Source: Decrypt
Compiled by: BitpushNews Mary Liu
So far in 2024, there have been quite a few newly issued coins with high market capitalization, including many crypto game projects. With the overall rebound in coin prices and the emergence of airdrop activities, tokens related to crypto games and various networks have become one of the largest tracks for issuance this year.
Notcoin, Portal, Pixels… This article will introduce the top 10 gaming tokens by market value based on the data at the time of writing.
1. Notcoin（NOT）
Peak price: $0.02896
Peak market value: $2.97 billion
A new reigning champion, and one that’s miles ahead of the rest. Notcoin launched its NOT token on The Open Network (TON) in May, and its market cap quickly soared to nearly $1.5 billion, fueled by an airdrop to around 35 million gamers.
Of course, like many newly launched tokens, early price action was volatile and it fell shortly after… but then it surged to new highs in June, peaking at nearly $3 billion in market cap, with no other new gaming tokens to compete with in 2024. However, as a slew of new Telegram-based games emerge and reach a wider audience, the spotlight will be on projects that haven’t yet launched a token.
2.PIXEL（PIXEL）
Peak price: $1.02
Peak market value: $731 million
Ethereum’s hottest game right now is also one of the biggest tokens this year. The PIXEL token was launched in late February for the casual farming game on Ethereum extender Ronin, and helped bring more crypto-native elements to online games. It also generated more than $1 billion worth of transactions in less than a day.
With hundreds of thousands of daily users, Pixels has captured the attention of the crypto community and helped Ronin build some strong momentum. In mid-March, the price of PIXEL surpassed $1 and held the top spot until it was overtaken by Notcoin. Since then, more tokens have been unlocked, although as of this writing, the price of PIXEL has also fallen significantly.
3. Saga（SAGA）
Peak Price: $7.60
Peak market value: $684 million
Although not a dedicated gaming chain, much of the initial promotion of the first-layer Saga network has been centered around gaming, including the launch of a “Play Airdrop” campaign and the announcement of plans for an internal gaming publishing division, Saga Origins. According to Saga, about 80% of testnet projects are focused on gaming.
The SAGA token has made a huge splash, first with the record-breaking Binance new coin event, where customers staked over $13.4 billion worth of funds to get SAGA rewards, and then with the price peaking, making the token the second-highest-ranked on the list so far this year. There are more airdrops to come.
4. Portal（PORTAL）
Peak price: $3.36
Peak market value: $561.6 million
Portal, which launched just on Feb. 29, has been receiving more attention than any crypto game has seen in a long time. Part of the reason is the airdrop mining activity that drove users to tweet about it, while record-breaking Binance activity at the time also drove users to bet more than $9 billion worth of cryptocurrency in the hope of getting a benefit.
However, the price dropped rather quickly and as of the latest update, is nowhere near recovering to its original levels. Can this Ethereum-based token of the upcoming cross-chain gaming platform regain popularity?
5.Xai（XAI）
Peak price: $1.59
Peak market value: $440.6 million
The Xai layer 3 gaming network on Ethereum scalper Arbitrum conducted its first major airdrop of the year, rewarding owners and operators of the network’s guardian nodes and certain NFT holders. XAI has had a good start so far, with a peak price more than double its drop.
Games are starting to launch on the network, which should draw more attention and excitement to the token, and Xai also recently introduced staking rewards.
6. Catizen（CATI）
Peak price: $1.11
Peak market value: $338.6 million
Finally, another major Telegram game got some fresh blood. While Catizen’s token hasn’t quite reached the heights of Telegram pioneer Notcoin, the launch does suggest that such games will have huge appeal once their tokens hit the market — even if the way Catizen’s tokens are distributed has caused some controversy among players.
Catizen is one of the hottest games in the second wave of Telegram games after Notcoin, but whether its price will remain at this level - or rise further remains to be seen, and of course, there are other big Telegram games such as Hamster Kombat and X Empire that will soon compete for a place on this list.
7. Heroes of Mavia (MAVIA)
Peak price: $10.59
Peak market value: $317.7 million
Heroes of Mavia was one of the biggest new crypto game launches of the year. The Clash of Clans clone attracted millions of downloads on iOS and Android, and Skrice Studios celebrated the launch by airdropping tokens to 100,000 early gamers, as well as to virtual land owners who had previously staked their NFTs.
MAVIA’s price surged after its release in February, topping $10, a more than five-fold increase from its opening price. But it was short-lived, and its value has since shrunk by more than 80%, with the game team choosing to delay and cut some token unlocks to mitigate potential impact on the market.
8. Gaimin（GMRX）
Peak price: $0.03937
Peak market value: $261.2 million
Gaimin aims to power crypto games through a decentralized cloud computing platform that lets users contribute idle computing resources in exchange for rewards. The platform’s GMRX token was just launched in late March.
While the price per token is low, the circulating supply is considerable, driving the market cap to a peak of $261 million. However, as of this writing, the price has fallen by over 95%, so it remains to be seen whether Gaimin can return to near these levels in the short term.
9.Zentry（ZENT）
Peak price: $0.045
Peak market value: $248.7 million
Launched in late April, ZENT is the native token of Zentry, a crypto gaming guild-turned-gaming rewards platform formerly known as GuildFi. Along with the rebrand, the company launched a new Ethereum token and offered a conversion rate for existing GF holders to transition to ZENT.
Zentry’s new token peaked in price a month later, pushing its market cap to an all-time high of just under $250 million — though like many gaming tokens (and crypto tokens broadly), it has fallen sharply since then.
10. Apeiron（APRS）
Peak price: $1.88
Peak market value: $193.6 million
Apeiron, a popular Ronin strategy game, is currently hosting an in-game airdrop and also recently launched its APRS ecosystem token in the network’s initial token sale.
On the day of its release, the token had a market cap of nearly $200 million, and although like Gaimin above, its price has fallen since its release date, it’s still up enough to make this list — and that’s before the game is even fully released.
