On October 28th 2021, Facebook announced that it would be changing its name to Meta. This comes alongside the announcement of its metaverse project which shares the same name.
Meta is a metaverse project that aims to combine social media and virtual reality. It includes 3D spaces where people can socialize, learn, play and build.
Facebook's Meta project drew similarities to similar projects in the blockchain space. This in turn led to many gaming and metaverse related cryptocurrencies reaching new all-time highs in price and market cap.
In this post, we'll look at 7 different gaming and metaverse related cryptocurrencies and why they could turn out to be very promising investments.
If you decide to invest in metaverse and gaming related cryptocurrencies, I recommend using Kucoin to easily buy and sell cryptocurrency, including the ones mentioned in this post. Kucoin is available worldwide, including the USA.
Decentraland $MANA
Decentraland (MANA) is a virtual reality world that runs on the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain.
Players can explore virtual worlds owned and built by other users in the metaverse. They can also buy and sell their own plots of land or build their own virtual spaces.
The platform includes interactive apps, in-world payments and peer-to-peer communication, which helps to foster a growing community and virtual economy.
Decentraland has two tokens that are used to power its virtual world:
- LAND - A non-fungible token (NFT) used to define the ownership of land parcels representing digital real estate.
- MANA - The cryptocurrency used for purchases of LAND, as well as virtual goods and services used in Decentraland.
Decentraland consists of 90,601 individual pieces of LAND, each one existing as an NFT. LAND owners can build their plots into anything they like and sell their LAND to other users.
Decentraland users can also earn money by leasing their LAND to other users, selling advertising space or creating and selling items for MANA.
MANA rose from $0.60 to $3 (over 5x) after Facebook's announcement of its virtual reality platform and renaming it to "Meta".
This was likely due to increased attention to metaverse projects in the blockchain world.
In this case, Decentralands virtual reality world caught investors attention due to its similarities with Facebooks/Meta's upcoming virtual reality world.
MANA is currently floating between $2.70 and $3 and it could prove to be a promising investment due to the growing popularity of NFT's, virtual ownership, and crypto gaming in general.
The Sandbox $SAND
The Sandbox $SAND is a voxel style virtual world where users can build, own and monetise their gaming experiences. Like Decentraland, The Sandbox platform runs on the Ethereum blockchain.
The Sandbox platform consists of three main products which enable the users to create their own unique content within The Sandbox metaverse.
- VoxEdit - Lets you create and edit voxel models and animate them quickly.
- Marketplace - An open market where users can trade in-game tokenized assets such as characters, LAND's, art, equipment and more.
- Game Maker - Allows users to build, share and monetize their own games within The Sandbox metaverse.
The Sandbox uses several different tokens to enable its virtual economy:
- SAND - The ERC-20 token and main cryptocurrency for The Sandox's metaverse. This token is used for all transactions within the virtual ecosystem.
- LAND - A digital piece of real estate within The Sandbox metaverse. Each piece of LAND is an NFT on the Ethereum network.
- ASSETS - A token created by players who build/assemble user-generated content (UGC). ASSETS utilize the ERC-1155 standard and can be traded on the marketplace.
The Sandbox started out as a 2D sandbox game for mobiles and PC. The game was acquired by Animoca Brands in 2018 and they began work on a blockchain version of the game, which is the current iteration of the game.
Animoca Brands is behind other major crypto NFT and gaming platforms which include Axie Infinity and Cryptokitties.
The Sandbox is backed by major investors including:
- Square Enix - Video game company behind Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, Dragon Quest and more.
- SoftBank - Ranked by Forbes as the 36th largest public company in the world and the second-largest company in Japan after Toyota.
- B Cryptos - Japanese venture capital company.
- True Global Ventures - Global Technology Equity fund.
SAND rose from $0.75 to $3.40 (over 4.5x) after Facebook's announcement of its virtual reality platform and renaming it to "Meta".
Again this is mainly due to increased mainstream attention to metaverse projects in the blockchain space.
SAND is currently floating around $2.65 and it has a lot of potential, especially when you consider its virtual economy, the investors behind the project and its high potential for mass adoption.
Enjin $ENJ
Enjin $ENJ is a blockchain-based platform that enables users to create and manage digital assets on the Ethereum blockchain.
The main use case for Enjin is creating $ENJ backed assets that can be accessed in games.
For example, developers can create weapons, characters or skins, each baked by a certain amount of $ENJ.
These assets can be freely sold or exchanged between users, enabling developers to create a virtual economy for their games.
These digital assets can also be "melted" down to redeem the $ENJ that was used to mint the item.
Essentially every time an asset is created on the Enjin platform, the amount of $ENJ used is locked up in that asset and removed from the market.
This creates scarcity and increases demand for the $ENJ token, which in turn increases its value.
Enjin makes it easy for developers to create $ENJ backed digital assets through its software development kits for Unity, Java, Godot and more.
Enjin has multiple products that make it easy to create, own and sell digital assets on the Ethereum network:
- Marketplace - Online marketplace with over 10 million digital items that allows users to discover, buy, and sell rare and unique blockchain assets.
- Enjin Beam - A Digital asset distribution system that developers to send thousands of NFTs/FTs to users with a simple QR code scan.
- Smart Wallet - Wallet for blockchain assets that easily links with games and apps, with over 1 million users.
- Efinity - Enjin's upcoming Ethereum scaling product will enable fast and free transactions of both ERC-20 and ERC-1155 tokens.
Enjin has a lot of potential in the crypto gaming and NFT space, especially due to its ability to create in-game items with real-world value.
$ENJ is currently priced around $3.32, up 50% from $2.20 after Facebook's rebranding announcement.
