Reflecting on crypto gaming 2025
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CRYPTO GAMING REFLECTIONS ON 2025
As we near the end of 2025, it’s time to reflect on the year and how crypto gaming has evolved. You could say 2025 was a dark time for the industry: 95+% of gaming token launches failed, dozens of studios shut down, and sentiment bottomed out. It’s been the year of “cleansing”, and we’re just seeing a last shrine of hope left…
To reflect on the year, I will largely be referencing Delphi Digital’s 2025 predictions, which they shared in December 2024, covered in GC Alpha 27. Below, I will quote the paraphrases laid out in the article:
“Seeing 4-5x studios with 100s of thousands of sustainable player numbers”
Titles like NFL Rivals, MapleStory Universe, Night Crows, Legend of Ymir, and Bitcoin Miner, etc., are some of the titles that hit these player numbers. However, whether you can call a couple of these games “sustainable” is up for debate
“Mobile will be the first mover”
Outside of Off the Grid, consoles were negligible. The web will always be important for crypto native games. Then there were a couple of PC games (mainly cross-platform) that did well. However, distribution is king, and it’s clear that mobile was the winner (when speaking of player numbers)
“UGC-focus”
Compared to previous years, the UGC angle barely saw any daylight this year. MSU didn’t do it, titles like SeedWorld and Avalon are still in development, and Hytopia still feels early. Even though there’s huge potential with blockchain payment rails x UGC, the UGC narrative has yet to pan out
“Web2 success (hopefully) becoming a leading signal for token buyers”
Despite the “revenue meta” becoming a thing in 2025, and some tokens outside of gaming doing well due to “good” P/E ratios, this narrative didn’t catch on. Maybe, because we haven’t had a strong example yet (annualized revenue doesn’t count). But what is clear is that fundamentals are starting to matter (more…)
“Onchain high-stakes gaming on the new ecosystems” (as a pocket of growth)
This prediction was the most spot-on. Relative to he broader industry of crypto gaming, this niche category of risky (often Ponzi) games did pretty well. Think Onchain Heroes, Bigcoin, Cambria, LOL Land, Defi Dungeons, Dungeons of Fortune, etc. (unfortunately, many don’t last)
“The intersection of AI and gaming”
There wasn’t much of an AI x gaming narrative this year. Last year, the buzz behind integrating AI in some (arbitrary) way felt much larger. What is interesting to me is the AI-UGC angle or AI-enabled game engines (like Remix), and what Moku is doing with the Grand Arena, with AI-driven game loops
“Hot take: 2025 won’t be a cycle for gaming”
Also, spot-on. The crypto gaming bear market started around 18 months ago or so, and has held its grip on this industry until now.
“Bull case: teams devising net-new game loops that leverage the proven PMF of speculation into a F2P mobile environment”
While we have seen a couple of teams figure out how to wrap speculation into a fun gameloop in crypto (e.g., Cambria), we have yet to see this unfold in a mobile F2P environment. Who’s building this?
Overall, 2025 was an interesting year, with lots of downs and only a few ups, but again, there’s still some hope left. When we near the end of the year, let’s speculate on what 2026 will hold
FISHING FRENZY FISH TGE
It’s been almost 2 weeks now since Fishing Frenzy (FF) launched its FISH token. Not your average gaming TGE for a multitude of reasons. So, let’s dissect the why, what, and how behind this launch
More recently, we also discussed FISH and “Proof of Contribution” (PoC) in GC Alpha 73. I will refer to some of the information laid out there
FF’s FISH token launched on the 27th of November, together with Chapter 2, which introduced PoC, plus major updates to the game as well
When it comes to gaming token launches, there are two positive developments I’m starting to see (with a select few teams):
Tokens are being introduced later in the lifecycle
A more mature product should be able to better support a token’s price, from a fundamental perspective
Token launches are being paired with larger content releases
(Good) Games are content machines. Content = attention. Attention = liquidity (to a certain degree)
To add some nuance to the launch, claims and staking went live on the 17th. The team added liquidity on the 27th, so it became tradeable at that point. FISH can only be traded on Katana (the Ronin-based DEX), and doesn’t have any CEX listings
The first day of trading of FISH was shaky, as it opened at ~$2.5M FDV, and quickly plummeted to ~$1.5M FDV (-40%). For over a day or so, it hovered around that price until we saw some upward price action. A couple of days later, it peaked at ~$4.5M FDV, and now it’s trading around $3.6M
For some reason, Defined.fi shows the liquidity of FISH/USDC is $25. That number should be $250K+ instead, according to the Ronin Explorer
So far, only 50% of players’ airdrops have been unlocked. The rest of the tokens will be claimable upon the FDV milestones (and the player needs to stake their initial airdrop). The team’s allocation unlocks based on FDV as well
Unfortunately, due to the low starting FDV and this unlock mechanism, many users were vocally unhappy with their airdrop allocation. The downside of the pay-to-aidrop model is that the expectations vastly increase
As of December 4, 50% of the airdrops have been locked up and staked
Post-launch FF hasn’t been sitting still either, and has been pushing on partnerships:
A joint event with Craft World, wherein players can spend FISH
A “Karma Drop” (an airdrop for a certain Karma score) in partnership with Sleepagotchi
A strategic partnership with YGG to introduce a $YGG/$FISH pool
And the introduction of a Fishing Frenzy Gacha Machine on Ronin
A good partnership model helps to keep your token top-of-mind, tap into new communities, and add new utility to your token. The low-hanging fruit of token marketing
Overall, FF (expectedly) started with a low FDV and a slow launch. The hope is that they can sustain long enough to slowly keep building the game out and PoC-tech, grow their player base, and pump the token in the process
ON THE RISE
FDF’s Fun Score is now live (acts as a potential airdrop allocation)
Disclaimer: None of this information should be taken as financial advice. My writings only represent my personal opinions. DYOR + I will hold some of the assets mentioned in this newsletter.
Great take on how the "cleansing" year actully exposed that most crypto games were chasing speculation instead of gameply loops. The fact that onchain high-stakes games were the only pocket that survived kinda proves players care more about transparnt odds and ownership than arbitrary AI integration. Maybe 2026 is when devs finally build for retention instead of hype cycles.
Any latest recommendations?