Whether one sees crypto as a bubble or not – and according to economist Tyler Cowen it’s not, because bubbles burst and don’t return after a couple of years – one can’t deny its recent comeback.

Crypto sentiment is up, NFT sales volume has exceeded $1.1 billion in over 8 million NFT transactions over the last 30 days and major gaming blockchains, their tokens and some game tokens have followed suit.

Investment firm VanEck recently published its crypto predictions for 2024, which included a mention of Immutable’s utility token IMX. While mainly predicting the future value of Bitcoin and Ethereum, VanEck also reckons “Blockchain gaming will see at least one title surpass 1 million+ daily active users.” 

In particular, the report mentioned “IMX is most likely to become a top 25 coin by market cap with the release of Illuvium, Guild of Guardians, and other high-budget games in 2024.” The token has since surged and increased by 45%, as per Coingecko. 

VanEck’s report was published shortly following Immutable announcing it’s collaborating with gaming DAO Merit Circle to integrate the Beam subnet into its gaming ecosystem. While the BEAM token has also seen an overall rise in the last few days, more significantly it’s up over 165% in the last 30 days.

During Q4 2023 we’ve also seen Sky Mavis’ gaming blockchain Ronin climb the ranks: the value of its RON token has increased 99% over the last 30 days. Up 476% during 2023, RON is now nearly 700% up from its all-time low.

Some other factors pointing towards a bright future for Ronin is its expanding range of validators, including Google, Animoca and DappRadar, over 150 million staked RON, 14,000 delegators and $645 million in Total Value Locked, mainly in terms of staked AXS. On that note, the value of AXS also continues to increase.

Despite The Sandbox‘s SAND token being down around 12% since the end of 2022, the last 6 months shows a contrasting trend, with the token up 23% in the last 30 days. 

Other prominent gaming tokens rising include Mythical Games’ MYTH, meanwhile OAS will likely see a continued uptick as Ubisoft’s anticipated Champions Tactics Grimoria Chronicles prepares for its Warlords mint on December 18th and game launch on the Oasys blockchain in Q1 2024.

All-in-all, moving into 2024 we not only have major game launches and mints to be excited about, but also strong reasons to believe in the ecosystems underpinning these games.

Back to Cowen’s words, “As of late, events have been doing much to signal open and growing possibilities, rather than a world where crypto is shut down.”