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Will gaming crypto tokens ‘pop off’ this cycle?
In late 2024, gamers were convinced that a “gaming bull run” was on the horizon, but now, everyone is unsure.
The crypto market didn’t skyrocket like people expected after Donald Trump’s US presidential inauguration. Since Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, the three largest gaming tokens by market cap are down significantly.
Immutable (IMX) is down 32%, trading at $0.84, The Sandbox (SAND) is down 33%, trading at $0.40, and FLOKI (FLOKI) is down 43%, trading at $0.000099, as per CoinMarketCap data.
Crypto developer The Krypto King believes a gaming bull run may never happen.
“I don’t think gaming coins will pop off this cycle,” The Krypto King said in a Feb. 15 X post.
Will history repeat, or is it just a bad indicator, like the experts say?
The Krypto King claims this is because “no one” is playing Web3 games at the moment and argues “the only catalyst would be a game that people actually play and stream.”
He says Avalanche-based third-person battle royale shooter Off The Grid “had a good chance” but used too many “Web2 streamers” instead of the Web3 streamers to target the right audience.
Property trading game Upland head of community, X1Gamer, said that “the biggest problem” with Web3 is cringey thought leaders who act like they’ve reinvented the community and gaming space.
But some are still as optimistic as ever, believing a gaming bull run is underway.
Gaming commentator Panther says he is betting on Web3 gaming’s “success” in this crypto cycle.
Echoing a similar sentiment, Pivot founder and CEO Anshul Dhir says, “Web3 gaming is set to go mainstream this year.”
Many in gaming are banking on the idea that past performance predicts the future — a mindset financial advisers typically warn against — as they anticipate a gaming bull run. Back in 2021, during a broader crypto rally, gaming tokens like Axie Infinity and The Sandbox shot up over 10X in just a few months.
Avalanche team up with LFG to find their ‘play in the AI space’
Layer-1 blockchain Avalanche has teamed up with AI-driven Web3 gaming firm Lightning Forge Games (LFG) to roll out three AI-powered blockchain games as the gaming giant continues to find its feet in the AI space.
“We’re not looking to launch the same thing that is on another blockchain,” Avalanche head of marketing Coop says in a Feb. 6 panel on X.
“Instead, we’re thinking about where our play is in the AI space,” Coop says.
“We took some time to observe in that area; we don’t want to be copycats,” Coop says.
Coop says Avalanche decided to focus on gaming in the AI space since it’s already built something “really great” with big-name titles like the shooter game Off The Grid and MMORPG game MapleStory.
LFG is bringing three AI-driven games to Avalanche — Gladiator Mayhem, an AI-powered gladiator battle game; YOLO, a PvE dungeon crawler; and Grand Tactics Final Order, an auto battler.
AI labels are being thrown around too easily
LFG says many gaming firms are slapping an AI label on themselves without actually doing any real AI work.
“They opened Midjourney once, or they saw ChatGPT one night, and all of a sudden, they think they are AI,” LFG co-founder and CEO Marty Burgess says.
Burgess makes it clear that’s not at all what LFG is going for. He says LFG is “taking AI and seeing what happens when you bake it right into the core loop of the game.”
He breaks down the myth many gamers have about AI being like the bots that ruin games, arguing that it’s not the case. Unlike traditional bots, AI will be on the same level as human players.
“AI can only do the same things that a human player can do; they are interacting with the same inputs that a human interacts with,” he says.
“We’re not talking about bots; we’ve had traditional bots in games for decades, and if you play old school games where the bots would cheat, they would literally know what the human was inputting, and they would react to that, in the same frame that you did it,” he explains.
He says no human “can ever do that,” so playing against a bot is just “never going to be the same.”
Onchain gaming activity surged over 3X year-over-year
Blockchain gaming is off to a much stronger start in 2025 compared to the beginning of 2024, according to a recent DappRadar report.
Blockchain gaming activity jumped 386% year-on-year in January 2025 compared to January 2024.
“On-chain gaming activity reached 7.3 million daily UAW, reflecting a 3x increase compared to January 2024,” DappRadar says.
It’s way up compared to January 2024, but still down 10% from December, “suggesting a temporary cooldown following the year-end gaming activity peak.”
Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) blockchain Ronin network accounts for nearly 9% of all blockchain gaming activity, with over 630,000 daily UAW.
That number could rise even more in the coming months, especially since it’s now a permissionless network, “fully open to developers.”
Polygon saw a 100% increase in gaming activity, mainly driven by Web3 gaming platform QORPO WORLD and the sci-fi universe strategy game Planet IX,
Meanwhile, layer-1 blockchain Aptos continued “to demonstrate steady growth.”
Avalanche-based shooter Off The Grid held a steady 4.9 million monthly wallets, having released several updates throughout the month. Off The Grid launched a Battle Pass, exclusive skins and a Discord collaboration quest.
Even though gaming activity saw a huge spike, funding dropped massively, falling nearly 93% from the month before.
“January 2025 recorded $16 million in total blockchain gaming investments, a sharp drop from December’s $222 million,” it says.
Other News:
— Sky Mavis just made its Ronin Network a permissionless blockchain, which means any developer can now build on it to drive the Web3 gaming industry forward.
— Web3 gaming firm Ready Makers Inc. says the Supreme Court of Gibraltar has handed it a win and frozen $7 million worth of its cryptocurrency amid litigation against its own local subsidiary.
Ciaran Lyons
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