Is the Era of Crypto Gaming Over?
Crypto gaming was on the rise, so much so that many companies like Solana went all in. But now, as cryptocurrency is heading for another winter, the same companies are starting to panic and ask if the era of crypto gaming is over.
While crypto gaming isn’t over, like regular cryptocurrency, it is headed for a downturn or a winter. Read on to learn more about what you can expect from crypto gaming in the future.
Meta Cancels its Metaverse Project
The main information behind this article is due to a statement made by the president of Solana. Who, on March 20th, stated that crypto gaming is not coming back from the nosedive it took late last year. Much of this sentiment, we suspect, is based on the fact that Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta announced the cancellation of their metaverse project earlier this week.
And this cancellation is no small announcement. Meta has dumped nearly $80 billion USD into its metaverse projects, intending to be at the forefront of development. Although they did have a project to show for it, they struggled to convince users to abandon the real world for a digital one.
Unfortunately, this was a huge hit to crypto gaming, but we don’t quite think it’s the death sentence that the Solana president thinks it is.
What is Crypto Gaming?
If you aren’t familiar with crypto gaming, it’s gaming, but on the blockchain instead of on a platform like Steam or PlayStation. There are numerous different platforms with a wide variety of game types. The games are typically pay-to-play, which players pay for using the cryptocurrency that is native to the blockchain the game is associated with.
There are several famous crypto games, most notably Axie Infinity, which is known for its revenue-generating abilities. Players buy plots of land and then work the plots to create items that can be sold in-game. Of course, these games only work when there are enough players to incentivize further cultivation, so a massive decrease in popularity could spell the end of these games.
The next most famous games are The Sandbox and Decentraland, which are both games that are like Sims, but the world the players participate in is decentralized. This is known as the metaverse and is exactly the type of project Meta was investing in prior to cancelling their project earlier this week.
Of course, there are more traditional game options too, like Star Atlas, which is a space-themed strategy game, but these games have never been as big in the blockchain space when compared to those in the metaverse and with earning potential like Axie Infinity.
Is Crypto Gaming Over?
In our opinion, although crypto gaming is experiencing a downturn, we believe that it will bounce back when cryptocurrency does. Historically, whenever there is a downturn or bear market in the cryptocurrency world, all the industries closely tied to cryptocurrency experience downturns as well. Examples include NFTs, crypto ETFs, and, of course, crypto gaming.
The cryptocurrency world has never been smooth, with tough times hitting the industry in 2012, 2017, and again in 2025. But in 2012 and 2017, the industry bounced back both times, each time growing even larger than the time before. As such, we believe that this crypto winter is temporary and that when cryptocurrency bounces back, crypto gaming will too.
That being said, we don’t think Meta will give back in when the crypto gaming world bounces back. We believe that crypto gaming can never truly be monetized in a way that Meta would consider it beneficial—the people who enjoy decentralized gaming just don’t care about what Meta is selling. So, we do think it was a good business move (and good for players) that Meta is leaving the space, though it will slow down development considerably, as other tech companies (that we are less against) may not consider new investments either.
But crypto gaming isn’t a race, so while Meta’s leaving was definitely a blow, we believe crypto gaming still has a future despite the loss of the tech conglomerate.
Was Crypto Gaming Ever Popular?
That brings us to our next point. While we can’t say for sure, we do believe that Meta entered the crypto gaming space far too soon. Honestly, crypto gaming was never as popular as social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, rather it’s always been a bit of a counterculture space, in a circle which was already counterculture to mainstream culture (gamers). As such, the slice of pie that Meta was dumping their investment into was just too small to generate the revenue they expected to see.
Remember, Meta is a company that makes their money off of paid features in a free space, such as ads or verification for businesses or freemium games for users. Only a small percentage of social media users even use these features; the vast majority choose to enjoy only what is available for free, and the metaverse is the same way. Facebook has a reported 3.07 billion users, or roughly half the world. This means that even if only 1% of users pay $1 for extra features, that’s still $307 million dollars.
Comparatively, Axie Infinity, the most popular crypto game, has 325,000 daily users and 2.8 million users at its peak. If only 1% of them utilize paid features, that leaves only a paltry sum of $28,000 –an amount that isn’t worth taking a risk on for a big company like Meta.
So, in summary, while crypto gaming is going through a tough spot right now, we firmly believe that it will eventually bounce back. That being said, we doubt that Meta will dip its toes into the metaverse for a second time. Rather, it will be up to a different tech company to step in and try their hand at making a profit off of development in the metaverse.
