Ronin's problematic +2 million DAUWs
Be careful what you claim
The more reputable I think an organization is, the higher the level of honesty I expect.
Which is why I’m a little surprised Sky Mavis has gotten so excited about the raw data that its Ronin blockchain now has more than 2 million daily active unique wallets.
I say ‘raw data’ with care, because the 2 million figure is correct. You can double-check it using thirdparty data providers such as Nansen (below).
As can be seen, in raw data terms, Ronin’s activity is now at an all-time high; double the daily activity it had at the height of Axie Infinity fame in late 2021.
But, as we all know, not every daily unique wallet and onchain transaction is equal. Transactions can be putting value into an economy, taking it out or just signifying ‘Kilroy was here’. Wallets can be humans or bots. Mainly bots. Lots of bots.
Indeed, yesterday I discussed in my email for paid subscribers the problems Pirate Nation has with bots and other multi-account users; Why Pirate Nation stopped new accounts.
Of course, we also already knew that the most popular game on Ronin attracts a lot of bots. The big drop in the graph above in May happened because Pixels’ changed its reward system and lost 69% of its 1 million DAUWs in the space of three days.
Its daily activity dropped to 250,000 DAUWs — a number we can assume were the baseline of its mainly human players — although it’s since rebounded to around 750,000 daily active unique wallets, presumably as the bots have regroked the new rewards system.
As for other big onchain projects on Ronin, as the graph below — which uses data from DappRadar — shows, they are:
Carv — officially a “modular data layer for gaming and AI” but basically a multichain social farming rewards platform, and
Lumiterra, an MMORPG; one that isn’t yet live on Ronin but which has just launched a daily points engagement airdrop. Watch that red line rise.
At the risk of being impolite, neither of these two currently offer high quality, long term traffic.
Similarly, Apeiron’s traffic isn’t from its game. It’s from an airdrop campaign, and Axie Infinity’s recent growth is all down to Sky Mavis giving away free tokens for daily interaction. As I discussed in another previous paid email, Sky Mavis has so far in 2024 given away $2.6 million in AXS tokens through these means and its competitive tournaments.
Hence, by promoting a jump in spammy transactions as serious growth, I think Sky Mavis is setting itself up for a fall. It seems highly unlikely this new two million DAUWs level is going to maintained, especially post the Lumiterra’s airdrop that’s doing 750,000 wallets per day.
Much better to let blockchain-wide raw data remain uncommented on, and focus on the actual games Ronin has coming out over the coming months. Some of them even look pretty good.
Sponsored by Hiro Capital: investing 📈 in the future 🔮 of gaming 🎮
Weekly News Roundup
Cosmic Bomber PVP game now out for Mocaverse ID holders.
Manchester United launches fantasy football game on Tezos.
HyperPlay launches its Quest rewards platform with 25 games.
Game7 launches its Credits reward system.
MetaCene launches Gold Rush reward game on Mantle.
Earn Alliance launches new rewards prior to TGE on 24th September.
The Sandbox chooses Magic Eden as its official NFT marketplace.
Animoca Brands adopts LayerZero as its official interoperability solution.
As discussed below, although the main topic of conversation is bots!
Blockchain Gaming World #175 news
I’m back on the weekly podcast trail with the release of BCGW #175, which marks a second appearance for Mighty Bear Games CEO Simon Davis. Two years on from his debut, he’s now talking about Goat Gaming, the company’s PVP wager-based mini-game ecosystem, which is launching on Telegram, (and potentially other instant gaming platforms).
As I’m pretty skeptical — although becoming less so — about Telegram as a platform for monetization and retention, we had what I hope is an interesting back-and-forth about its relevance and the honesty of the KPIs being provided by games such as Hamster Kombat and Catizen. Despite the bots, Simon is a believer.
The podcast is out via the usual channels, YouTube (below) with a transcription here.
And as a programming note, next week’s episode will also be heavily Telegram-themed.
Pixels Encourages Guilds news
Running over the weekend, Pixels has launched its first Guild Crop Wars, a competitive event for in-game guilds who will share a prize pool of PIXEL tokens worth $85,000.
The event works as guild members plant, water, fertilize and harvest mushrooms, while also buying goo to sabotage their rivals. Once successfully grown, these mushrooms are turned into points, which rank individual players and guilds on the rewards leaderboard.
There are currently 1,768 active guilds in Pixels, and the orgs will be an increasing part of the game’s reward system in future, in particular as it looks to reduce the impact of bots. Yes, it is all about bots!
Additional Links
Play Craft World via HyperPlay to get 200,000 Dyno Coins and 20 Game7 Credits.
The Sandbox is still giving away free SAND tokens to anyone who plays.
MAVIA holders have voted to swap all inactive players’ RUBY tokens to in-game hard currency Sapphires.
Check out the Big Blockchain Game Report Q2 2024 👀 here.