The FTX ordeal has been felt across the WHOLE of the cryptocurrency sphere. Billions have been lost by investors. Even institutional investors like BlackRock have lost out on their donations to the FTX company showing no one has come out on top.
What is interesting however is the gaming side of crypto that has been directly impacted by FTX’s downfall. Games found on the Solana Blockchain were the most affected. Tokens for these games have plummeted in value. There are 2 sides to this. Yes people have potentially lost out if they bought the tokens, however the games may now be considered more accessible for more casual crypto gamers.
Solana token itself has also been reaching new lows due to current market conditions and the headlines we have seen. Trading currently at $13.80 from its all time high of $258.
In 2021, FTX, Lightspeed, and Solana Ventures had put forward $130 million in funding to be put into the Solana gaming ecosystem. This was huge PR for FTX and the Solana blockchain.
Lightspeed’s CEO, Amy Wu had this to say on Twitter at the time:
“Excited to announce our $100M joint web3 gaming initiative with @FTX_Official and @Solana Ventures! We’ll be investing in gaming studios, platforms, and infra companies at the intersection of blockchain and gaming in the @Solana ecosystem and beyond”.
Games affected by FTX collapse
Some of Solana’s top games have felt the impact recently of FTX. Token price has subsidied which may have further implications in the future relating to the longevity of the projects. However, loyal fans will stay true to their favourite games. Let’s look a bit deeper into the games affected.
Star Atlas
One of the new up and coming triple A crypto games has been knocked back significantly due to FTX. Star Atlas was recently featured on the Epic Games Store, a great achievement considering it was only a beta, style demo of the game.
However the token for Star Atlas’ has faced significant decline. $ATLAS has declined by 34%, trading currently at $0.002621.
Aurory
The next Solana blockchain game on the list is Aurory. This is a tactical turn based JRPG governed by Play-to-Earn fundamentals and NFTs. It’s a colourful, quirky game that has received great reception and user engagement from their fans thus far.
Aurory’s token, $AURY, has faced a whopping 64% decline in price. Currently trading at 0.5300.
TapFantasy
Solana’s top rated game, TapFantasy, could not even escape the turmoil. This is a free to play, play to earn MMORPG available on both desktop and mobile. The TAP token for TapFantasy suffered an 11% drop in price.
However amidst the token’s losses, the overall amount of active unique wallets rose in the same timeframe. In the past 7 days alone there have been 2,563 wallets registered. A 23% increase.
Animoca Brands have had their say
Many will be familiar with the famous Animoca Brands, the brainchild of The Sandbox, one of the biggest games currently on the blockchain.
Their chairman, Yat Siu has had his input over the FTX headlines, input we may want to take notice of when looking longterm at web3 and digital currency trading/investing.
“I see Hong Kong stepping up in the wake of this latest crisis in the crypto industry,”
“This is an opportunity for the city to implement a regulatory approach to develop the industry,”
“This can help correct what has so far gone wrong in the market.”
Currently Hong Kong is competing with Singapore as one of Asia’s top contributors and hotspots for all things crypto and web3. Hopefully a lot can be taken from these nations from the recent FTX ordeal, as Hong Kong is looking to strengthen the infrastructure of its legislation regarding these industries.
It turns out Animoca Brands had ties with FTX however they were “limited to a non-material trading balance” and the gaming company will “continue to invest and support the ecosystem”.
The fallout of FTX will be an interesting one for web3 as we see the 2022 months reside into the new year of 2023.
We’ll be sure to keep you updated as there may be much more to still uncover regarding the downfall of FTX.