We’re over three quarters of the way through 2023 and while I guess most people would agree it hasn’t been a good year for crypto, it’s been better than 2022 and it could have been a lot worse.
And maybe it will still end up so!
Nevertheless, I hadn’t crunched the data on the roughly 185 blockchain gaming tokens I irregularly track for awhile and thought it was *that* time again.
I really didn’t know what to expect. The likes of BTC and ETH are up year-to-date but also down a large chunk in terms of their 2023 peaks.
Taken as an average, however, those 185 gaming tokens were down 26% but the price of eight of them have increased more than 100% since 1st January 2023, with the top performer up 599%.
As ever, those top performers are something of a mixed bunch, at least in terms of what I know (or could ascertain) about the veracity of the projects.
That said, I’m happy to pick out
WRLD (aka NFT Worlds, now renamed Hytopia),
Wemix (Wemade’s blockchain gaming platform), and also
RON, the governance token for Sky Mavis’ Ronin blockchain
as decent projects, worthy of further investigation.
In their own ways, each is solid, building out ecosystems that have the potential to engage with large audiences.
Of course, this isn’t to say that the performance of these — or any — tokens is causally related to these activity, just that these are projects doing real things; something that I don’t think is the case for all of these top performing tokens.
For example, in a bear market with low liquidity, any rising token prices could begats further upwards movement for a time, just as noise can beat out signal.
It’s also worth noting that over longer time frames — as listed in the OG ROI and CoinGecko start ROI columns — many of these tokens have been heavily beaten down.
Anyhow, the list of 2023 YTD’s top performers is below: obviously not investment advice.
If you want to hear all the gory details as I work through some of these projects, fill your boots in the following 15 minute-long video!
This Substack is sponsored by Hiro Capital:
lead investor into Snowprint Studios, which was majority acquired by MTG on a 1.8x multiple of 2023 revenues for its Warhammer 40,000: Tacticus game.
Calendar
Axie Game Jam 2023 launches — 15th October
Synergy Land launches testnet early access — 16th October
Formula E: High Voltage launches — 19th October
Guild of Guardian’s Friends and Family Demo ends — 20th October
Xterio opens its marketplace — 22nd October
Aavegotchi is going live in The Sandbox — 25th October
Peter Molyneux’s Legacy launches — 26th October
Dogami Academy launches early access — 30th October
Phantom Galaxies goes into early access — 2nd November
Axie Infinity Season 6 ends — 11th November
Funding news
South Korean game outfit Wemade’s web3 company Wemix (see above) has announced it’s set up a $30 million investment fund for gaming alongside crypto exchange Bybit’s Mirana Ventures.
Indeed, the fund has already invested $6.4 million into five Chinese game developers, who are working on titles for the Wemix blockchain gaming platform. The names of the developers haven’t been revealed but they’re said to be working on genres including MMORPG, card battle and sports. Some imagery has been shown (as below).
Further investments into the Chinese development scene are expected.
Additional Links
TCG Parallel is now available for wishlisting on Steam.
Netmarble’s MBX token is now live on the Japanese Zaif exchange; the first South Korean game project to be officially verified in Japan.
NFT fund Spencer Ventures has acquired 48 Pudgy Penguins (plus 48 Rogs and 48 Lil’ Pudgies) that were part of failed hedge fund 3AC’s liquidation process. It paid “‘mid-six figures”.
Polygon’s Sandeep Nailwal has proposed an ApeCoin zk L2 chain using ApeCoin for gas.
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