On Wednesday, market tracker DappRadar and the Blockchain Gaming Alliance (BGA) released their blockchain gaming report for the first quarter of 2022. After previous reports cited $720 million in investments in blockchain games and infrastructure in February, the latest figures show a total of $2.5 billion for the first quarter. Venture capitalists and other investors raised $4 billion in 2021.
Among the largest deals listed in the report is Animoca Brands raising $360 million, bringing it to a $5 billion valuation and becoming a leading Web3 brand. Polygon (MATIC) received a $450M funding round led by Sequoia Capital, while Yuga Labs, the studio behind the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) non-fungible token (NFT), received a round led by Animoca Brands , and jointly launched its P2E (play and earn) game Metaverse Otherside with The Sandbox, FTX and Coinbase.
According to DappRadar, blockchain gaming attracted 1.22 million unique active wallets (UAW) in March, with more than half of industry activity coming from gaming decentralized applications (DApps) or gaming apps with play-to-earn rewards. Splinterlands was voted the number one Earn while Playing DApp. Polygon, on the other hand, is a Layer 2 (L2) sidechain with top P2E games such as Crazy Defense Heroes, Pegaxy, Arc8, and Aavegotchi.
Cointelegraph interviewed Sebastian Borget, co-founder of The Sandbox Metaverse and president of the Blockchain Gaming Alliance, and asked him why he thinks Polygon benefits the most from P2E mechanisms and NFTs compared to other ecosystems such as Wax, Harmony, and BNB Chain . He cites a few main reasons: Polygon is still compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine, and the Polygon Foundation strongly supports them in terms of marketing and grants. Another reason is that it would be easy for guilds to migrate their users to Polygon while keeping MetaMask as their primary wallet.
Borget also noted that Polygon is the first NFT layer 2 blockchain on OpenSea, which brings additional liquidity to NFTs. He predicted that the emergence of NFTs and blockchain-based games on ImmutableX (IMX), Tezos (XTZ), Solana (SOL) or BNB Binance Smart Chain (BSC) “will definitely change the distribution in the second half of 2022. "
“NFTs create an almost virtual environment for game developers to create games where players can own an economy; the holder community is both an early supporter of the game, a major player in the game’s development and a real stakeholder in the game’s success.”
The report also found that Metaverse is "one of the most exciting opportunities in the blockchain industry." While transaction volume in virtual worlds was down slightly from Q4 2021, it reached over $430 million in Q1 2022. Platforms like The Sandbox (which has completed its second season in alpha) are attracting players and brands like Warner Bros., Ubisoft and banks like HSBC. Meanwhile, lifestyle metaverse Decentralized hosted a fashion week in March to allow brands to further engage with consumers.
DappRadar emphasized an important point when talking about the metaverse: "The ownership granted by NFT, and the underlying financial ecosystem supported by cryptocurrencies and earn-while-playing games, will change the traditional metaverse limited to virtual reality and augmented reality. Cosmic Paradigm."
Additionally, while Axie Infinity (AXS) was among the top 10 games with the highest daily usage, the report noted that its UAW declined following the $650 million hack of Axie Infinity's Ronin Bridge in mid-February.
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