16 January 2026 | Weekly news roundup

In this episode, we look at the rise of Animoca, and the rise and fall of its metaverse project The Sandbox.[0:24] This week's show focuses on the details arising from Animoca's 2022 financials.[1:11] 2022 was a long time ago, but the report also discloses more recent financial details. [4:00] Animoca's business is particularly complex, even without worrying about crypto. [6:58] The most interesting details are about The Sandbox.[8:45] Around 50% of Animoca's balance sheet is illiquid tokens such as SAND, MOCA, and EDU. [9:40] Animoca bought The Sandbox dev Pixowl for $5 million in 2018.[11:10] At one point in 2021, The Sandbox was Animoca's main financial asset.[13:35] In 2022, Animoca spent over $100 million buying game devs, which it's since written off. [20:28] Animoca bought 30% of The Sandbox's holding company from its co-founders for $125 million.[25:20] The Sandbox first launched its alpha season in 2021. It's still in alpha.[28:25] Could genAI and AI agents help resurrect The Sandbox?[31:20] Now the valuation of The Sandbox is marginal for Animoca as a whole; less than 10%.[32:29] Animoca listing on Nasdaq will be good for the whole crypto sector.

Jon Jordan talks to Skale Labs CEO Jack O’Holleran about how the Ethereum-centric L1 blockchain network is expanding to Base, helping launch mobile game PGA Tour Rise, and preparing for the explosion of onchain AI agents.[1:30] The background to mobile game PGA Tour Rise, which is launching on Skale and Base.[2:55] The game mixes golf course building tycoon strategy with golfing mini-gameplay. [5:20] Blockchain gaming is gaming with much better economic rails. [7:13] Skale is expanding to Base via its SKALE Expand v1 program[10:35] This expansion is seamless for users; they just get faster, cheaper transactions.[12:08] If this works well, Skale will expand to other EVM chains, and perhaps even Solana. [13:58] This allows users being able to deploy their liquidity across multiple chains without bridging. [17:08] "Games will be a major place for agentic commerce." The two are complementary.[20:22] a16z reckons AI agents will be a $30 trillion market. That's the potential. [22:16] Skale is also rolling out a new privacy L1 called FAIR, which will be important for agents.[26:14] "The AI movement will drive a lot of attention back into blockchain gaming."

Read the full article at https://www.blockchaingamer.biz/features/41347/top-50-blockchain-game-companies-2026/[6:55] One of the trends is the rise of games with degen mechanics, notably YGG at #3.[8:35] YGG's positioning of LOL Land as a "Casual Degen" game - a casual game with degen rewards.[10:30] These games have been a (relative) success. Mass-market web3 games haven't been.[12:55] Also in the Top 50, Cambria, Gigaverse and Fishing Frenzy use this degen mechanic.[15:37] Even Mythical Games is moving towards this with its Pulse Arena platform. [19:35] Sky Mavis' Ronin blockchain has a lot of these degen games running on it.[27:02] Dacoco's Alien Worlds is an underappreciated web3 game for its DAO focus. [35:00] CCP's EVE Frontier is the prime example of a bottom-up, fully onchain MMORPG.[41:18] Roblox-with-blockchain Hytopia launched in 2025 with 2.5 million mobile downloads.[44:27] The #1 company is MapleStory Universe dev Nexpace (Nexon).[52:04] Also ... Bitcoin game payment company ZBD announced a $40 million Series C funding round.

Polygon buys Sequence, Animoca buys SOMO, Cartridge buys Playmint. Consolidation?[0:28] Today's theme is consolidation.[1:15] Is this the trend for blockchain games companies in 2026 or something more nuanced?[2:00] Why didn't we see more consolidation in 2025?[3:46] Playmint has been bought by Cartridge. This is likely more of an R&D rollup or acquihire deal.[5:53] Playmint worked on fully decentralized games and Cartridge has an onchain game engine.[7:05] Both companies also have a shared investor Bitkraft to enable the deal. [8:40] Sequence has been acquired by Polygon Labs. It's more of a classic consolidation deal. [10:50] Polygon is repositioning itself as a payments and stablecoin infrastructure. [12:13] Sequence's focus has always been cross-chain dev tools for blockchain games.[14:59] Investors like tools. Sequence raised around $50 million.[18:50] Polygon is buying Sequence because it's a proper business with real tech and users.[22:20] Will Sequence focus less on games in future? [23:06] Animoca Brands has acquired web3 gameco SOMO. It's unclear why.[29:31] Delabs Games is shutting down idle RPG Ragnarok Libre. [35:15] Delabs Games is now an AI-first game developer so it's looking to the future.

