Web3 Gaming User Base Twice As DeFi, Growing 85% Year Over Year

User size of Web3 games

It was revealed on the 9th that the number of users of Web3 (decentralized web) games will be about double that of DeFi (decentralized finance) addresses by the end of 2022.

Gaming has over 2x the unique active wallets than DeFi. pic.twitter.com/k0ypjruZwp

—Delphi Digital (@Delphi_Digital) January 8, 2023

Research firm Delphi Digital presents weekly stats for unique address wallets (UAW) in Web3 gaming and DeFi. Several analytics firms, including the company, are bullish on the Web3 games space.

Web3 games refer to “P2E (Play-to-Earn)” games that allow players to earn rewards while playing, mainly using blockchain technology and NFTs (non-fungible tokens). Receive unique tokens and NFTs, which are in-game items, as rewards through gameplay, and sell them for cash.

Web3 gaming-related UAW surpassed DeFi for the first time in Q3 2021, according to statistics site DappRadar. Of the 1.54 million UAWs in the blockchain market at the time, Web3 games accounted for 754,000 (49%).

Axie Infinity, the representative of P2E, has gained great popularity in Southeast Asia, and the number of active users per day reached 1.1 million at its peak in November 2021 (according to blockchain analysis platform Nansen).

Relation:P2E NFT games, popular ranking by country = Finder survey

85% year-on-year growth in user size

In 2022, amid the prolonged bear market in the crypto asset (virtual currency) market, deleveraging (reduction of excess debt) events such as the Terra (LUNA) shock in May and the FTX shock in November occurred one after another.

Total deposits (TVL) in DeFi shrank from about $150 billion at the beginning of 2022 to $40 billion. The Web3 games market has also been hit by the bear market, with a smaller user base than at its peak.

However, DappRadar points out that Web3 games are the top category with an average of 1,152,255 UAWs per day, up 85% year-on-year.

Source: DappRader

Relation:Blockchain from “excessive expectations” to “disillusionment period” = future-oriented hype cycle 2020

hype cycle

Delphi Digital sees Web3 games moving beyond the dawn and peak of over-expectation in Gartner’s “Hype Cycle” into a period of disillusionment in 2022. He points out that the future will be a period of enlightenment and a relatively long period of stable productivity.

Source: Delphi Digital

Axie Infinity’s DAU (daily active users), which peaked in November 2021, has fallen to 9,500 by the end of 2022. But Delphi Digital points out that these early Web3 games “provided mainstream interest and led to an influx of a lot of talent.”

In fact, in 2022, the amount of investment in the Web3 game field expanded. According to Metaverse Post, 348 companies and projects specializing in NFT, Metaverse, games, AI, VR, and AR have raised a total of about 950 billion yen ($7,164,997,888). It increased by $4.8 billion year-on-year.

Of which, the Wen3 gaming sector raised $4,487.3 million. Led by Yuga Labs, the company behind “Otherside,” the metaverse sector has raised a total of $1,828.9 million through 2022.

Source: DappRader

Gartner defined Web3 in October 2022 as “a new technology stack built on blockchain that supports the development of decentralized web applications and gives users control over their identity, content and data.” It is pointed out that it will be a component of the Metaverse.

Will the play-to-earn phenomenon lead billions of users to DeFi?

Learn the what, why, and how https://t.co/lFSpE3dkbd

— ConsenSys (@ConsenSys) November 4, 2022

ConsenSys, a major US blockchain developer, pointed out that 5 of the top 10 dApps (decentralized apps) used by users of the cryptocurrency wallet MetaMask belong to the gaming category. He added that the number of users is increasing rapidly in countries such as the Philippines and Brazil, and that it is promoting the P2E market (note that Axie Infinity is not included in these five cases).

With a user base of over 3 billion people worldwide, the gaming market has grown over 100% since 2014 due to the prevalence of the free model. ConsenSys points out that the introduction of a new economic model “P2E (Play-to-Earn)” may further expand the TAM (maximum feasible market size) of the game market. P2E games will eventually bring billions of users to Web3, he said.

Relation:Total VC investment in cryptocurrency-related companies surpasses 2021

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