Gaming Tokens Crash Hard as Bitcoin Falls Ahead of Halving

The crypto markets have been bleeding red in recent days, a stumble ahead of the Bitcoin halving currently expected on late Friday—but gaming tokens have taken some of the hardest hits, with some notable tokens down by more than 30% and hitting all-time low prices.

The price of BTC is down by over 12% this week, falling to around $61,500 as of this writing after being above $71,000 earlier this week. And Ethereum has fallen by almost 15% over the last week, currently at just $3,000.

Many major tokens have marked even more substantial drops this week, with Solana plunging by 22% and Avalanche down 28% during the past seven days. But some gaming tokens are doing even worse over that span, according to data from CoinGecko.

GALA, the token of the Gala Games ecosystem, is having an even harder week thanks to a 32% plunge to a current price of about $0.04. Immutable (IMX), the most valuable gaming token with a $2.7 billion market cap, is faring slightly better at a 27% drop to $1.89. But the Ethereum scaling network’s token has fallen by nearly 50% in just over a month.

Gaming tokens launched this year are among the most battered of the bunch, with Pixels (PIXEL) down 39% in the last week alone to a current price of about $0.40, the Xai (XAI) gaming network’s token down 34% to $0.68, and Portal (PORTAL) plunging 34% over the past seven days to $0.99. Pixel and Portal tokens both hit all-time lows on Saturday.

But some prominent longtime tokens aren’t doing much better this week. Axie Infinity (AXS) and ApeCoin (APE) are both down 27% this week, The Sandbox (SAND) has dipped by 28%, and Illuvium (ILV) has dropped by 29%.

There is one rare exception: the GOG token of Guild of Guardians, a mobile fantasy game from Immutable that’s finally releasing in May after years of public development, is up 69% on the week to a current price above $0.29.

Last week, Immutable announced a crossover event with card-battler Gods Unchained, which will launch a Guild of Guardians-themed expansion.

Edited by Ryan Ozawa.