Games Represent 55% of Blockchain Use in October

Playing our way to mass adoption

Blockchain-powered games currently represent most of the activity in the dapp industry. 1.19 million unique active wallets (UAW) connected to game dapps in October, or 55% of the total. Continuing the dominance of the category established in September. NFT infused games Axie Infinity and Splinterlands lead the charge, whilst several new entrants arrived on Polygon and BSC started to grab attention in the category.

Blockchain Games
Axie Infinity is the most played game in the entire industry when taking into account off-chain data. With over 2 million daily active users according to the Sky Mavis team. However, the on-chain activity spiked in October spurred by the AXS staking feature. 647,000 UAW connected to Axie, improving the metric by 27% from the numbers seen in September. While the price of AXS has increased by 25.5% in the last 7 days.

Source: DappRadar
Splinterlands was another main contributor. After an astounding Q3 that saw the trading card play-to-earn game expand its user base 3,260% quarter-over-quarter thanks to the addition of the SPS token and rewards. The Hive dapp kept growing in October. Splinterlands attracted over 651,000 UAW in the month, representing a 44.38% increase from September.

Binance Smart Chain is also starting to get in on the action after laying out its stall as a DeFi focussed chain. Games like Mobox and CryptoBlades have helped leverage its already large community to increase game usage by 16% month over month. While Polygon has a new darling in the form of mobile play-to-earn platform Arc8. Which incorporated a pre-launch mining program for players to keep them engaged until the app fully launched. In October, over 373,000 UAW connected to the Polygon game, despite the end of the mining activity.

Blockchain Games
One recurring theme in leading blockchain games that ties this movement together is in-game tokens. The ability by players to earn for their time spent is quite revolutionary and more and more people are coming to learn about it. Additionally, the inclusion of NFT assets in dapp games is appealing as players can take total control over their assets as well as lend and stake them for rewards.

“October’s figures point in two directions: consolidation and diversification. The industry seems to be establishing itself firmly, cementing its positions — no longer are we seeing the steep, hype-driven spikes of the DeFi summer, nor of the onset of the NFT craze. Growth is stabilizing but maintaining a fast pace. At the same time, the space remains fluid and dynamic, consistently branching out into new markets, product configurations, and uses. Judging by this promising start to the quarter, I would expect to see new all-time highs across dapp segments by end of the year and mass adoption within 2022,” said Modesta Masoit, Head of Finance and Research at DappRadar

October data points to dapp games arguably providing the most user-friendly on-ramp to the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry to date. Interestingly, while Ethereum still holds the majority of the value in the industry, other chains are capturing users at frightening speeds. When usage starts to translate to value on those chains – it’s going to get interesting.