This Week in Crypto Games: $250K Pokémon Card Auction, 'Pixels' $4M Competition, 'Nifty Island' Token Date

The crypto and NFT gaming space is busier than ever lately, what with prominent games starting to release, token airdrops piling up, and a seemingly constant array of other things happening at all times. It’s a lot to take in!

Luckily, Decrypt’s GG is all over it. And if you need a quick way to get caught up on the latest moves around crypto video games, we’re happy to present This Week in Crypto Games.

Our weekend roundup serves up the biggest news from the past week, along with a few other tidbits you might have missed. We also showcase a few of our original stories from the week.

Biggest news

Ultra-rare Pokémon card: A pristine, first-edition, shadowless holographic Charizard Pokémon card from 1999 went up for auction on Friday, tokenized via Ethereum scaling network Polygon and auctioned by collectibles platform Courtyard.

The PSA 10-graded card, stored in a Brink’s vault, has an estimated value of $250,000. The 30-day auction aims to demonstrate blockchain’s potential in the collectibles market, the involved companies said. The top bid currently stands at $44,000 as of this writing.

Ultra-Rare Pokémon Card Valued at $250K Going on Auction via Ethereum Network Polygon

A pristine, first-edition, shadowless Holographic Charizard Pokémon card from 1999 is going up for auction Friday, tokenized via Ethereum scaling network Polygon and auctioned by collectibles platform Courtyard. Polygon Labs and Courtyard have teamed up to tokenize the PSA 10-graded card, securely stored in a Brink's vault, with an estimated value of $250,000. The 30-day online auction aims to demonstrate blockchain's potential in the collectibles market, the companies said. "This auction isn't...

Pixels competition: Crypto farming and social game Pixels geared up to kick off its latest Guild Wars competitive season this week. Running on the Ethereum gaming network Ronin, the competition, called Spore Sports, has $4 million worth of PIXEL tokens available to be won.

Starting December 10, the three-month event will continue through until March 4, 2025. Players will be challenged to join guilds and compete in gameplay centered around mushroom cultivation and strategic sabotage.

‘Pixels’ Reveals Guild Wars Competition With $4 Million in Token Rewards

Pixels, the crypto farming and social game on Ethereum gaming network Ronin, is gearing up to kick off its latest Guild Wars competitive season, called Spore Sports, with $4 million worth of PIXEL tokens up for grabs. The three-month event, running from December 10, 2024 to March 4, 2025, will challenge players to join guilds and compete in gameplay centered around mushroom cultivation and strategic sabotage. “This season builds on the success of our inaugural Guild Wars, which resulted in more...

Nifty Island token date: Ethereum-based metaverse gaming platform Nifty Island announced that its ISLAND token launch will take place on December 17. This comes after the project concluded a nine-month play-to-airdrop campaign.

Users from the play-to-airdrop campaign will share 12.5% of the ISLAND token supply, an increase of 25% from the initial token distribution details. Nifty Island also announced it has teamed with a handful of Web3 communities to set aside one million ISLAND tokens, claimable on December 17.

'Nifty Island' Reveals Token Launch Date After Play-to-Airdrop Push

Nifty Island, an Ethereum-based metaverse gaming platform, announced that its ISLAND token launch will take place on December 17.  The project recently concluded its play-to-airdrop campaign, a nine-month program that allowed Nifty Island users to collect rewards in anticipation of the eventual ISLAND token rollout.  Users from the play-to-airdrop campaign will share 12.5% of the ISLAND token supply, an increase of 25% from the initial token distribution details. Every community. Infinite islan...

ICYMI

• Gaming tokens are on the rise, including The Sandbox (SAND), Decentraland (MANA), and Gala Games (GALA).
• Portal launched its cross-chain crypto gaming hub and associated wallet.
• CCP Games is selling Founder Access packs for Eve Frontier, with the closed alpha launching Tuesday.
• Battle royale game OpenSeason announced it’d burn 82% of its token supply.

Fortnite-Like Game 'OpenSeason' Is Burning 82% of Its Token Supply—Here’s Why

Fortnite-like battle royale shooter OpenSeason hosted a 12-hour competition promising players a slice of $350,000 worth of tokens. But instead of airdropping those Ethereum-based tokens, the developers burned them—and will burn many more ahead. By the end of the token purge, 82% of the total supply of the FU Money (FU) token will have been burned, developer Fractional Uprising Studios told Decrypt’s GG. The team claims this is a move to help support the token’s health… and have a laugh while doi...

• Illuvium Beyond partnered with watch maker Casio G-Shock for an NFT card collection.
• Ethereum layer-3 gaming network Xai announced it’d release “Tiny Sentry Keys” to lower the barrier for entry into its Sentry Key ecosystem.
• Free-to-play shooter Shatterline went live on the Epic Games Store.

• Pixels had a cute little in-game celebration for Bitcoin passing $100,000.
• Forgotten Runes teased some kind of token called XP, linked to the Arcane Foundation.
• The developers of Minecraft-like game Hytopia are ditching Minecraft compatibility support.

GG spotlight

Here are a few of our original stories from this past week that we think are well worth a weekend read:

You Can Earn Bitcoin By Playing These Free Games

Bitcoin jumped back above $90,000 earlier Tuesday, regaining upward momentum after recent volatility. And earlier this year, BTC set a new record price of nearly $109,000 as President Trump took office. If you’re keen on stacking satoshis however you can, then here’s one way that won’t cost you anything but time: You can earn Bitcoin by playing a bunch of free games. Decrypt’s GG has been covering the rising trend of free-to-play mobile games and apps that offer up small bounties of Bitcoin for...

Everything You Need to Know About the ‘Tomarket’ Telegram Game Airdrop

Prominent Telegram crypto game Tomarket will launch its TOMA token on the Aptos network this week, following a late-breaking shift from The Open Network (TON). It’s almost time for players to reap what they have sown in the tomato-themed game, as the token is set to start trading soon. Tomarket has split its airdrop into at least three events. One already took place on October 31, but users could not withdraw or trade their tokens—this was more akin to revealing token allocations ahead of the ai...

What Is ‘Eve Frontier’? How to Start Playing CCP's Survival Game on Ethereum

Legendary game developer CCP Games this week lifted the lid on Eve Frontier, a space survival game set in the Eve Online universe that features blockchain integration.  Initially referred to as Project Awakening, Eve Frontier appears to have a lot of similarities to the massive Eve Online game, but with more of a survival focus—and the ability to use crypto tokens and blockchain code to impact and reshape the game in new ways. With such a prestigious development studio behind it, hopes are high...

Edited by Andrew Hayward