Huge tokens have been dropping left and right so far in 2024, and gaming projects are getting in on the excitement. Tokens tied to games and networks have been among this year’s biggest launches as the broader crypto market rebounds and airdrops accelerate.
From Portal to Pixels, these are the gaming tokens that have made waves so far this year, ranked by peak market cap to date per pricing data at the time of writing. But there are sure to be more big tokens ahead, so stay tuned—we’ll keep updating this list.
Now that so many prominent gaming tokens have debuted this year, we're capping the list at the top 10 based on peak market cap. So without further ado, these are the biggest gaming tokens launched so far in 2024.
1. Notcoin (NOT)
Peak Price: $0.02896
Peak Market Cap: $2.97 billion
There's a new reigning champion, and it's not even close. Notcoin launched its NOT token on The Open Network (TON) in May, and it quickly blasted up to a market cap near $1.5 billion amid an airdrop claim available to some 35 million players.
Granted, like many newly launched coins, the early price action was volatile and it dipped soon after... but then blasted off to new heights in June, reaching a peak market cap of nearly $3 billion. No other new gaming token in 2024 has come close. And with a flood of new Telegram-based games taking hold and reaching even larger audiences, all eyes will be on the next token launches ahead.
‘Flappy Bird’ Returns as Telegram Crypto Game But Creator Denies Involvement
Following days of speculation about the nature of the game’s return, it’s now official: After disappearing 10 years ago, mobile game Flappy Bird has first relaunched as a mini app on the Telegram messaging platform with an apparent token in the works on The Open Network (TON). Flappy Bird’s return is being done in collaboration with Notcoin, the tap-to-earn Telegram game that kickstarted the craze earlier this year. Notcoin is billed as the “strategic publishing partner” for the Telegram version...
2. Pixels (PIXEL)
Peak Price: $1.02
Peak Market Cap: $731 million
Ethereum's hottest game right now is also responsible for one of this year's biggest tokens. The PIXEL token launched in late February for the chill farming game on Ethereum scaler Ronin, and helped introduce even more crypto-native elements into the web game. It also generated more than $1 billion worth of trading in less than a single day.
With hundreds of thousands of daily users, Pixels has the crypto world’s attention and has helped build some serious momentum around Ronin too. PIXEL popped above a price of $1 in mid-March, taking over the top slot on this list until Notcoin dethroned it. More tokens have been unlocked since then, though PIXEL's price is also way down as of this writing.
How ‘Pixels’ Chapter 2 Upgrades the Ethereum Farming Game—And Why It Took So Long
Ethereum-based farming game Pixels—the hottest crypto game not built on Telegram—just rolled out a massive Chapter 2 upgrade this week that significantly shakes things up. But you wouldn’t know it at a glance. “Everybody’s day-to-day inside the game changes pretty drastically,” Pixels founder Luke Barwikowski told Decrypt ahead of the launch. Pixels retains the charming retro vibe that the game’s own title conveys. And it’s fair to say that the previous gameplay was a hit with many players, attr...
3. Saga (SAGA)
Peak Price: $7.60
Peak Market Cap: $684 million
While not exclusively a gaming chain, the layer-1 Saga network has centered most of its initial push around games, including running play-to-airdrop campaigns and revealing plans for an in-house game publishing arm called Saga Origins. According to Saga, about 80% of testnet projects were focused on gaming.
And the SAGA token has made a big splash, first with a record-breaking Binance Launchpool campaign that saw customers stake over $13.4 billion worth of funds to earn SAGA rewards, and then with a peak price that pushed the token to the number-two slot on our list as of this point in the year. And there are more airdrop rewards to come.
Saga Reveals First ‘Power-Level Over 9,000’ Airdrop With $10 Million in Tokens
Saga, a layer-1 blockchain with a focus on gaming, recently built up a ton of hype for its mainnet and token launch by running a play-to-airdrop campaign and rewarding DeFi stakers across various networks. But the incentives don't stop there. Saga is now rolling out its next wave with a colorfully-titled campaign. The “Power-Level Over 9,000” airdrop campaign—named after a “Dragon Ball Z” reference that became an internet meme—was first revealed in April and leans on partnerships with more than...
