From 2017 to 2022, the growth journey of the forked public chain WAX

Author: Chain Teahouse

From 2021 to 2022, the blockchain gaming market experienced significant growth, occupying a prominent position in the blockchain industry, with the number of active wallets in this field increasing by 121%, reaching 804,000 users. The success of Play to Earn games has even been a very positive signal for the entire blockchain industry.

For example, Axie Infinity broke many category records, with daily active users reaching 2 million at one point, and its revenue surpassing that of OpenSea, Solana, Ethereum, and even Honor of Kings. Moreover, Play to Earn games have created micro-economies, allowing everyone the opportunity to earn passive income through blockchain, no longer limited to virtual currency trading.

Many flourishing public chains are accelerating their layouts, including popular blockchain games like DeFi Kingdoms, Splinterlands, Alien Worlds, Farmers World, Upland, and Mobox, which come from multiple non-Ethereum public chains. This has even led Ronin, Flow, and Immutable X to set precedents for executing their own public chains/layer twos in the blockchain gaming space. In the blockchain gaming ecosystem, Ethereum is no longer the dominant player.

As of Q2 this year, a total of 35 public chains' GameFi users are mainly divided among WAX, Hive, BSC, and Polygon. Among them, WAX and Hive account for 37% and 34%, respectively.

WAX claims to be the first metaverse blockchain for games and NFTs, providing everything brands need for NFTs, including games, exchanges, and markets.

Previously, WAX had collaborated with many well-known IPs: Street Fighter, Alien, Godzilla, etc.; game developers: CAPCOM, ATARI, ANIMOCA, etc.; and top companies: GOOGLE, Facebook, Microsoft, Marvel, etc., to jointly launch NFT, games, and other products.

2017: Refreshing the Development of the Digital E-commerce Era

WAX was established in 2017 and is also known as the world's most environmentally friendly blockchain for NFTs, collectibles, and video games. It aims to integrate a blockchain platform to help developers create, sell, and trade digital goods, dedicated to empowering businesses to profit and grow in a new digital e-commerce era.

WAXP is the native token of the WAX chain, which not only has trading purposes but can also be used as currency to purchase video games, collectibles, and NFTs, strongly supporting all activities and functions on the WAX platform. WAX users holding WAXP also have the right to vote for block producers and receive voting rewards.

Finally, from a gaming perspective, in addition to the dozens of dApp games that users can already play, WAX also allows users to buy, sell, and trade NFTs on their marketplace.

Thus, the WAX chain is also known as the "King of NFTs," as it has successfully facilitated NFT sales from many well-known partners, including Major League Baseball, Street Fighter, Atari, and more.

The WAX public chain was developed by the founding team of the online game virtual item trading platform OPSkins. WAX's CEO William Quigely was a co-founder of Tether and has extensive and deep connections in the crypto space. The team has collaborated with well-known companies in the industry, such as Xsolla and Animoca Brands, to jointly launch NFTs for well-known IPs like deadmau5, Atari, William Shatner, and Capcom.

2019: Launching the Mainnet and Ecosystem Layout

The WAX mainnet went live in June 2019, officially becoming a public chain focused on game items and digital collectibles. It is based on EOS and follows the DPoS consensus mechanism to support the high throughput required for games while attracting many game developers to complete the ecosystem together.

WAX's gas fees are much lower than those of ETH, and the WAX public chain was developed by the founding team of the online game virtual item trading platform OPSkins, which claims that WAX has the capacity to handle approximately 2 million transactions per week, ensuring the platform's operational speed.

Moreover, the WAX team has collaborated with well-known companies in the industry, such as Xsolla and Animoca Brands, and launched NFTs for well-known IPs like deadmau5, Atari, William Shatner, and Capcom.

2021: Becoming a Giant in Blockchain Gaming

Last year, the blockchain game Farmers World, which had not appeared in mainstream views, quickly broke through. Farmers World generated over 20.47 million RMB in daily revenue, surpassing the average daily revenue of the world's highest-grossing mobile game, Honor of Kings, at 20.24 million RMB. It became the second blockchain game after Axie Infinity to exceed the revenue of Honor of Kings.

Compared to the free-to-play model of Honor of Kings, Axie Infinity and Farmers World introduced blockchain gameplay, allowing users to earn tokens while playing, which is highly attractive. This has gradually made WAX the most active public chain, becoming the leading public chain in blockchain gaming. It has shown explosive growth in NFT trading volume and daily active users.

The gameplay of Farmers World is very simple, with three types of resources in the game: gold, wood, and food, as well as three resource tokens. Players use WAXP to purchase tokens on DEX, turning them into resources in the game. There are also different levels of tool NFTs in the game, which can produce corresponding resources at different time intervals. Tools can also be directly purchased in the NFT market, and the produced resources can ultimately be converted into tokens that can be exchanged for WAXP on DEX.

According to the official website of Farmers World, WAX has a growing library of game dApps that continuously engage in NFT item minting and trading through Atomic Assets and the marketplace. Games like Alien Worlds and Farmers World have also attracted significant attention due to their gamified economic models. These games have collectively driven an increase in WAX user activity, accounting for about 90% of all UAW.

Currently, the main driving force behind WAX's popularity remains Alien Worlds. The game had over 287,000 users in July last year, becoming one of the most popular games in the entire blockchain space. Despite other platform games receiving a lot of attention, the usage of Alien Worlds increased by 7% compared to June. Additionally, this popular WAX game witnessed over 437,000 NFT transactions, ranking second in this category only behind Axie.

R-Planet is another popular WAX game, with daily users exceeding 18,200, an increase of 2.2% from the previous month. R-Planet allows players to stake NFTs from different projects to create in-game items, which may generate new NFTs or even drive up the price of WAXP.

The game is about to complete the first phase of its roadmap. The second phase of R-Planet is expected to introduce more new features, such as virtual land. Therefore, it is not difficult to see that the WAX blockchain is a thriving blockchain for NFTs and gaming. WAX relies on dynamic markets like AtomicHub, where NFTs can be traded at reasonable prices without transaction fees. With Alien Worlds and R-Planet already standing out, Colonize Mars is also gradually taking off.

Conclusion

According to data from May this year, there are 11 game dApps on Binance Smart Chain, attracting an average of over 1,000 active wallets daily, while WAX has 18 game dApps. Games like Farmers World on WAX have attracted thousands of users looking to earn money through gaming and learn about DeFi. With WAX's rich ecosystem of games and its focus on gaming and digital collectibles, it provides a vast user base for emerging blockchain games.

Compared to other trading networks, WAX is more convenient to use, has a larger market, better prices, and unique vIRL®NFTs. vIRL®NFTs differ from NFTs on other blockchains as they have many dynamic features, including app/video game integration, marketing tools, and V-commerce capabilities. This allows vIRL®NFTs to link to real-world items in the future, enabling users to fully transfer ownership.