The mainstream popularity of cryptocurrencies since 2009 depicted ease of digital money-making. When bitcoin launched in 2009, it began a steady disruption of the finance industry. Recent developments in the newly formed finance subsector – decentralized finance (DeFi) – introduced Yield Farming.
On the other hand, crypto’s underlying blockchain technology is recently fostering a budding disruption of the gaming industry. Concepts like NFTs, tokens, metaverse, etc., culminate to introduce play-to-earn crypto games. Combinations of these concepts have birthed about 398 active blockchain games.
Fundamentally, crypto games aim to take financial power away from developers. The games ride on the idea of making players financial beneficiaries as well. So far, the primary business model driving the new player-centric frontier is ‘Play to earn.’ Many players have quit their day jobs because of it.
Also, in the finance sector, Yield Farming has redefined asset investment. As a DeFi investment concept, the assets in question are cryptocurrencies.
Individually, these – play to earn and Yield Farming – are seamless ways to make crypto money. But what happens when these two successful models combine to breed a play-to-earn blockchain game?
Understanding Yield Farming, Play to Earn Crypto NFT Gaming
Yield farming is a passive income investment strategy popular in Decentralized Finance. The basic tenet of the system involves owners staking their cryptos to get future rewards. The rewards can either be transaction fees or interest. You can think of this as the interest you earn on having your money in the bank.
However, yield farming differs from saving in the bank because it’s complicated, risky, and volatile. In yield farming, you’ll be moving crypto across different marketplaces. Hence, the said complication.
Furthermore, unfortunately, experts posit that the more people know about yield farming, the less profitable it becomes. Nevertheless, the strategy helped the DeFi sector grow from $500 million to $10 billion in 2020. So, as with many things cryptocurrency, no one is certain about the future.
On the other hand, play-to-earn crypto gaming models seem to have a solid future. In this model, you monetize the time spent playing games for free or at cost, on your phone or laptop. In addition, games running on this model enable players to accumulate collectibles, which they can later exchange for crypto.
Players can also exchange other utilities like characters, player cards, etc., for crypto. The crypto from collectibles and utilities can then be sold for fiat money. The concept of having a game to play to earn money is made possible by NFTs.
A recent trend has seen game developers combine these two concepts to create a yield-farming NFT game structure.
How does a Yield Farming NFT Game work?
On its own, yield farming is about staking crypto in a DeFi platform while waiting for transaction fees or interest. To stake in the first place, you have to buy the crypto or token. Also, NFT games involve getting rewards from games and selling them off.
However, players can earn and own the games by combining Yield Farming and NFT crypto games. So, players buy into the game (if needed), play, and earn NFT collectibles. Then, rather than subsequently selling the collectibles, they stake them into the game for profit.
The gamification of NFT yield farming relies on a Proof of Stake mechanism. Staking NFTs offer value and add to their liquidity and use cases. Furthermore, staking play to earn game tokens shows that you’re rooting for (and betting on) the success of an app.
Technically, the NFT yield farming game is NFT farming with a video game layer added to the operation.
3 Most Profitable Play to Earn Crypto Games Leveraging NFT and Yield Farming
There are numerous crypto games out there. However, most only facilitate play to earn crypto coins through NFTs, without the yield farming model. However, here are the profitable games combining play to earn and Yield farming:
Bunicorn. finance Yield Farming NFT Game
Bunicorn is one of the most popular DeFi gaming platforms in existence. The game offers a rich NFT-yield farming gamification experience. In addition, the game introduces a unique liquidity mining process, where NFT yields are packaged inside NFT collectibles.
The NFT tokens are, however, time-locked for a particular vesting period. This technique obliges players to stake directly, preventing immediate cash-out. When the vesting period is over, you can exchange the collectibles for BUNI tokens.
You can also decide to sell the NFT collectibles before the vesting period is up. Selling earlier, however, leads to a loss (discounted sales).
Bunicorn’s model eliminates the manual staking process.
MOBOX Yield Farming Game
MOBOX focuses on social gaming, leveraging the DeFi yield model. The game seamlessly combines the strengths of DeFi, gaming, and NFT. Beyond the infrastructure for gaming, players can also access the liquidity pools.
Hence, even if you aren’t playing the MOBOX game, you can use NFTs from different games in the liquidity pool. In addition, the unique model accounts for the platform’s $ 5 million NFT trade hit within one week of launch.
Zookeeper Play to Earn Blockchain Game
Zookeeper is built on the Wanchain blockchain and aims to make the yielding process as profitable and fun as possible. In the game, players can farm WASP and ZOO tokens, leading to better APY rewards.
Zookeeper also leverages NFTs as an alternative money-making model for players. The NFTs are bound to the liquidity pool, offering players more rewards. Players can also set targets and lock the liquidity for the specified period.
The Future of Yield Farming Game
The Yield farming model for NFT and Crypto games is evolving. Beyond you being able to play games, earn real money, and stake, here are some possible realities of yield farming games’ future.
Due to ownership stake:
- Players will be able to modify in-game rules.
- For example, players may be able to alter utilities’ production capacity.
- Players’ influence may chantopge inflation standards.
- Players can easily influence the game’s economy.
Conclusion
A study by Stratis revealed that more video game developers are adopting blockchain technology. Stratis CEO, Chris Trew, said: “We commissioned this research to solidify what we already assumed – that blockchain and NFTs are the future of video games.”
Trends and several other gaming industry experts agree that crypto gaming is the future. Hence, there’s a need for more business models that’ll favor both developers and gamers. This indicates that NFT yield farming games will continue to find relevance.
It’s still early days; it’s not too late to get into play to earn crypto games.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Yes, you can earn crypto from playing games. For instance, if you love fantasy gaming and the stock market, you should consider playing CoinFantasy – the game combines both worlds seamlessly. Upon launch, CoinFantasy promises to be in the top 10 global crypto games to play to earn money.
There are different ways to earn crypto coins for free. A lot of people that got involved in Crypto today started by earning it for free.
Some platforms offer sign-up bonuses
Staking crypto in yield farming
Airdrops, etc.
Trading futures.
Winning Giveaways
Unfortunately, not all apps on the games list offer crypto rewards. Hence, find any cryptocurrency game of choice using the play-to-earn model on the play or app store. You’ll start earning rewards for your game time. And Ensure the team behind the project is credible.
These are games where you earn NFT collectibles or tokens for activity in a blockchain-based game. You can then sell the crypto on an exchange platform like Binance to get Fiat currency – dollars, pounds, etc. There are some like CoinFantasy where you don’t lose anything to lose.
You can start with some for free, but others like Axie Infinity require an initial low investment in buying characters (e.g., axies), then you play to earn tokens in the game, which you can sell for money. You can also trade crypto game characters because they are NFTs.
