September 2024, Stella L (stella@footprint.network)
Data Source: Footprint Analytics Games Research Page
August presented a challenging landscape for the crypto market, marked by significant declines in both Bitcoin and Ether. Bitcoin’s value fell by 9.3%, while Ether experienced a sharper 21.4% drop, reflecting broader market volatility driven by global economic factors. Despite the downturn in token valuations, activity within the Web3 gaming space showed resilience. Daily active users (DAUs) rose by 6.88%, and trading volumes increased by 8.94%, largely driven by platforms like Ronin and opBNB. However, the blockchain gaming sector was not immune to the overall market struggles, with the market cap of game tokens seeing a 13.2% decline.
As industry giants such as Sony made strides into the blockchain space, the focus remained on the continued growth of Web3 innovation despite a turbulent market environment.
In August, Bitcoin and Ether saw notable declines. Bitcoin opened the month at $65,290 but closed at $59,246, reflecting a 9.3% drop. Ether followed a steeper downward trajectory, starting at $3,220 and finishing at $2,531, a sharp 21.4% decrease.
The Bank of Japan (BoJ) raised its key interest rate at the end of July, triggering a ripple effect across various markets. Strategies such as short volatility and FX carry trades faced significant declines in returns, contributing to the sharp drop in cryptocurrency valuations during the first week of August. Both Bitcoin and Ether reached their lowest points on August 7.
Selling pressure persisted throughout the month, fueled by several factors, including government actions and the Mt. Gox estate, although their influence gradually diminished.
Ethereum, meanwhile, is navigating a significant transition that has introduced uncertainty among some investors. The blockchain aims to scale by shifting more transactions to Layer 2 networks. Activity on Ethereum’s Layer 2s has surged this year, with industry leaders like Sony unveiling projects such as Soneium within this ecosystem. However, the migration of activity to Layer 2s has led to reduced fee revenue for Ethereum, which could affect the value of the Ether token.
Toward the end of the month, attention increasingly shifted to the relationship between blockchain technology and digital privacy after the arrest of Telegram founder Pavel Durov in France. Although U.S. Fed Chair Powell signaled a potential rate reduction in August, market sentiment remained largely negative throughout the month.
In August, the market cap of blockchain game tokens dropped from $18.2 billion to $15.3 billion, reflecting a 13.2% decrease. By comparison, Bitcoin’s market cap fell by 8.6%. The blockchain gaming sector, along with other parts of the crypto market, faced a challenging month.
Despite the market decline, daily active users (DAUs), measured by unique wallets, rose to 4.15 million in August, a 6.88% increase from July. This growth was primarily supported by activity on Ronin and opBNB.
The average daily transactions in blockchain games reached 8.86 million, a slight 0.46% decrease from July. One notable trend was the surge in transactions on chains like Aptos, driven by Telegram games such as Tapos. Due to the game’s mechanism, where each tap generates a transaction, over 50 million daily transactions occurred on Aptos. Currently, we haven’t included this data, as we plan to observe this trend over a longer period.
Daily trading volume for blockchain games hit 17.04 million, an 8.94% increase from July, excluding several abnormal data points from that month.
Overall, while daily active users, transactions, and trading volumes increased month-over-month in August, the decline in the market cap of blockchain game tokens highlights the broader crypto market’s struggles, with token prices and valuations trending downward.
Amid this market volatility, one of the most discussed topics was Soneium. On August 23, Sony Blockchain Solutions Labs, a joint initiative between Sony Group and Singapore-based Startale Labs, announced the creation of a new Layer 2 network atop Ethereum, called Soneium. This network will utilize Optimism’s OP Stack technology to bridge the gap between Web3 innovation and consumer applications across gaming, entertainment, and finance sectors.
In the week following the announcement, several significant steps were taken, including the roll-out of the “Minato” testnet, the launch of the developer-focused program “Soneium Spark,” and a collaboration with Transak for global fiat on-ramp services. As industry giants like Sony continue to enter the blockchain space, there is growing optimism that more people will be brought into the Web3 ecosystem.
In August, 1,492 games were active across various blockchain networks, a 5.45% decline from July. BNB Chain, Polygon, and Ethereum led the market with shares of 20.2%, 17.4%, and 17.0%, respectively.
