Original author: Andrew Hayward

Original title: Biggest Crypto Gaming Tokens Launched in 2024—So Far

Original source: Decrypt

Compiled by: Koala, Mars Finance

Gaming projects have joined the ranks of various large-cap tokens that have been swaying so far in 2024. As the broader cryptocurrency market rebounds and airdrops accelerate, tokens related to gaming and networking have become some of the largest launches of the year.

From Portal to Pixels, these are the gaming tokens that have made a splash so far this year, ranked by highest market cap to date based on pricing data at the time of writing. But there are sure to be more big-ticket tokens to come, so stay tuned — we’ll continue to update this list.

With so many notable gaming tokens having debuted this year, we limited the list to the top 10 based on highest market cap. So without further ado, these are the biggest gaming tokens launched in 2024 so far.

1. Notcoin (NOT)

Peak price: $0.02896

Peak market value: $2.97 billion

There’s a new reigning champion, and it’s unrivalled. Notcoin launched its NOT token on The Open Network (TON) in May, and its market cap quickly soared to nearly $1.5 billion amid an airdrop offer to around 35 million gamers.

Of course, as with 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. No other new gaming token in 2024 will come close. All eyes will be on future token launches as a slew of new Telegram-based games emerge and reach a wider audience.

2. Pixels (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 cryptocurrency world and brought Ronin tremendous momentum. In mid-March, the price of PIXEL surpassed $1 and held the top spot until Notcoin dethroned it. Since then, more tokens have been unlocked, though the price of PIXEL has also fallen significantly as of this writing.

3. Saga (SAGA)

Peak Price: $7.60

Peak market value: $684 million

While not a dedicated gaming chain, much of the initial promotion of the first-layer Saga network has been centered around gaming, including game airdrops and plans to unveil an internal game 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 Pool event, where customers staked over $13.4 billion worth of funds to receive SAGA rewards, and then with a price peak that has made the token the second-best performer on our 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 had just launched on February 29th to a level of hype we haven’t seen in the crypto gaming space in a while. Part of the reason was the airdrop farming that drove users to tweet about it, while record-breaking Binance activity at the time, which saw users betting over $9 billion worth of cryptocurrency in the hope of a return, didn’t hurt.

However, the price fell rather quickly and as of the latest update, has not come close to regaining lost ground. Can the Ethereum-based token of the upcoming cross-chain gaming platform regain the hype?

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 high price more than double the drop.

Games are starting to roll out on the network, which should bring more attention and excitement to the token, plus Xai recently introduced staking rewards.

6. Catizen (CATI)

Peak price: $111

Peak market value: $338.6 million

Finally, another major Telegram game adds to the list. While Catizen’s token has yet to reach the heights of Telegram pioneer Notcoin, the launch does suggest that such games will have huge appeal once tokens hit the market — despite players being extremely frustrated with how the tokens were distributed in September.

Catizen is one of the hottest games in the second wave of Telegram games after Notcoin, but we’ll have to wait and see if its price stays at this level — or rises further, as Notcoin did a few days after its launch. Of course, there are other big Telegram games like Hamster Kombat and X Empire that will soon be vying for a spot on this list.

7. Heroes of Mavia (MAVIA)

Peak price: $10.59

Peak market value: $317.7 million

Heroes of Mavia is one of the biggest new crypto games of the year. The Clash of Clans clone has 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 previously staked 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 of a single token is small, the circulating supply is quite substantial, pushing the peak market cap to $261 million. However, as of this writing, the price has fallen by over 95%, so we will have to wait and see if Gaimin can get back near these levels soon.

9. Zentry (ZENT)

Peak price: $0.045

Peak market value: $248.7 million

Launched in late April, ZENT is the token of Zentry, a crypto gaming guild that has transformed into a 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.

The price of Zentry’s new token peaked a month later, pushing its all-time market cap to 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 a network 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.