Axie Infinity $AXS
Axie Infinity (AXS) is an online, NFT based trading and battling game that allows players to collect, breed, raise, battle, and trade creatures known as "axies".
Each axie is digitized as an NFT on the Ethereum blockchain and new players need to purchase at least three axies to begin playing. This is due to the axies battling exclusively in teams instead of one-on-one battles.
Axie Infinity uses a Play-to-Earn/Pay-to-Earn gaming model where players earn Smooth Love Potion ($SLP) which can be used for breeding new axies or sold on Binance.
The game has two tokens in its ecosystem:
- Axie Infinity Shards $AXS - $AXS is a governance token that gives holders rights to vote on key decisions such as game functionalities or treasury funds spending.
- Smooth Love Potion $SLP - $SLP is earned by battling either in adventure mode or against other players.
During a pandemic lockdown around June 2021, CNBC reported that some people in the Philippines were playing the game as their main source of income.
The game continues to rise in popularity with users hiring people from developing countries to play the game for them, getting a share of the profits in return.
These are known as "scholarships" and you can find users applying for these in Axie Infinity related Telegram groups and Reddit communities.
This goes to show the extent of Axie Infinity's popularity, especially in developing nations where users can make more money playing the game than their actual jobs.
Axie Infinity is backed by very established investors including:
- Mark Cuban
- Andreessen Horowitz (a16z)
- Animoca Brands
- Hashed
- Pangea Blockchain Fund
- ConsenSys
$AXS increased 30%, from $124 to $160 whilst $SLP rose over 100% from $0.06 to $0.12 after Facebooks rebranding annoucement.
$AXS is currently floating around $155 - $165, whilst $SLP is currently floating $0.07 - $0.08.
As Axie Infinity grows more in popularity, $AXS and $SLP will continue to increase in value.
The game also has some major investors behind it, and increasing global adoption, these factors make it a good long term investment in my opinion.
Chromia $CHR
Chromia $CHR is a scalable blockchain platform that has recently attracted attention due to its focus on crypto gaming and NFT's.
Chromia uses a relational database structure to enable the following features for crypto gaming:
- Procedural game logic fully stored and deployed on chain
- Giving users a single private key login (SSO) that can act as their ‘account’ for several games
- Storing user’s personal data and save game data directly on the blockchain
- Enabling instant settlement with no credit cards or other banking information required via cryptocurrency
- Tokenization of valuable in-game items as NFTs that can be traded outside the game world
- The ability to migrate items, achievements, and unlocks across games existing on the Chromia network
Chromia has currently released the following crypto gaming and NFT projects:
- My Neighbour Alice - Multiplayer blockchain builder game, where users can buy and own virtual islands. It's token $ALICE was released through Binance's launchpad.
- Mines of Dalarnia - Play-to-earn action-adventure platform-mining game. It's token $DAR was released through Binance's launchpad.
- Krystopia: Nova’s Journey - Puzzle game connected to Mines of Dalarnia.
- Chain of Alliance - Auto-battler game running exclusively on the Chromia blockchain.
Chromia $CHR rose 3x from $0.34 to over $1 and is currently floating around $0.81 - $0.95. With a $350m marketcap I believe this project is undervalued.
Chromia's projects $DAR and $ALICE are worth looking at too and they can also be found on Binance. Speaking of $ALICE we'll look at this project next.
My Neighbour Alice $ALICE
My Neighbour Alice $ALICE is a multiplayer builder game where players build and create their own virtual lands, interact with other "neighbours", perform exciting daily activities and earn rewards.
My Neighbour Alice was developed by Chromia and is scheduled to be released on Steam in Spring 2022. The game allows players to buy and own virtual land called "Plots", as well as collect and build their own items.
The native cryptocurrency of the game is named $ALICEand it allows users to play the game, buy in-game items and vote on decisions.
Players can also stake their $ALICE tokens and earn interest on their holdings.
$ALICE is currently floating around $16, up 45% from $11 after Facebook's metaverse announcement.
Chilliz $CHZ
Chiliz $CHZ is a sports and entertainment focused blockchain platform. One of the platform's main goals is to give millions of sports and esports fans a token that grants them direct voting power in their favourite sports teams.
This will allow fans to become active participants in their favourite sports clubs, instead of just passive spectators.
Chiliz's products include:
- Socios.com - An online platform for sports fans built on the Chiliz blockchain, which uses $CHZ as it’s exclusive on-platform currency.
- Official Sports & Esports Team Tokens - Official fan tokens for sports teams including Juventus, PSG and FC Porto, built on the Chiliz blockchain and sold on Binance.
- Chiliz Exchange - An exchange where users can trade official sports team fan tokens.
Chiliz's sports tokens in particular have proven popular with fans and investors alike, with most fan tokens increasing over 10x in value after release via the Binance Launchpool.
$CHZ is currently floating around $0.48, up 60% from $0.30 after Facebook's metaverse announcement.
You can find all of the above cryptocurrencies on Binance.
For those of you who live in the USA, you can find all of these cryptocurrencies on Kucoin.
I hope you enjoyed this story, feel free to check out the useful resources below:
CEX Exchange — Exchange where you can directly buy Bitcoin, Ethereum, Polygon (MATIC), Polkadot (DOT), Decentraland (MANA) and more from anywhere in the world. Available worldwide
BitPanda — Exchange where you can directly buy Bitcoin, Ethereum, Axie Infinity (AXS), Decentraland (MANA), Enjin (ENJ), Chilliz (CHZ) and many more cryptocurrencies. Only available in Europe, Canada, and Mexico
Ledger Wallets - Secure, buy and grow your crypto assets with the world's most popular hardware wallet. Buy a Ledger wallet here.
You can also keep up with me on Twitter