Polygon ranks as the second-largest blockchain for gaming as activity spikes

Polygon, an Ethereum layer-2 scaling network, has reported increased gaming activity. The network has emerged as the second-largest blockchain gaming network in the number of unique active wallets (UAWs).

Polygon becomes the second-largest blockchain for gaming

According to a report dubbed Blockchain Games that DappRadar published on April 6, the number of unique active wallets interacting with games on the Polygon network increased to 138,081 in March. The figure represented a 53% increase from what was reported in February.

With these numbers, Polygon has surpassed Hive and BNB Chain, which rank third and fourth, respectively. Hive has 84,000 UAWs, while BNB Chain has 80,000 UAWs. The blockchain currently dominating the gaming industry is WAX, with 314,000 UAWs.

The report noted that the nature of activity on the Polygon network had changed. The Ethereum layer-2 was initially popular with decentralized finance (DeFi) apps. Polygon overtook Hive in March and secured the second spot, which signals growth for Polygon as a preferred gaming blockchain.

The significant increase in the UAWs on the Polygon blockchain can be attributed to the Hunters On-Chain game, which is known as BoomLand. The game recorded an over 17,000% increase in UAW in the last 30 days alone, according to data from DappRadar.

Hunters On-Chain is a Web3 version of the BoomLand mobile game known as Hunt Royale. The Web3 adaptation of the game was released in January, and it features a free-to-play RPG model that has integrated non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The game has a style and look that mimics that of Minecraft.

On March 9, the Hunters On-Chain game reached all-time high UAW numbers of 55,300. The reason behind the significant growth in interest for this game last month has remained unclear. One of the reasons that might have triggered this growth is the highly anticipated in-game NFT sale that happened on March 31.

Besides Hunters On-Chain, it appears as if the other gaming projects on Polygon did not perform as expected. The DappRadar report noted that all on-chain gaming activity on Polygon declined by 3.33% in March to 741,567 daily unique active wallets (dUAW). Nevertheless, the gaming industry has continued to grow, accounting for 45.6% of the DApp industry activity in the first quarter of 2023.

Polygon is recording significant growth

The past few months have marked a solid bullish momentum for Polygon. The network has gained adoption from projects in the gaming, NFT, and metaverse sectors, which is triggering significant growth in the wallets interacting with the network.

The team behind the Polygon network, Polygon Labs, has secured major partnership deals with top-notch companies such as Warner Music, Starbucks, Adidas, Reddit, and Adobe. These companies are working with Polygon to develop and host NFT initiatives.

Polygon Labs recently unveiled the Polygon open-source zero-knowledge rollup that is compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine. The rollup seeks to support the scalability of DApps via transaction batching, boosting performance and lowering gas fees.