4. Hamster Kombat (HMSTR)
Peak Price: $0.01
Peak Market Cap: $646.3 million
Well, it finally happened: Hamster Kombat, which attracted over 300 million players in a matter of months via its viral Telegram mini app, dropped its token in late September. And it was a big enough drop to land in the Top 5 on this list, as of this writing, though many players complained of such small drops that they called it "dust."
We're interested to see what happens next. The price of Notcoin (NOT) blasted off about two weeks after the initial drop, skyrocketing in value and reaching a new peak more than three times that of the launch date. HMSTR's price has been steadily dipping since the launch, but we're keeping an eye out for a potential surge ahead.
'Hamster Kombat' Players Gripe as Telegram Game Airdrop Delivers 'Dust'
On Thursday, the Telegram-based tap-to-earn game Hamster Kombat conducted its long-awaited airdrop, showering its users in HMSTR tokens. But whether players will continue tapping after that is an open question, with some users vocalizing disappointment online with their reward for months of touchscreen tapping. Out of the 300 million users who have played Hamster Kombat since late March, Hamster Kombat said that 131 million players qualified for the distribution—with another 2.3 million users cu...
5. Portal (PORTAL)
Peak Price: $3.36
Peak Market Cap: $561.6 million
Just launched on February 29, Portal arrived with a level of hype we haven’t seen in the crypto gaming space in some time. In part, that’s because of an airdrop farming push that saw users flood Twitter with tweets—and a then-record Binance campaign that saw users stake over $9 billion worth of crypto in hopes of yielding rewards didn’t hurt.
The price dipped pretty quickly, however, and hasn't come close to regaining that ground as of this latest update. Can this Ethereum-based token for the upcoming cross-chain gaming platform regain the hype?
Portal Airdrop Begins as Ethereum Gaming Token Hits $425 Million Market Cap
Gaming token and cross-chain platform Portal made its long-awaited debut early Thursday, rewarding airdrop farmers and Binance token stakers ahead of launching staking rewards and rolling out other features. PORTAL, minted on Ethereum, is currently priced at $2.54 per token according to data from CoinGecko, with just over 167 million tokens currently on the market—nearly 17% of the total supply of 1 billion tokens. That puts the market cap at about $425 million as of this writing. Newly launched...
6. Xai (XAI)
Peak Price: $1.59
Peak Market Cap: $440.6 million
The Xai layer-3 gaming network on Ethereum scaler Arbitrum had this year’s first big airdrop, rewarding owners and operators of the network’s Guardian Nodes and certain NFT holders. It’s been a hot start for XAI so far, rising to a peak price that’s more than double what it dropped at.
Games are starting to roll out on the network, which ought to drive even more attention and excitement to the token, plus Xai recently launched staking rewards too.
What's Next for Arbitrum's Gaming Network After the XAI Token Launch
Xai, the layer-3 gaming network built on Ethereum scaler Arbitrum, kicked off 2024 with a bang, launching its XAI token to early supporters and then announcing that noted NFT game studio Laguna Games will bring Crypto Unicorns and related titles to the network. So what’s next? More games, of course. Ex Populus, which co-founder and CEO Tobias Batton described to Decrypt’s GG as the “labs company that serves the Xai Foundation,” is a game studio—and its games are set to be the first out the gate...
7. Catizen (CATI)
Peak Price: $1.11
Peak Market Cap: $338.6 million
Here's another major Telegram game token. While Catizen's token has yet to reach the heights of Telegram pioneer Notcoin, the launch did signal that such games can have serious traction once their coins hit the market—even with a lot of frustration from players about the way it was distributed in September.
