How Ronin Network is bucking the 60% crypto gaming slump

Ronin Network, a gaming blockchain, is bucking the GameFi sector’s slump.

Ronin’s weekly revenue from transaction fees is up more than 4,000% from its 2023 all-time low. It surged 20% just last week, an indication of growing user activity on the network, according to the project’s data dashboard on Dune.

Angry Dynomites, a crypto game with a market layer, has driven the bump by attracting significant attention from users since its mainnet launch on July 29.

The stakes are high for Ronin. Its TVL, a measure of investor funds in the blockchain, has crashed to $72 million, a 95% decline since its peak in 2022. The slump followed a devastating $600 million hack in March 2022.

Ronin’s popular mobile game Axie Infinity has also lost most of its shine. There were fewer than 200,000 daily players in the last 30 days, compared to 2.7 million daily users during its peak in February 2022. That decline has come amid a slump in the broader crypto gaming market.

But Angry Dynomites might improve Ronin’s fortunes.

Players can mine resource-themed tokens while playing the game. They can either use those tokens for worldbuilding or trade them in the game’s in-built decentralised exchange to level up.

Even before the mainnet launch, the game was already generating frenzied user activity. During the testnet phase, it attracted about 400,000 users who completed more than 1 million onchain trades.

That’s about 10% of the weekly trading volume on World of Dypians, the most popular crypto game, according to DappRadar.

GameFi slump

Ronin’s success with Angry Dynomites seems to have gone against the grain of the usual incentive-style launch of crypto games with token airdrops that often fizzle out.

Instead, the game uses in-game rewards as tradable tokens in a compounding system that appears to be keeping engagement on the platform sticky.

Still, crypto’s GameFi sector is in decline despite concerted efforts to use blockchain technology to tap into the $185 billion market for online gaming.

GameFi volume is down almost 60% in the last six months, even as other market segments like DeFi and memecoins experience a significant increase in trading activity, according to DappRadar.

In March, Arbitrum DAO’s leadership came under fire from frustrated delegates following a controversial $200 million investment into crypto gaming.

Osato Avan-Nomayo is our Nigeria-based DeFi correspondent. He covers DeFi and tech. Got a tip? Please contact him at osato@dlnews.com.