Venture capital funding for NFT and gaming companies within crypto rose by 66% in August, from USD 507 million in July to USD 842 million. This increase comes during a month when total VC funding within the cryptocurrency sector declined overall, suggesting that it may be NFT and GameFi cryptocurrencies that lead the way out of the ongoing bear market.
The funding data, collected by the Block, reveals a fourth consecutive month of overall decline, with August’s total of USD 1.85 billion some way off the USD 4.8 billion recorded in January. Still, the amount raised by NFT and GameFi firms provides some hope for a gradual turnaround in the cryptocurrency market’s fortunes, with the sector also representing the highest absolute amount raised in August, in addition to biggest rise in percentage terms.
It’s not the first time that NFTs and gaming have taken the lion’s share of VC funding in crypto. As the chart below illustrates, these two areas of the ecosystem also claimed a majority of overall funding in April and January of this year, as well as in November of last year.
What’s different this time around is that, in another month of contraction for funding, NFTs/GameFi was the only sub-sector to enjoy a rise in funding. At a time when cryptocurrency prices are still down by 8.5% over a month ago and by 63.6% since November, this increase in VC interest potentially signals a turnaround.
Indeed, some of the biggest-rising coins in the market are related to NFT and gaming platforms. ApeCoin (APE), for example, has risen by 21% in the past week alone, while Flow (FLOW) is up by 7.5% and Chiliz (CHZ) is up by 25% in the past month.
Likewise, in the gaming category, Ultra (UOS) has risen by 25% in a week and by 15% in a month, while Enjin Coin (ENJ) is up by 27% in the last 90 days. Such increases come amid only a 9% rise for BTC in the past 90 days, for instance.
At the same time, plenty of interesting new NFT and GameFi platforms have launched in the past few months, with some already showing signs of promising growth.
This includes Battle Infinity, a a play-to-earn crypto gaming platform that sold out its presale within a couple of weeks in August. Since ending its presale, it quickly secured a listing on PancakeSwap and LBANK, enjoying a rise an all-time high of USD 0.00554060 on August 30, which represented a gain 269% over its presale price of USD 0.0015.
It also includes Tamadoge, an interesting meme token-cum-metaverse platform that is still running its presale. Tamadoge offers play-to-earn game mechanics through which users can breed and battle pet monsters, and to date it has raised USD 12.5 million, and already garnered over 63,000 followers on Twitter.
It’s with such new altcoins that all the really big, dramatic growth is coming at the moment. While cryptocurrencies such as BTC are inching upwards by a few percentage points each week, such new tokens are offering bigger returns to those who take the plunge and invest in them early.
Of course, a full-blown recovery — and a new bull market — won’t kick into gear until wider macroeconomic conditions allow. When inflation is high and interest rates are rising, it’s understandable that some (retail) investors are reluctant to speculate on cryptocurrency prices.
Still, with the Ukraine-Russia conflict moving more in Ukraine’s favor at the moment, there are signs that the global economy may begin to move in a more positive direction in the not-too distant future. And when it does, the latest funding data suggests that NFT- and gaming-related platforms may be at the forefront of the next bull market.
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