With Bitcoin and Ethereum still gaining in recent days, gaming-centric tokens are broadly continuing pace—with buzzy tokens tied to the Ronin and Beam networks leading the charge among large-cap projects.
RON, the token of gaming-centric Ethereum sidechain network Ronin, has popped 21% over the last 24 hours to a current price of $1.75, continuing a recent surge in value for the token that’s led to a 67% weekly gain and sizable 197% jump in the last 30 days per data from CoinGecko.
Ronin’s rise has been tied in large part to rising adoption linked to Pixels, a popular blockchain game that recently migrated to the network from Polygon. Ronin active users jumped after the Pixels launch, plus Axie Infinity—the monster-battling game that originally launched the network—has also seen rising momentum lately amid the improving crypto market.
BEAM, meanwhile, is the Ethereum-based token of Merit Circle’s Beam gaming network, which is based around an Avalanche subnet. On Wednesday, Merit Circle announced that it would integrate the upcoming Immutable zkEVM network into the Beam ecosystem, with tools that play nice with the gaming-centric Ethereum scaling network.
Ethereum Gaming Sidechain Ronin Is On Fire—Here's Why
Ronin may be best known as the Ethereum sidechain network behind Axie Infinity, the play-to-earn monster-battling game that flung NFT gaming into the spotlight back in 2021. But now Ronin is drawing attention for other games—and network activity is surging following last week’s launch of a game called Pixels. The number of active wallet addresses on Ronin has effectively tripled in recent days, according to data shared on Twitter by Alex Svanevik, founder and CEO of crypto analytics firm Nansen....
Prior to the announcement, BEAM climbed to a new all-time high price—and then rose even higher once the news came out, hitting a new peak just above $0.017 overnight. BEAM has settled slightly to a current price of about $0.0162. It’s up about 6% on the day, but 78% over the past seven days and 238% on the month.
Merit Circle’s own MC token is also up 11% on the day to $1.67, while Axie Infinity’s AXS governance token is up 3% to $7.30 and the SLP in-game rewards token surged nearly 17% to $0.0034.
Merit Circle Brings Immutable zkEVM Into Beam Crypto Gaming Ecosystem
The gaming-focused group Merit Circle DAO—which previously launched an Avalanche subnet called Beam—has announced that its Sphere NFT marketplace and tech stack will now also be compatible with Immutable’s upcoming zkEVM network, which is powered by Polygon. “This strategic alliance with Merit Circle DAO and commitment from Beam aligns perfectly with our mission to bring digital ownership to every gamer in the world,” said Immutable co-founder and CEO James Ferguson in a statement. The Beam SDK...
Other notable gaming gainers include Immutable’s IMX token, up 6% today to $1.47 with a 16% weekly gain, while Gala Games’ GALA token is up 6% today above $0.03. GALA has now jumped about 25% over the past week, and 60% in the last 30 days.
Much like meme coins, gaming tokens tend to be more volatile than leading coins like Bitcoin and Ethereum. That means when the market is green, they tend to show sharper gains—though the opposite is typically true when the market is sinking.
Bitcoin is up 16% this week to a current price of about $43,600, pushing its 30-day jump to nearly 26%. Ethereum has just about kept pace, up 15% this week to a current price of $2,339 and marking a 30-day pump of 26%.
Edited by Stacy Elliott.