Mythical's new Pulse platform, Boomland shuts and no more SLP rewards.[0:29] BoomLand has announced it's shutting down. [2:35] It never raised much money but it was always very good at building product.[6:50] It's another example of how hard it is to operate in the blockchain game sector. [7:48] But its game Hunters On Chain will remain live during 2026. [11:18] Due to botting, SLP is no longer a token players can earn in Axie Infinity: Origins.[14:58] This reminds us that extractive value always has been balanced by similar input costs.[20:37] Mythical Games is one of the most credible mass market blockchain game companies.[21:34] It's launching a new stablecoin-based market called Pulse Market. [22:36] Paid tournament Pulse Arena platform is also live for the Pudgy Party game.[24:02] One tournament example is paying $3 entry for the chance to win $90, all in PENGU token.[25:58] The only thing that's onchain is the fee payment system and the reward payouts.[30:53] It's difficult to balance blockchain benefits and easy UX, which is what Mythical is trying to do.

Key trends for blockchain games in 2026? Stablecoins, AI agents, FIFA Rivals, AppTokens. [1:17] You need to know what doesn't work before you can find out what does work.[3:18] We thought the value of a blockchain game would be reflected in its token price. It's not.[7:25] In 2025, we saw projects become more focused on who their specific audience is.[9:20] One of the small successes in 2025 was risk-to-earn games for degen gamers.[11:43] But mass market blockchain games are increasingly hiding their crypto elements.[14:58] Blockchain gaming as revolution has failed. Blockchain games as evolution may not.[15:28] Mythical Games is moving to a new stablecoin-based marketplace.[18:15] The success of its FIFA Rivals game in a World Cup year will be interesting to see.[20:00] Stablecoins will continue to become more significant in gaming and fintech in 2026.[24:00] Crypto tokens will kill your game fastest than they can make your game work.[26:20] Cross-chain infrastructure is now much better, which enables better UX.[28:01] AppTokens remain interesting but are difficult for developers to [31:58] AI agents were predicted to be a big trend in 2025 but they weren't.[35:54] AI agents are symbiotic with blockchain. Games could be the first test case.[39:17] AI agents have the potential to fix many of blockchain gaming's problems in 2026.[42:30] Gaming's biggest challenge at present is cost of marketing for web2 and web3.[46:50] Blockchain games are the best positioned part of gaming to take advantage of AI.

[1:58] 2025 was the end of play-to-earn cycle which started in 2021 with Axie Infinity.[3:10] However, crypto had a great year in terms of Tradfi adoption; ETFs, stablecoins, DATs etc.[7:50] Why have crypto incentives not worked for blockchain games?[11:00] Adding real-world value has overwhelmed the other reasons why people play games.[14:30] The killer feature of blockchain games shouldn't be making money but assets having value. [17:40] Tokens are dead; at least tokens that are available for trading on centralized [24:58] Do stablecoins eat all other forms of payment including in games?[26:01] Mythical Games is launching a new USDC-based NFT marketplace in 2026.[33:03] Funding for games in general and blockchain games in particular has been [36:53] In 2025, blockchain game funding was $350 million, $1 billion in 2024, $1.7 billion in 2023.[41:03] Pixels and its forthcoing Stacked rewards app is going for a mass audience.[44:44] YGG gave up on mass market guilds and is making Casual Degen games for crypto people. [49:11] (An aside - the rise of prediction markets.) [55:06] Another trend is large games like MapleStory and EVE Frontier building an ecosystem.[1:03:00] The Sandbox is launching its new community memecoin Corners platforms.[1:04:45] An example of the sector's change in 2025 is Mighty Bear Games rebranding to Wearemighty. [1:09:25] Immutable also had a significant change of focus from games to marketing in 2025.[1:13:15] The products that die in 2026 will be the ones with exactly the same strategy as 2025.