Catizen has been one of the biggest second-wave Telegram games after Notcoin, but we'll see if it hangs around that price—or climbs even higher, as Notcoin did days after its launch. Currently, as of this latest update, it's down by over 50% from the peak.
'Catizen' Telegram Game Reveals Airdrop Pass as CATI Token Launches
Feline Telegram game Catizen has announced that its token can be used to gain a ticket to future airdrops through a season pass. This comes amid the launch and airdrop of its CATI token on The Open Network (TON). Catizen’s initial airdrop plans to reward players of its swipe-to-earn game with 15% of its total token supply. The token launch and airdrop is taking place today. Players weren’t entirely pleased when this was announced last week as they believed, as per the game’s whitepaper, 34% wou...
8. Heroes of Mavia (MAVIA)
Peak Price: $10.59
Peak Market Cap: $317.7 million
Heroes of Mavia is one of this year’s biggest new crypto game launches. The Clash of Clans clone has attracted millions of downloads across iOS and Android, and Skrice Studios celebrated the release by airdropping tokens to 100,000 early players, along with tokens for virtual land owners who had previously staked their NFTs.
Heroes of Mavia Review: Should You Play the Crypto ‘Clash of Clans’ Clone?
I didn’t expect to play nearly this much Heroes of Mavia. With the iOS and Android game quickly racking up millions of downloads and seeing a surging token price last month, I figured I’d start playing around with the crypto-infused game—which takes obvious cues from mobile smash Clash of Clans. As with that game, you’ll gradually build up your base’s defenses, attack other players’ bases, and amass resources over time. But while I’m well familiar with Clash of Clans—and even covered the game’s...
MAVIA saw a big price surge after launching in February, rising above $10—a more than 5x improvement on the opening price. But it was short-lived, shedding over 80% of its value since, and the game's team opted to push back and trim some token unlocks to ease the potential impact on the market.
9. Gaimin (GMRX)
Peak Price: $0.03937
Peak Market Cap: $261.2 million
Gaimin is designed to power crypto games via a decentralized cloud computing platform, letting users contribute their spare computing resources to earn rewards. And the platform's GMRX token just launched in late March.
While the individual token price is tiny, there's a sizable circulating supply, pushing the peak market cap to a meaty $261 million. The price is down by over 95% as of this writing, however, so we'll see whether Gaimin can get back near that mark any time soon.
Game On: The Hottest Upcoming Gaming Token Airdrops on Ethereum, TON, Base and Beyond
Airdrop season is in full swing, with apps, protocols, and other projects seizing upon bear market vibes and regulatory shifts to finally drop their tokens—and potentially reward millions of crypto users in the process. What exactly is an airdrop, though? When it comes to crypto tokens, an airdrop is typically a way for a project to reward its early users and contributors by giving them a share of a newly launched token, all while spreading the tokens far and wide for decentralized governance. W...
10. Zentry (ZENT)
Peak Price: $0.045
Peak Market Cap: $248.7 million
Launched in late April, ZENT is the token of Zentry, a crypto gaming guild turned gaming rewards platform previously known as GuildFi. Along with the rebranding, the firm launched a new Ethereum token and offered a conversion rate for existing GF holders to transition over to ZENT.
Zentry's new token peaked in price a month later, pushing its all-time high market cap to just shy of $250 million—though like a lot of gaming tokens (and crypto tokens broadly), it's down sharply since.
GuildFi Rebrands to Zentry, Launching a 'Game of Games' to Reward Players
Guilds that emerged during the play-to-earn boom are evolving with the crypto gaming industry. Now GuildFi has announced plans to rebrand itself to Zentry, with plans to create a unified “superlayer” that rewards players across all types of games—those across multiple blockchains, but also Web2 games and even real-world social experiences. The firm began life back in the Axie Infinity days, running a scholarship program that lent players in-game NFTs in exchange for a cut of their play-to-earn i...
Editor's note: This story was originally published on March 3, 2024 and last updated with new info on October 1.
