most equipped traders coming into this booming sector of crypto investment, let’s look at the rise of meme coins, created originally as a joke about crypto which have taken a life of their own as their popularity has soared and new meme coins have emerged with real world use cases since the launch of DogeCoin in 2013.

Trading tokens in the metaverse?

It’s also not hard to see meme coins use in related sectors such as music and particularly gaming, as a cross-proprietary platform currency to enable the vision of the ‘multiverse’ or more commonly known as the metaverse.

In a recent report UK-based blockchain VC Outlier Ventures sees the need to have a crypto decentralized core, with its own payment system as key to building the metaverse.

But to take a step back and explain the metaverse a little, and why it’s worth understanding from a crypto traders’ perspective. First, a definition of metaverse. In layman’s terms, a metaverse is a virtual world that exists alongside the real world. The popularity of the metaverse concept is taking serious shape in recent years, with tech titans such as Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Samsung, and Sony joining forces to form the XR Association, which is aimed at bringing this concept of an ‘experiential reality to life.

So back to the role of crypto, or the lack of it to date, in the metaverse.
Despite the frictionless use of crypto, with low fees and decentralized P2P structures, the reality is that the commercial first movers in the metaverse space from gaming have their own proprietary currencies.

What makes DeFi so attractive to the metaverse community is that it can be automated, without any centralized intervention. It also means that DeFi has long term attractions, allowing game developers and players to invest time and money knowing the underlying blockchain platform won’t change without crypto community consensus.

Cryptocurrencies have already been successfully integrated recently into virtual worlds created by companies such as Decentraland and Sandbox. For example, users in Decentraland can purchase virtual real estate such as theme parks and monetize them using cryptocurrencies. While drinks giant Coca Cola plans to launch its own NFTs on the platform, including a ‘wearable’ jacket for avatars in the Decentraland metaverse.

NFTs
As newcomers to the world of crypto trading you may not have heard of the metaverse before, but you probably heard of NFTs and the headline grabbing rise in value of these unique digital assets.

Non-fungible tokens are referred to as NFTs. According to my understanding of economics, the term fungible relates to anything that can be exchanged for something of equal value.

Most investors know that the nonfungible token (NFT) sector has been on fire since July, and as the likes of CryptoPunks (which got even more coverage when bought recently by VISA), Mutant Ape Yacht Club and pet EtherRock NFTs fetched six- and seven-figure sums, while top NFT marketplace OpenSea surpassed $4 billion in total sales.

While the frenzy has been impressive, it’s also true that many new projects have launched across a variety of blockchain networks, and the recent decline in transaction volumes could be a signal that investors are looking to move to different pastures.

The DAO, or Decentralized Autonomous Organization, is the final piece of the jigsaw that is key to the creation of a metaverse that is open, rather than one run and controlled by the Facebooks of this world. What’s interesting about this novel form of organisation, without a central leadership or the usual management structure used for companies or other entities, is that it’s giving birth to a new way to make money called play to earn or GameFi.

In a close fit with the vision of an open metaverse, play to earn crypto games are built on the fundamental need for a place that is available to everyone and owned by no one in particular.

An amalgam of gaming and decentralized finance (DeFi), ‘GameFi’ refers to the intersection between blockchain-based gaming and decentralized financial instruments in all their guises: yield farming, lending/borrowing, algorithmic stablecoins, token minting instruments, etc.

GameFi essentially means that people are playing a game to profit with real money with payment in the form of cryptocurrencies. Some players play games and earn crypto simply because they enjoy it, and the monetary rewards simply come as a bonus. While there are other players who play to earn crypto games as their main source of income.

In some play to earn crypto games, players can start playing a game for free without paying for it. While in other cases players will need to pay to play i.e., they will need to pay for the character they want to use in game, or perhaps they may want to pay for specific items they want to use in game.

The key idea is that players play games to earn crypto, and their earning potential will increase or decrease depending on the amount of time a player is willing to spend playing the games. Likewise, as a player’s skill improves so will her/his potential profits increase. With play to earn crypto games the more you play and the better you get at the game the great financial rewards you can earn.

Concluding remarks

The Motley Fool cautious analysis of MOBOX could be seen to apply to the wider set of GameFi tokens that have rocketed in value in the last few months. While there are signs the NFT market may be cooling off, and investor attention turning to DeFi in general and GameFi in particular, it’s also right to be cautious. “With Yield Guild Games (YGG) token sale netting $12.5 million in 30 seconds, [it] shows that market participants will not hesitate to switch from one hot toy to another, no different to yield farming craze earlier in the year,” Denis Vinokourov, head of research at Synergia Capital, told CoinDesk, adding that the market is still too “nascent” to make any conclusions.

A more optimistic take is that the GameFi ecosystem has started to grow and mature thanks to a plethora of unique play-to-earn models that have seen revenue generation incorporated into gameplays. Also impressive is the amount of finance being devoted to developing the infrastructure required to take GameFi to the next level. Taking an ambitious view, with consequences for trading opportunities for the future, and not just in the short term, this arguably means global adoption that rivals traditional gaming economies.

Certainly, as the metaverse becomes more and more a reality GameFi will play an important part, helping users to access a market to trade gaming assets across their favourite platforms, in turn helping grow future inter-connected play-to-earn ecosystems. Understanding this GameFi growth trend early on will enable you to better spot trading opportunities today, as well as see opportunities for the future.

Anndy Lian is an early blockchain adopter and experienced serial entrepreneur who is known for his work in the government sector. He is a best selling book author- “NFT: From Zero to Hero” and “Blockchain Revolution 2030”.

Currently, he is appointed as the Chief Digital Advisor at Mongolia Productivity Organization, championing national digitization. Prior to his current appointments, he was the Chairman of BigONE Exchange, a global top 30 ranked crypto spot exchange and was also the Advisory Board Member for Hyundai DAC, the blockchain arm of South Korea’s largest car manufacturer Hyundai Motor Group. Lian played a pivotal role as the Blockchain Advisor for Asian Productivity Organisation (APO), an intergovernmental organization committed to improving productivity in the Asia-Pacific region.

An avid supporter of incubating start-ups, Anndy has also been a private investor for the past eight years. With a growth investment mindset, Anndy strategically demonstrates this in the companies he chooses to be involved with. He believes that what he is doing through blockchain technology currently will revolutionise and redefine traditional businesses. He also believes that the blockchain industry has to be “redecentralised”.

www.anndy.com
j j j