Immediately upon entering the Web3 rabbit hole, one realizes that it’s hard to talk about crypto without also talking about gaming — specifically a highly financialized form of “gamification” revolving around microtransactions and “play-to-earn” (P2E) incentive design, whereby players win real tokens with real financial value for specific behaviors... See more

As the space becomes increasingly saturated, nuanced takes on the state of crypto gaming are few and far between ranging from “everything is a Ponzi scheme” to “Crypto gaming will fundamentally change every aspect of work, life, and play forever.”

Axie and its dozens of clones imply that perhaps fun isn’t what’s key for a crypto game to grow, but rather gameplay mechanics that reward players with real-world earnings. Illuvium, another game that won’t be launching for another 2 years, has found itself with an $11B valuation ($ILV) driven largely by introducing a pre-game token and staking mec... See more