Blockchain Games Raised $2.5 Billion in the First Quarter of 2022

It is estimated that by the end of 2022, the total investment in blockchain games will reach $10 billion, and the interest in Metaverse seems to have cooled down.

A recent study by DappRadar estimated that blockchain based games raised $2.5 billion from investors in the first quarter of 2022. If this rate is maintained, the total investment by the end of this year will be 150% higher than that in 2021. In addition, in March, blockchain Games attracted 1.22 million unique active wallets (uaws), accounting for 52% of industry activity.

Blockchain Games are Booming

According to the report shared by dapprad and cryptopotato, in the first quarter of 2022, high-profile investors poured hundreds of millions of dollars into blockchain games and unforgeable token projects. Among them, Yuga labs — the studio behind the NFT series game bored ape Yacht Club (bayc) — obtained a financing of US $450 million led by Andreessen Horowitz.

The $200 million investment in immunotable-x (IMX) led by Temasek is also worth mentioning. The latter hosted two of the most popular blockchain games – “gods unchained” and “guides of guardians”. After this initiative, the valuation of the entity reached $2.5 billion.

Since the beginning of this year, blockchain games have raised a total of $2.5 billion. It is boldly predicted that the investment for the whole year of 2022 may reach US $10 billion (assuming that the speed remains unchanged). Last year, the total investment in this field was equivalent to $4 billion.

UAW Remains Stable

The number of unique active wallets (UAW) remains stable. In the first quarter, an average of 1.17 million uaws were connected to blockchain games every day, down 2% from the daily average in the fourth quarter of last year. Nevertheless, the figure in March exceeded 1.22 million UAW days.

Top games are still attractive to player groups, such as Splinterlands, Alien Worlds, and Crazy Defense Heroes, with a daily average UAW of more than 650000 in March. In the first quarter, 52% of the whole blockchain activities came from decentralized game applications.

On the other hand, after the hype driven by meta’s brand remodeling a few months ago, people’s interest in Metaverse seems to have cooled down. The trading volume of virtual world has plummeted by 12% compared with the fourth quarter of 2021, reaching US $430 million in the first quarter of 2022. The average land price of the sandbox and Decentraland decreased by 40%, while the transaction volume of the two platforms decreased by 60% and 20% respectively.

The Ronin Bridge Vulnerability

It is worth mentioning that the largest hacker attack in the history of cryptocurrency occurred in the first quarter of this year. Last month, hackers broke the security system of ronin network and stole more than 173000 Eth and 25.5 million usdc. At the time of the attack, this was equivalent to more than $600 million.

To support the investigation of the incident, Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency platform, blocked the addresses of potential criminals and temporarily suspended all transactions on ronin network.

For its part, sky Mavis — the blockchain game project behind  Ronin and Axie Infinity — vowed to compensate victims who lost money as a result of the attack.