Web3 games become the traffic bearer for TON, as public chains compete in the gaming sector
Multiple public chains plan to launch Web3 game incentive funds.Author: flowie, ChainCatcher
Editor: Marco, ChainCatcher
Since March, the price and market value of the TON token have been steadily rising. As of May 22, the market value of TON is approximately $22 billion, an increase of over 155% since the beginning of March.
Behind the growth of TON's market value, its ecological mini-games such as Notcoin and Catizen have played a significant role.
According to Jack Booth, the market director of the TON Foundation, Notcoin's user base has grown to 35 million in just three months. The Notcoin token, NOT, was recently listed on exchanges like Binance and OKX, reaching a market value of $820 million within just one hour.
Meanwhile, the official disclosure from the mini-game Catizen indicates that as of May 17, Catizen has attracted nearly 6 million players, with daily active users close to 500,000, on-chain users reaching 260,000, and on-chain transaction volume exceeding 2 million.
As one of the entry points for mass adoption, Web3 games have always been a crucial area for major public chains. Currently, TON is gaining significant traffic through Web3 social mini-games. Which other public chains have active game users, and which are actively expanding their gaming sectors?
Ronin Remains in a Leading Position, Klaytn Sees Significant Growth in On-Chain Active Users
DappRadar data shows that in April, Web3 games reached nearly 3 million daily active wallet addresses, setting a new historical high. The two major public chains, Ronin and Polygon, still account for most of the active volume.
Ronin, an EVM-compatible game-specific chain built by the Axie Infinity development team Sky Mavis, has secured its leading position primarily through the hit Web3 game Pixels, with an April dUAW (daily unique active wallets) exceeding 790,000, a 45% increase compared to March.
Currently, Ronin has partnered with several globally renowned game studios, including Directive Games, Bali Games, and Tribes Studio.
Polygon, once one of the most popular public chains for games, saw its dUAW exceed 557,000 in April and hosts well-known games like Matr1x and QORPO WORLD. However, Polygon still faces the challenge of Web3 games migrating away from its chain.
Since Pixels migrated from Polygon to Ronin at the end of last year, the card game Zoids Wild Arena TCG, developed by Korean game developer ACT Games, has also moved from Polygon to Ronin.
In January this year, the game Crypto UnICOrns announced its migration to Arbitrum's Xai network due to skyrocketing fuel costs on the Polygon network, which increased operational costs and negatively impacted player experience.
In March, Korean game company Nexon revealed that the blockchain version of MapleStory Universe for the adventure game MapleStory also abandoned Polygon in favor of Avalanche.
In April, Klaytn, focusing on the metaverse, GameFi, and creator economy with its metaverse game Another World, achieved a 202% growth.
Klaytn, founded by the well-known Korean company Kakao, plans to complete its merger with Line's blockchain project Finschia by the end of June and launch its mainnet. The merged mainnet will be renamed kaia, aiming to create the largest Web3 ecosystem in Asia through this merger.
Multiple Public Chains Plan to Launch Web3 Game Incentive Funds
In March, the Arbitrum Foundation announced a game incentive proposal: planning to invest 200 million ARB (approximately $400 million) over two years to promote gaming projects on its blockchain. The proposal will open for on-chain voting on May 24.
Additionally, Arbitrum is advancing the development of Layer3 gaming chains. Following XAI, Polychain Monsters launched an L3 game-specific chain based on Arbitrum Orbit through Altlayer.
Besides Arbitrum, the game-specific chain Immutable recently announced a $50 million Web3 game reward program and revealed that its ecosystem is currently working on developing over 270 games, including notable projects like Illuvium and MetalCore.
Moreover, Immutable, King River Capital, and Polygon Labs have teamed up to launch a $100 million "Inevitable Games Fund," which will leverage the expertise of the three parties in gaming and blockchain to identify and invest in promising game studios and Web3 infrastructure.
Immutable is also actively building the zkEVM chain system Immutable Nexus, ensuring that games built on the Immutable chain (including Immutable zkEVM and dedicated zkEVM) can achieve optimal liquidity, security, and accessibility.
Sui, similar to the TON public chain, promotes the on-chain Web3 gaming ecosystem through partnerships with traditional Web2 giants.
Recently, Sui announced a collaboration with BytePlus, a subsidiary of ByteDance's technology solutions, focusing on gaming and social finance. BytePlus provides services such as content distribution, personalization, and AR technology to support Sui's developers in fostering globally impactful application development.
Additionally, five games are set to launch on Sui soon.
In March, the Starknet Foundation announced the establishment of a gaming committee composed of six experts tasked with promoting the growth of games on Starknet. The committee's role includes analyzing, formulating strategies, and recommending plans to expand Starknet's gaming ecosystem, which will be measured by usage metrics such as daily active users, retention rates, and revenue.
Starknet also supported the on-chain metaverse game Realms.World with a donation of 2 million STRK.
Recently, the game project Elfin, backed by Binance Labs, announced its integration into the Manta Network ecosystem, migrating 100,000 blocks of Elfin Land to Manta Pacific and donating 10,000 blocks of land to the Manta Foundation as user incentives.
The Elfin team plans to deploy multiple game projects on the Manta Pacific chain and build a game Layer3 based on Manta.
At the end of February, ConsenSys's Layer2 network Linea launched the Web3 game task Linea Park, with task partners being the Web3 task and bounty platform Layer3, allowing users to experience game projects and earn Linea LXP.
By the end of April, Linea announced on platform X that during the Linea Park event, a total of 48 million tasks were completed, with 1.48 million participating users, 7.9 million visiting users, and 840,000 completed verifications.
Saga is a modular one-click chain launch platform for the gaming sector based on Cosmos. Saga launched its mainnet in April and subsequently went live on Binance.
Previously, Saga announced the establishment of a Web3 game publishing department, Saga Origins, to release games for the Saga Layer-1 blockchain protocol.
The gaming blockchain Tabi Chain, built on Cosmos, launched its testnet in March and recently announced an airdrop of 800 million TABI tokens to Voyager event participants, GG holders, public sale participants, Captain node holders, ecosystem project builders, and testnet contributors.
Oasys is also a blockchain designed specifically for gaming. Recently, Oasys announced a strategic partnership with the well-known Korean game developer Com2uS and subsequently collaborated with Metabora SG, the Web3 gaming division of the Korean internet giant Kakao.
Additionally, the blockchain version of the famous Japanese football manga series "Captain Tsubasa" has officially launched on the game-centric blockchain Oasys. The game is developed by Mint Town, Co.Ltd. and BLOCKSMITH&Co., a subsidiary of mobile game giant KLab Inc.
Nim Network is an AI gaming chain built on Dymension. On May 1, Nim Network launched its mainnet, with Dymension's TVL experiencing a maximum daily increase of nearly 550%. Nim Network also introduced staking features.
Previously, Nim Network initiated an AI gaming alliance, which includes the Polygon modular blockchain project Avail, the decentralized data-sharing protocol OceanProtocol, the on-chain competition platform JokeRace, and the Web3 social simulation game Today.