Ronin, opBNB, Nebula (a SKALE subnet), and NEAR dominated in terms of daily active users (DAUs), averaging 1.34 million, 691.3K, 348.6K, and 321.0K DAUs respectively. By the end of August, these chains held DAU market shares of 28.0%, 23.8%, 8.8%, and 6.6%.
Ronin’s DAU market share declined steadily throughout the month, dropping from 38.1% on August 1 to 28.0% by August 31. Despite this, Ronin’s average DAU in August was nearly double that of opBNB, the next largest chain. This downward trend was largely driven by the performance of the game Lumiterra, which saw its DAUs fall from 600K in the first week to 150K in the last week of August.
Additionally, on August 6, the Ronin Bridge was temporarily paused due to a whitehat hack that exposed a critical misconfiguration in a proposal to upgrade the bridge with new features. Approximately $12 million worth of cryptocurrencies were drained. Although the issue was swiftly resolved and all funds were recovered, the incident had a noticeable impact on activity within the Ronin ecosystem.
Conversely, opBNB’s DAU share rose from 17.5% to 23.8% over the month. By August 31, its market share had almost doubled compared to July 1, when it stood at 13.1%. SERAPH: In The Darkness, which launched on opBNB in mid-July, gained significant traction, with its DAUs growing from 187.1K on August 1 to 515.0K by the end of the month.
Nebula’s market share also grew, rising from 7.6% to 8.8%. As a SKALE network chain with a “zero gas fee” model, Nebula’s growth was driven by games like Yomi Block Puzzle, moteDEX, and Haven’s Compass.
In August, the blockchain gaming ecosystem encompassed 3,401 games, with 1,254 of them actively engaged. Of these, 290 games attracted over 1,000 monthly active on-chain users (MAU), accounting for 8.5% of all games and 23.1% of active games.
As mentioned earlier, Telegram game Tapos onboarded Aptos in August, marking a significant development. This move indicates that, beyond the TON network, more blockchain platforms are now actively seeking to attract traffic and users from Telegram-based games.
Additionally, Hamster Kombat, one of the most popular games on Telegram, announced plans to launch its HMSTR token on TON on September 26, with an airdrop for players. While Hamster Kombat claims to have attracted 300 million players, it appears that only the token will be integrated on-chain. The game’s core mechanics and user activities are expected to remain off-chain, limiting the immediate impact on blockchain metrics.
August saw Web3 gaming secure $61.5 million in investment across 17 funding events, a notable 61% increase from June. Four of these events did not disclose their funding amounts.
It’s worth highlighting that “GAMEE” appears twice in the funding chart, and this is no mistake. GAMEE, the mobile gaming platform behind WatBird and a subsidiary of Animoca Brands, secured two separate funding rounds in August. On August 16, GAMEE announced an investment from TON Ventures, followed by another investment from Pantera Capital on August 21. With over 4 million users who have connected their TON Wallets to WatBird, GAMEE is focused on drawing in additional gaming and Web3 communities, GameFi investors, and Telegram users through community-driven activations on its Telegram Mini App.
Notably, Animoca Brands either led or participated in six of the 17 funding events in August, underscoring their ongoing commitment to expanding in the Web3 gaming industry, undeterred by macroeconomic fluctuations.
The interest from industry giants in Web3 gaming continues to grow. double jump.tokyo Inc. raised over $10 million in its Series D round, led by SBI Investment and with participation from Sony Group Corporation. This funding aims to accelerate the development of blockchain games and infrastructure, including blockchain platform Oasys.
In addition, two projects — SatsRush and UniWorlds — secured funding rounds as they seek to build games within the Bitcoin ecosystem.
Data for this report was obtained from Footprint’s Games Research page, a real-time dashboard with comprehensive and trusted Web3 game stats. Please contact us if you notice any chain or game not included and would like it integrated. You can also submit contracts here.
About Footprint Analytics
Footprint Analytics is a comprehensive blockchain data analytics platform that simplifies complex analysis for businesses and projects in the Web3 ecosystem. It offers tailored solutions that eliminate the need for extensive expertise and infrastructure maintenance. The platform provides long-term growth tools designed to help build and manage communities step by step, emphasizing sustainable growth and user loyalty. By combining powerful analytics with community management tools, Footprint Analytics enables projects to leverage blockchain data effectively for decision-making and growth strategies across various sectors including GameFi, NFT, and DeFi.
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