The Sandbox's new Corners platform, MocaProof, Soccerverse's FIFPRO license and BGA 2025 report.[0:37] The Sandbox launched its Corners UGC content-memecoin platform into invite-only beta.[3:00] It's an attempt to inject some dynamism into the SAND token aside from The Sandbox. [4:28] Corners lets user collate and curate weblinks on specific content topics.[6:33] Users can then buy each Corner's memecoin, spending it to upvote links.[7:24] Users are rewarded for their activity with SAND.[9:00] It's easy to criticise such projects but it's about trying new things around simple UGC.[13:00] The wider question is what does The Sandbox brand brings to this cultural launchpad?[21:25] Moca Network launched its ID and reputation system MocaProof.[22:10] It uses zero-knowledge proofs to preserve users privacy while proving your credentials. [23:44] This is gamified with a Mocat pet that you level up by verifying your actions.[27:25] Blockchain Game Alliance released its report for 2025.[30:00] Representation in MENA region (mainly the Gulf) had grown from 1% in 2021 to 20% in 2025. [32:00] 66% of people were extremely or somewhat optimistic for 2026.[35:17] 46% thought AI would be game-changing for blockchain gaming.[38:08] Spider Tanks launched on PC and mobile with Immutable. [41:14] EVE Frontier Cycle 4 is live with new manual ship controls.[43:48] Soccerverse signed a license with Fifpro to get access to 65,000 football players.

The Sandbox's new Corners platform, MocaProof, Soccerverse's FIFPRO license and BGA 2025 report.[0:37] The Sandbox launched its Corners UGC content-memecoin platform into invite-only beta.[3:00] It's an attempt to inject some dynamism into the SAND token aside from The Sandbox. [4:28] Corners lets user collate and curate weblinks on specific content topics.[6:33] Users can then buy each Corner's memecoin, spending it to upvote links.[7:24] Users are rewarded for their activity with SAND.[9:00] It's easy to criticise such projects but it's about trying new things around simple UGC.[13:00] The wider question is what does The Sandbox brand brings to this cultural launchpad?[21:25] Moca Network launched its ID and reputation system MocaProof.[22:10] It uses zero-knowledge proofs to preserve users privacy while proving your credentials. [23:44] This is gamified with a Mocat pet that you level up by verifying your actions.[27:25] Blockchain Game Alliance released its report for 2025.[30:00] Representation in MENA region (mainly the Gulf) had grown from 1% in 2021 to 20% in 2025. [32:00] 66% of people were extremely or somewhat optimistic for 2026.[35:17] 46% thought AI would be game-changing for blockchain gaming.[38:08] Spider Tanks launched on PC and mobile with Immutable. [41:14] EVE Frontier Cycle 4 is live with new manual ship controls.[43:48] Soccerverse signed a license with Fifpro to get access to 65,000 football players.

Sony's stablecoin plans, Fableborne Season 4, EVE Frontier's free week, and Footium's $600,000 funding. [0:32] Sony looks like it's going to be launching a stablecoin in the US.[1:09] It's an extension of the trend that's seen PayPal, Stripe and Klarna also announcing stablecoins.[2:00] Sony has set up a US bank, which is applying for a federal license, required for stablecoins. [4:44] One key reason is companies pay up to 2% of transactions as fees to Visa and Mastercard. [6:30] Sony could save up to $20 million for each $1 billion of spending it moves to its stablecoin.[8:55] Do other gaming platforms such as Steam start adopting stablecoins too?[10:43] Mobile RPG Fableborne has launched its Season 4, including guilds for the first time.[13:07] It's one of the last of a long line of play-to-earn games. Interesting to see how it goes.[14:43] Fableborne is on Ronin, which now has a bunch of live and liveish games.[15:35] Also on Ronin, Craft World has a new collab with Fishing [20:26] Immutable has launched an new AI-based marketing platform. [21:16] New mobile/PC action-RPG Myths will launch in 2026, using the Mythical Market for NFTs. [28:00] EVE Frontier is free for everyone until Tuesday 9th December; the end of Cycle 3.[34:44] UK studio Footium has raised $600,000 for its own-IP soccer management game.[36:25] Trying to create your own brands for clubs and players in a sports game is a hard sell.