NFTs look ready to rule in 2022, and the recent shift in P2E gaming toward NFT utility could make blockchain gaming this year's sector darling.

Following the popularity of decentralised finance (DeFi), nonfungible tokens (NFTs) rose to prominence, surprising many, and are now front and centre, with the biggest volume of sales occurring at the beginning of January 2022.

While 2021 was designated as the Year of the NFT, GameFi applications outperformed DeFi in terms of user popularity. Bloomberg gathered the following information using DappRadar data:

"In November, nearly half of all active cryptocurrency wallets connected to decentralised applications were for gaming." During the same time period, the percentage of wallets linked to decentralised finance, or DeFi, dapps fell to 45 percent, after months of being the leading dapp use case."

Play-to-earn (P2E) blockchain game Axie infinity skyrocketed and sparked a gaming craze that is expected to last until 2022. P2E blockchain-based games have high expectations from crypto pundits and gaming advocates, and there will undoubtedly be a few sleeping giants that will dominate the sector.

Let's take a look at five blockchain games that could become popular in 2022.

DeFi Kingdoms

DeFi Kingdoms was born out of a basic enthusiasm for investment, which led to the developers' discovery of blockchain technology. DeFi Kingdoms was created as a visual representation of liquidity pool investing, with in-game 'gardens' representing actual and figurative token pairings and mining.

Investors have a piece of their LP stake within a plot covered with blossoming plants, as illustrated in the game. DeFi Kingdoms adds a twist to "playing" a game by tying the concept of growth to DeFi protocols within a play-and-earn approach.

DeFi Kingdoms was the first project on the Harmony Network to ever reach the top of the DappRadar charts. This might be due to an increase in people interested in both DeFi and blockchain games, or it could be due to the recent surge in the in-game utility coin JEWEL.

JEWEL is a utility token that may be used to buy in-game buffs from NFTs to boost a base-level stat. It's also utilised for liquidity mining, which gives users the chance to earn additional JEWEL by staking.

JEWEL is also a governance token, giving holders a say in the project's growth and evolution. The token price has risen from $1.23 to an all-time high of $22.52 in the just four months. JEWEL is trading at $19.51 at the time of writing, down roughly 16 percent.

The JEWEL token price has risen around 165 percent in the last month alone, up from a low of $1.23 four months ago in September, according to CoinGecko data.

Guild of Guardians

Guild of Guardians is one of the most anticipated blockchain games for 2022, and it's developed on ImmutableX, Ethereum's first layer-two solution for NFTs. It will operate as a free-to-play mobile role-playing game, modelled after the P2E mechanics, in order to enable more access.

Guild of Guardians in-game assets can be traded, just like in blockchain games like Axie Infinity. The NFT founding sale and token launch generated approximately $10 million in volume, indicating that many gamers and investors are interested in the concept.

The Guild of Guardians (GOG) tokens, which will be released in October 2021, are ERC-20 tokens that function as 'gems' within the game. The game's core functions, such as minting in-game NFTs and interacting with the marketplace, are powered by gems, which may be earned while playing.

The Guild of Guardians token has been fairly consistent over the previous month after reaching an all-time high of $2.81 shortly after its launch. Despite the fact that the token is currently down over 50% from its all-time high, some members of the community are looking forward to the potential of staking and liquidity pools, which are features that help to stabilise token prices.

Galaxy Fight Club

Imagine turning a proof-of-concept (PFP) NFT into an avatar to combat other warriors in a galaxy far, far away. Galaxy Fight Club (GFC) is a blockchain game that has evolved from a 10,000 avatar collection to the first cross-brand, cross-platform PvP fighting game in which users can fight with their avatar collection.

With a focus on interoperability, GFC sets a high value on its original fighters while allowing other avatars to compete for awards.

The game will be released on the Polygon network, and it will include numerous themes from several partnered collections, such as Animetas and CyberKongz, in order to achieve its cross-platform goal. GFC is a game similar to Super Smash Bros., however instead of wiping out your opponent, you're fighting for loot keys to open loot boxes.

GFC is still in beta testing and has experienced a few minor difficulties, including a delayed DEX launch (IDO). It's unclear when public access will be available, although many are anticipating a launch in Q1 2022.

GCOIN

Each Galaxy Fighter generates between 5 and 15 GCOIN every day, and they started creating GCOIN in October of 2021. If a fighter is sold, the GCOIN earned by the previous owner will be passed on to the new owner. This is beneficial to the ecology because it is required to power players' in-game actions, forge weapons, open loot boxes, and train and sell second-generation fighters.

