04/20/2022
2022: The year of GameFi and the metaverse
2020 was the year of DeFi and 2021 proved to be a huge year for NFTs. No one envisioned that these two technologies would be a big hit just about a year ago, but there's enough proof that GameFi will continue to grow in 2022 as it connects two key industries, gaming, and finance. GameFi offers a great opportunity for players to earn crypto through popular activities such as yield farming and breeding while enjoying an immersive gaming experience. All these combined with NFTs create sustainable gaming economies and incentivize player engagement.
NFTs are permanent, read-only records that prove ownership of digital assets. These tokens are not mutually interchangeable and their ownership is verified on the blockchain ledger. Because of their unique identity, NFTs have the ability to unlock value, democratize access, and increase transparency in industries such as art, music, gaming, and the metaverse.
NFT has been a useful addition to the gaming industry as it allows players to own assets, earn valuable tokens and trade them in the open market in a manner that was not possible before. GameFi apps require players to own an NFT which can be created in the metaverse, such as a playable character, a clothing item, or something else to play the game.
For example, Axie Infinity requires users to own virtual pets to be able to participate in the game. Players earn tokens when they complete certain objectives in the game that they can use to buy additional pets or monetize to get cryptocurrency. The game has become so popular that the cost of owning an Axie, the virtual pet, has skyrocketed.
With so much traction gained last year, we don’t expect GameFi’s growth to slow down this year. In fact, its growth will be accelerated due to Facebook's plan to launch its own metaverse. In its simplest form, a metaverse is an immersive digital world for users to connect and interact, just like in real life. While Facebook’s virtual world is different from the decentralized metaverses of crypto projects, the tech giant's announcement to venture into the virtual world has created a lot of hype around the topic and boosted the popularity of blockchain solutions in the gaming industry. As virtual worlds and play to earn crypto games become more popular, these two trends will greatly accelerate the growth of the GameFi sector.
For this reason, we should expect to see more players, investors, brands, and celebrities join the space as more innovative projects launch their own games in the blockchain. Blockchain projects will ride the wave around virtual worlds to attract more users through their game marketing strategies. They will also take time to fine-tune their creations and make it clear why a centralized economy isn't the best way to create a metaverse.
