The growth of NFT has reached a new level in terms of popularity and acceptance by the encryption community and mainstream. The non-fungible token (NFT), which was initially considered a bubble, is now expanding its coverage in the entire crypto field.

According to a report by DappRadar, the NFT market has had its best year. generate As of December 17, even before the end of this year, the market value of the top 100 NFT collections exceeded 23 billion U.S. dollars, reaching 16.7 billion U.S. dollars.

The biggest move of NFT and Metaverse Space is Facebook announces its name change to Meta On October 28th, in order to expand its influence beyond social media, it entered Metaverse. In fact, in the last week of October, it was revealed that Metaverse land valued at more than US$106 million Sold within seven days.

In the crypto world, the NFT collectibles boom started in 2017 Launch of CryptoKitties game And the follow-up demand for these digital cats. In November 2017, the blockchain game recorded a maximum of 140,000 daily users and 180,000 daily transactions at its peak, but this attraction quickly disappeared within a few months. Since then, the collectibles field began to have famous collectibles such as CryptoPunks, Bored Apes Yacht Club and NBA Top Shots.

The mainstream’s initial interest in NFT came from the digitization and tokenization of artworks by well-known artists such as Beeple through auctions held by traditional art galleries such as Christie’s and Sotheby’s.

Since then, the scope of NFTs has expanded to include art, music, games, sports, and tweets—almost any digital or real-world asset—that can be tokenized while still maintaining its value and providing unique ownership.

GameFi is a game changer

The main watershed moment of the NFT following the Metaverse narrative is through the GameFi protocol. GameFi is defined as a combination of games and decentralized finance (DeFi) in a single ecosystem.According to the Huobi Research Institute, the research organization of the cryptocurrency exchange, GameFi has Rekindling interest in blockchain games.

The leading agreement in this regard in 2021 is Axie Infinity, a game world where players can collect Axies as pets in order to fight, breed, raise and build kingdoms for their pets. The game ecosystem is supported by the ecosystem’s native tokens AXS and SLP.

This Ethereum-based game was released in March 2018 and was developed by Vietnamese game developer Sky Mavis. Due to the hype surrounding the game this year, the Axie Infinity series rose rapidly and became the NFT series with the largest transaction volume in the short history of NFT.The series has Timing Nearly 4 billion U.S. dollars in historical sales. Axie Infinity surpasses other blockchain games with its current in-game transaction volume.

The game’s daily active users increased from 20,000 users in March this year to 2.5 million users in December this year, a 125-fold increase in less than 9 months-for the game that was hyped up this year, This is an amazing feat. The game’s single-day revenue in June was 9.72 million U.S. dollars, surpassing the record held by Tencent at the time. In the third quarter of 2021, the game accounted for 19.5% of the total NFT transaction volume and US$2.08 billion in transaction volume during the same period.

Although this game is based on Ethereum, blockchain-based games have been spread in blockchain networks such as Solana and Binance Smart Chain. Several games are popular on blockchain networks, such as Splinterlands on Hive and Wax, Alien Worlds on Wax, Upland on EOS, and MOBOX based on Binance Smart Chain.

By 2021, the funds raised in the field of blockchain games have exceeded 1 billion U.S. dollars, of which game company Forte Labs has raised 930 million U.S. dollars.

Resistance from traditional games and regulations

Although GameFi has been subverting games by introducing blockchain technology, the traditional game industry has not accepted this innovation well. Earlier this year, Steam/Valve banned all blockchain-based games on its platform.However, in response, more than 26 companies and advocacy groups called on the company Revocation of ban.

In addition, the South Korean government has now blocked the release of new P2E games and required existing blockchain games P2E model will be deleted From the Apple Store and Google Play Store. In contrast, Fortnite creator Epic Games stated that the company is open to blockchain-based games that support cryptocurrencies and blockchain assets.

Even SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently stated in an interview on December 22 that he thinks his company’s technology Neuralink is Better than metaverse In the long run, he won’t see “someone strapped a damn screen to his face all day.” Musk added: “In the long run, a complex Neuralink can allow you to fully enter virtual reality. I think we are far from disappearing in the meta-universe. It sounds a bit like a buzzword.”

related: Concerts in Metaverse may lead to a new wave of adoption

Despite resistance from the traditional game industry and some regulatory agencies, GameFi has been growing at an alarming rate.The company behind ProShares, the first Bitcoin-based ETF in the U.S., has announced plans Launch an ETF focused on Metaverse This will include companies such as Apple, Meta and Nvidia. The company has submitted an ETF application to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the name of the ProShares Metaverse Theme ETF, which will track the performance of the Solactive Metaverse Theme Index (SOMETAV).

Even Hong Kong’s PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), one of the four largest consulting firms, has set foot in Metaverse.company Buy land In the Metaverse game sandbox. After reaching a deal with the Swiss blockchain startup Velas Network, even the Italian luxury sports car manufacturer Ferrari hinted at NFT.

Such enterprises can use blockchain technology to create Business model in Metaverse And achieve efficiency and cross-compatibility with the real world. If 2021 can be considered the year of DeFi and NFT, then 2022 will almost certainly be the year of GameFi and Metaverse.