After a challenging year, the cryptocurrency market reached a turning point at the end of 2022. With the overall market capitalization recovering and the market trend improving, the crypto gaming industry has seen a resurgence in January.
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It is important to note that Hong Kong has thrown open the doors for crypto businesses to help rebuild the devastated financial center, which is a positive signal for the market. This indicates that Asian companies will continue to invest more in the crypto industry.
Major players in the gaming industry such as Unity и Dappradar, announced cross-border cooperation by exchanging SDK. This will likely bring new opportunities for blockchain gaming.
In 2023, the growth of new public chains is expected, and many promising game projects will go to alpha and beta testing, starting integration from Web2 to Web3. The market is still looking for the next popular game after Axie Infinity и STEPWOMEN.
In this article, we analyze the GameFi market trends at a macro level for February 2023, including market performance, funding, development of various social networks and popular games. Chart data used in this report provided by the company Footprint Analytics, official partner PlanckX, and more detailed data panels can be viewed on the website Footprint Analytics.
Key points:
With BTC rising in February, the GameFi market showed some improvement, with the total market value remaining stable between $6,3 billion and $7,2 billion.
The share of new GameFi users in relation to the total number of users decreased slightly in February and amounted to only 27,44% of the total number of users, which is the lowest figure since October last year.
WAX remains the most active blockchain in terms of transactions with 556 million transactions in February, accounting for 88% of the total, followed by Hive и Flow from 36 million and 2 million respectively.
After the aftermath of the FTX scandal subsided, Solana there has been an explosive growth in the number of users since January, with 209370 new users added in February, accounting for 51,07% of the total new users.
In light of the downturn in the market over the previous few months, GameFi's total investment value in February again topped $100 million. A total of 14 projects received funding in February.
GameFi Market Cap Metrics
Based on the graph data, it can be noted that the market capitalization of the GameFi sector follows the general trend of the cryptocurrency market over the past year. The total capitalization of GameFi decreased more than the average for the cryptocurrency market, and grew less than the average. For example, by February 28, the total capitalization of cryptocurrencies was 173 times higher than the total capitalization of GameFi.
Most tokens in the cryptocurrency industry are characterized by high volatility and unstable market value. The total market value of BTC is always a guide for investors and a de facto indicator of the market. On February 28, 2023, the total market value of BTC was almost $446,5 billion, which is 70 times the total market value of GameFi.
In conclusion, GameFi's total market value did not show significant results over this period.
GameFi funding situation
Although the aftermarket figures remained unchanged, the GameFi funding situation in February was surprising, with investment in excess of $100 million, up 395% from January. This indicates that investors recognize GameFi's prospects and look at its development in 2023 with optimism. The potential for future growth remains significant.
In February 2023, 14 projects in the GameFi sector received funding, among them Kratos Studio, Mino Games и Yield Guild Games took the first three places respectively. In the first round of funding, they raised $20 million, $15 million and $13,8 million.
Changing the number of GameFi protocols
In February, 2390 games were registered on the chain, which is roughly the same as January's figure of 2394 games. Compared to December, there was a noticeable increase in the number of games in January, but there was a slight decrease in February. This may be due to the fact that many projects launched at the beginning of the year, and the number of games on the chain slowed down as we moved into the middle of the February quarter.
If we consider the distribution of on-chain protocols, then BNB Chain и Ethereum continue to be in the lead, they are closely followed Polygon и WAX. Since March last year BNB Chain leads and is gradually breaking away from other public chains, but it is not yet known whether it will become the preferred public chain for new games in the future, this requires further observation.
The volume of transactions on the network has also undergone changes.
If we consider the number and volume of on-chain transactions, we can see that compared to January, the number of transactions decreased slightly, but the total volume remained at the same level. Ronin and WAX still occupy a significant part of both the volume and the number of transactions, which indicates good trading activity on the platforms Axie Infinity и Alien Worlds.
Changes in the number of new users in the chain
The number of new users continues to decline, with only 410947 new users registered in February, accounting for only 27,42% of total users, the lowest figure in a year. However, it is worth noting that over the past two months, the user base Solana increased sharply: in February alone, it grew by 51,06%, mainly due to an increase in the number of users attracted ladder caster.
In February, the number of active users decreased to 1,5 million, mainly in Solana, Polygon и Hive. This data has been gradually declining for four months after reaching a peak of 2,5 million in October last year. This may be due to the fact that since the end of last year there have been no popular games like StepN, which could stimulate the activity of existing users.
Summary and outlook:
Waiting for a recovery could be February's best summary, and it's also going to be a big topic on the GameFi field in 2023. It is not known if the market bottomed out and recovered, but it is clear that capital confidence has not disappeared.
The increase in investment in February confirms that funds are flowing back into the gaming industry. Unlike DeFi, NFT, and other traditional public networks that occupy a large part of the market, some specialized gaming public networks shine in the GameFi field and keep up with the competition with traditional public networks. Nowadays, multi-chain protocols are becoming a trend, and more protocols can migrate to gaming public networks. Since public networks are the driving force behind the blockchain industry's bull-bear transition, some specialized gaming networks could be the driving force behind the explosion of the GameFi industry in the next market cycle.
A slow market is no doubt putting pressure on gaming teams as deciding to release games during a bear market requires more caution. It should be noted that game development typically takes years, and weakening funding prospects could pose a risk to projects that did not raise enough funds during a bull market.
PlanckX:
PlanckX is a Web3 game aggregator hosting hundreds of popular blockchain games. They support cross-chain transactions, instant delivery of games on the blockchain, and gaming community services. In addition, they offer marketing services including game listings, advertising, and transaction support for GameFi projects.
Footprint Analytics:
Footprint Analytics is a platform that combines web2 and web3 data with abstractions. The platform helps analysts, developers, and investors turn blockchain data into insights using accessible visualization tools and a powerful API for 20+ chains for NFT, GameFi, and DeFi. In addition, the platform provides Footprint growth analytics for efficient growth of GameFi and any web3 project.
ABGA:
ABGA is a non-profit blockchain alliance sponsored by leading institutions in the gaming industry. They are optimistic about blockchain games, NFTs and the Metaverse.
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