Despite the failures, an IDO for GCOIN was slated for January 6 on PolkaStarter, with 4 million tokens available for $0.50 apiece and a maximum allocation of $500 per wallet. Many homeowners have been turned down due to the project's Know Your Customer (KYC) and whitelist requirements.

"The first $1.5 million was acquired and sold out in around 15 minutes," according to Ado, "and the remaining $500K designated just for Battle Pass holders took another hour to fill," signalling a successful IDO. GFC fighters are held in over 2,600 wallets, with the highest wallet holding nearly 2% of the whole collection.

CryptoBeasts

CryptoBeasts is a pixelated digital art game that evokes the original Zelda game's antiquated atmosphere. CryptoBeasts is a 'peer-to-peer electronic rare egg system,' built on the Ethereum blockchain (first for everything, right?). These 10,000 pixelated colourful eggs come with one land parcel and one decentralised autonomous organisation (DAO) vote in the game's "Eggland" environment.

The DAO is structured in such a way that a player's voting standing is determined by the quantity of eggs they own. Each decision appears to be made in CryptoBeasts, as weird as it may sound. Numbers are significant because they can determine one's standing, but prime numbered eggs have advantages such as giving more native CBX tokens and the ability to birth unique animals with higher strength.

The highest-selling rare egg went for 5 Ether (ETH), which was worth $9,085 at the time of sale, according to data from Dune Analytics. An statement about in-game tokenomics resulted in an increase in sales on December 31, 2021. The current entry price of 0.05 ETH is significantly more than the June 2021 mint price of 0.01 ETH.

CBX token

While Cryptobeasts professes to be "fun-to-play" rather than "play-to-earn," it is nevertheless a blockchain game whose competitive advantage is based on tokenomics. The native token, CBX, is an in-game token that will be distributed to all rare-egg holders via an airdrop.

Beast combat, land parcels generating daily CBX, accomplishing particular in-game chores, and cultivating and harvesting resources are all said to be ways to earn CBX tokens.

CBX can also be staked to encourage people to hold on to their holdings for a little longer than they expected. From purchasing products in the in-game market to breeding, the token is expected to fuel in-game utilities and features. CryptoBeasts plans to incorporate an academy and scholarships, similar to Axie Infinity but not by coincidence, to allow larger investors to loan out their assets.

Axie Infinity

Axie Infinity is an established and well developed ecosystem with a solid economic model, having been the first blockchain game to implement its play-to-earn approach. Axie Infinity is now being viewed as a Trojan horse for the adoption of blockchain games in general.

According to DappRadar's data, Axie Infinity has maintained its position at the top of the NFT rankings. With $563.6 million in the last 30 days, Axie Infinity has surpassed NBA TopShot, Splinterlands, and WAX blockchain's "Farmer's World" as the most traded collection.

RON, SLP, and AXS

SLP, the in-game utility token, and AXS, the governance token, are used to breed Axies, which are the NFT used for gameplay. Despite the overall yield being cut from over 200 percent at the start to about 88 percent, consumers are continuing to harvest a high annual percentage yield (APY) with over $1.56 billion staked.

The Katana decentralised exchange (DEX) was just launched, allowing participants to farm RON using SLP or AXS to offer liquidity.

The ecosystem token, RON, will be used as the gas fees on Axie Infinity's Ronin sidechain, similar to Polygon (MATIC). In many ways, Axie Infinity is its own digital nation with a functioning economy.

It confronts obstacles, just like any other early market mover, and its recent price decline could be an appealing entry moment for investors who were previously priced out. Because land has yet to be distributed, users may be able to craft and harvest resources that will yield additional tokens.

Axie Infinity sold one of the 75 genesis land plots for $2.3 million, making it one of the largest digital land sales in the NFT/metaverse sector to date.

The Sky Mavis team has revealed that it has updated the basic engine from its 2D art style to 3D in order to adapt to the fast increasing blockchain games environment. The developers also said that "Project K" - a codename for a game piece and Lunacia's kingdom — will be published in stages, each focusing on a different aspect of the game, such as resource collecting and "group strategic gameplay."

2022 will be an exciting year for gamers, creators, and investors as the concept of blockchain games gets traction and "play-to-earn" and "play-and-earn" models continue to develop.