Blockchain-Based Gaming Gets A Boost With $100M Gaming Fund Launch

KEY POINTS

Solana Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and FTX announced a $100M fund
The goal is to support blockchain gaming startups, helping them build studios
The firms are looking to capitalize on the growing popularity of metaverse and NFTs

Solana Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners and FTX said they will allocate $100 million to promote blockchain-based gaming startups that are focused on building gaming studios. The first investment was made in Faraway, a blockchain gaming studio.

The funds will also promote the projects "that are at the intersection of blockchain and gaming,” Amy Wu, a partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners, wrote on Twitter Friday. "We are looking to back great teams, both crypto-native, and gaming-native. We believe gaming is one of the best opportunities to onboard the next billion users onto web3, and one of the best use cases for NFTs,” he wrote.

1/ Excited to announce our $100M joint web3 gaming initiative with @FTX_Official and @Solana Ventures! We’ll be investing in gaming studios, platforms, and infra companies at the intersection of blockchain and gaming in the @Solana ecosystem and beyond.https://t.co/3cvbNBFd2x
— Amy Wu (@amytongwu) November 5, 2021

The merger of the traditional gaming industry with crypto and other blockchain-based technologies like NFTs gave birth to the highly lucrative industry of Web 3 gaming, popularly known as GameFi. Web 3, the decentralized web powered by the secure and transparent digital ledger of blockchain, features peer-to-peer interactions without the involvement of third parties.

Currently, the majority of traditional games are free-to-play but the players are required to buy several in-game assets which are owned by the game manufacturers. These items including costumes and weapons are not under the ownership of players but Web 3 gaming exists to disrupt this existing model of gaming.

As of now, the gaming industry is a leading entertainment industry making over $100 billion in annual revenues. However, data suggests that in the next two years, this figure will breach the $200 billion mark. A recent study further showed that the number of online streamers of online games will rise to one billion by the year 2025, i.e., one out of nine people today.

The inclusion of blockchain technology in the current gaming scenario will bring gamers in control of their in-game assets, rapidly increasing its popularity. A theory states that the metaverse will play a more important role in the development of GameFi and its adoption, allowing the “users to meet, chat, work, and play games together.