Top 5 Play to Earn Cryptocurrencies

Axie Infinity

Developed by Sky Mavis, Axie Infinity is a play-to-earn model trading and battling game that makes it possible for players to earn tokens through gameplay. AXS is Axie Infinity’s governance token that is distributed between various players and stakers of the token. AXS tokens are available on exchanges such as Huobi, FTX and Binance. 

Axie Infinity enables users to battle, collect or trade NFT creatures and operates using a Game-as-a-Service model. What this means is that essentially new features and revenue streams will continuously be added over the lifetime of the game and ecosystem development.

The revenue and fees generated by the game are kept in the community treasury and holders of AXS tokens participate in the governance of the ecosystem. Axie Infinity players can also earn AXS through competitions in PVP battles. Players can collect rare Axies, breed them and sell them on the marketplace. Players can also get involved in yield farming and farm tokens for breeding new digital pets the likes of Smooth Love Potion (SLP) tokens which can be earned as rewards by Axie Infinity players through adventure or battle mode. Those same tokens can be exchanged on centralised trading platforms such as Binance and decentralised exchanges like Uniswap. Axie Infinity is known to be supported by some big time corporations such Ubisoft and Samsung. 

Decentraland

Decentraland is powered by the Ethereum blockchain. It’s essentially a virtual reality platform that makes it possible for players to create, experience, and monetize content or applications. To use Decentraland, all a user needs is a computer device and a digital wallet. 

Decentraland is governed by a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) and the land in Decentraland is owned by the community. Players that are able to claim virtual land ownership are then able to influence what content is published to the land that they own. The contents can vary and range from static 3D scenes to interactive systems.  

The land in the game can be characterised as transferable, non-fungible, scarce digital assets that are stored in Ethereum smart contracts. In order for a user to effectively acquire the land, they’d need to purchase the land using the ERC-20 token, MANA, which is used in land parcel exchanges within Decentraland. Within Decentraland, non-fungible LAND tokens which are based on the ERC721 token standard represent land and the land ownership is trackable on the Ethereum blockchain. Owning LAND within Decentraland is akin to ownership of crypto assets such as CryptoKitties or CryptoPunks. 

The Sandbox

Popular for mobile games, the developers of The Sandbox envisioned rewarding creators with real ownership through NFTs thereby creating a community driven decentralised gaming ecosystem that offers a virtual space for players to create, own and monetise their gaming experience. The Sandbox is made possible by the Ethereum blockchain and players utilize Sandbox’s free software including VoxEdit and the Game Maker which allows them to to create assets and games that they can easily monetise. 

The Sandbox is effectively a kind of gaming platform that utilises different tokens to foster an economy that benefits players, creators, land owners, and curators. Three main tokens in The Sandbox ecosystem include: 1) SAND which is utilised for ecosystem interactions and transactions. The ERC-20 token can be traded on exchanges like Uniswap 2) LAND – is the ERC-721 (NFT) token and 3) ASSETS is the token created by players who build/assemble user generated content and it’s an ERC-1155 standard token that players can trade on the marketplace. 

My Neighbor Alice

A free-to-play, multiplayer builder game, My Neighbor Alice allows players to buy and own virtual islands, collect digital assets and socialise. It combines the gameplay experience with collectors of digital collectibles. In the game, each individual player is represented by an avatar and players are able to interact with other players through the avatars which can be augmented. Other in-game assets can also be deployed into the game or  bought on the marketplace.

Players have the ability to purchase virtual plots from Alice or in the marketplace. Since there’s a finite supply of plots in the universe, NFTs represent every piece of land. Once a player has purchased land from Alice or in the marketplace, they are able to make improvements to it by purchasing decorations, plants and animals, for example, to appraise their newly acquired virtual properties. The main currency in the game is the ALICE token which makes it possible for players to exchange NFTs or buy land or use certain DeFi products including staking, buybacks and collateralisation. 

Gala 

Gala Games was founded by Eric Schiermeyer. He is also co-founder of Zynga, a social and mobile games company that was responsible for popular games such as Farmville, Poker, and Mafia Wars. 

Gala’s mission is to ensure that players get to own what they win in the games. For instance, if a player wins something like a magical sword on the Gala Game Platform, it means that that digital collectible comes under their ownership and this is all enabled by blockchain technology which makes it possible to mint unique digital art that cannot be sold as copies. 

Any items that players collect are verifiable assets on the blockchain that they can potentially trade or utilise in gameplay. The Gala Games Network is powered by a system of player-owned nodes operating these independent nodes from computers all around the globe. 

Gala enables players to own NFTs. Players also have the opportunity to influence the ecosystem development within Gala Games’ ecosystem through governance. GALA is the utility token of the Gala Games ecosystem. Gala Games released the game, Town Star which is a town simulation game that can be played in a browser. Gala also has released an NFT collectible series titled VOX. VOX is essentially Gala Games’ set of collectible NFT avatars. Holders of GALA tokens could effectively lock up their tokens, and earn VOXcoin by playing with their VOX avatars. 

Gala Games is said to have amassed and activated a notable 1.3 million+ monthly active user base with some 25,000+ NFTs already sold. One of the priciest NFTs to have been sold within Gala’s ecosystem was in the $3mil+ range.