Since peaking above 2.25 million active monthly users in October 2022, the number of monthly active users in GameFi has dwindled to under 1.75 million as of January, according to a Messari report.
Across all gaming applications, the data shows that new users also declined 34% since October 2022 — with average monthly sign-ups declining month-on-month, according to the report.
The report cited “sustainability struggles” stemming from “creating a truly engaging experience” as a likely cause of the rapid decline.
However, diverging user expectations may explain the sector-wide declining numbers across GameFi. 40% of GameFi users indicated that they are interested in balancing both the “playing” and “earning” elements of the experience, according to Metaverse Awareness Survey.
What makes GameFi unique?
In conventional gaming setups, players typically don’t own in-game assets. However, with GameFi, tokens associated with blockchain-based games are breaking down the divide between in-game resources and real-world assets.
In this gaming atmosphere, users can obtain NFTs or crypto assets by participating and accumulating resources — whether in-game currency or in-game assets. Like any other digital assets, these can be kept in a digital wallet or traded on a secondary market.
GameFi meets DeFi
Outside the gaming realm, GameFi NFTs can serve as collateral for DeFi lending protocols and can be used for staking, liquidity mining, and yield farming.
Loans backed by NFTs from GameFi are also becoming increasingly popular on platforms like Arcade and PWN.xyz — which allow users to milk some value from their digital assets via DeFi loans.
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