Among the myriad emerging digital products and forms of value creation powered by rapid advancements in financial technologies, Web 3.0 and the metaverse are play-to-earn (P2E) games that allow players to earn non-fungible tokens (NFTs) or other digital coins and trade them on a marketplace.
GuildFi started the platform with the popular P2E games "Axie Infinity", which is considered a cornerstone of the platform.
Blockchain games are expected to become one of the hottest digital businesses next year given their ability to incorporate many emerging aspects of digital economies such as Web 3.0, metaverse, decentralised finance (DeFi) and gaming.
At the forefront of the industry is GuildFi, a P2E platform that connects games, NFTs, and gaming communities with an aim to maximise player benefits and enable interoperability across the metaverse.
GuildFi started the platform with one of the most popular P2E games Axie Infinity, which is considered the cornerstone of the P2E platforms.
Players of Axie Infinity in Thailand have successfully launched a prominent gaming guild and the most popular Axie Infinity gaming tools on the global market. These achievements have created a strong foundation for the GuildFi platform, demonstrating its immense market fit.
The platform has already attracted more than 100,000 registered users, 25,000 daily active users, and 1,500 scholars (a scholar is a new player who is borrowing characters or tools before earning) within three months of inception. This illustrates its high potential to expand globally, said Jarindr Thitadilaka, GuildFi co-founder and the project lead.
The company successfully raised about 4.7 billion baht from a second round of funding from global investors, reflecting its growing popularity among players and investors, and is deemed a potential contender for Thailand's next unicorn (a startup reaching a valuation of US$1 billion), he said.
Jarindr Thitadilaka, GuildFi co-founder and the project lead.
TOKEN LISTING
The proceeds were raised in international markets through a token launch auction on the platform Copper. The final token was priced at around US$4 prior to the end of the auction.
Combined with proceeds from the first round of funding, which amounted to 200 million baht, the company has received a total of 4.9 billion baht, representing 7.5% or 75 million tokens of the 1 billion tokens issued for the company.
GuildFi is applying for a listing of GuildFi tokens on several domestic and international cryptocurrency exchanges, including the world's largest digital exchange Binance.
OKEx is the first cryptocurrency exchange to approve the listing of GuildFi tokens, with the symbol GF on Dec 8.
As the global crypto market underwent turmoil triggered by the outbreak of the new variant Omicron in recent weeks, the prices of major cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin all dropped, pressuring other minor coins including GF to follow suit.
According to CoinMarketCap, the price of GuildFi tokens stood at $2.4 on Dec 9 as of 10.55 pm. The coin's trading volume for the most recent 24 hours was $23.3 million and its total market capitalisation stood at $94.3 million.
Mr Jarindr said proceeds from the latest fundraising will be used to develop a gaming platform that will allow players to earn money under the P2E model, while pushing game projects both in Thailand and abroad to the international level.
The GuildFi platform aims to bridge the physical and virtual worlds together and allow anyone to easily navigate the metaverse, providing the best gaming experience, he said.
Mr Jarindr said GuildFi is a metaverse project and is the largest GameFi game producer in Thailand. The group was established in August and many international supporters already expressed their trust in the company by investing in the project.
Kannithi Tongtanagoon, co-founder of Cryptomind Group and the GuildFi project adviser, said the valuation of GuildFi tokens may fluctuate after listing on exchanges so investors will need time to determine token valuation as well as to react to future market corrections.
PROMINENT BACKING
Many famous investors and fund groups such as DeFiance Capital, Hashed, Pantera Capital, Coinbase Venture, Alameda Research, Animoca Brands have participated in GuildFi's past funding rounds.
The company also formed a partnership with a network of digital asset exchanges in Thailand such as Bitkub and Zipmex, as well as digital asset brokers like Bitazza.
"We also have partnerships with a number of game makers such as CyBall, Thetan Arena and BigTime, which are very popular," Mr Jarindr said.
A company statement said it plans to grow in line with the rising ubiquity of the metaverse, which was fuelled by the rebranding of Facebook to Meta and Mark Zuckerberg's announcement of his focus on investing in the metaverse in late October.
This impetus has greatly increased the value of companies involved with the metaverse in the stock market. Metaverse-related coins in the crypto market have also skyrocketed, including SAND, MANA, ENJ, GALA and other gaming coins.
Seeing the metaverse's potential for growth, GuildFi bought the Sandbox, a virtual real estate and land on the metaverse, on Sept 14 for 19 million baht. Now the value of the Sandbox has grown to 112 million baht within about two months.
Investors should stay tuned to see how the GameFi world will transform the Sandbox, he said.
ALWAYS EVOLVING
GuildFi is working to ensure its ecosystem will continue expanding, both in terms of functionality and the number of new users and community members.
GuildFi tokens will be the company's main tool to power its ecosystem as it grows along with the metaverse, which consists of different aspects such as GameFi, DeFi, NFTs, and even digital land, said Mr Jarindr.
He said the tokens' value will grow through income from several businesses and activities including P2E games, P2E guilds, sales of NFTs and initial game offerings, returns from investment in NFTs, NFT asset lending in the GuildFi ecosystem, and various metaverse projects.
GuildFi aims to be the base layer that connects the metaverse -- a platform that connects players, games and covers a wide range of features for users ranging from GuildFi ID, Game Discovery, Guild Discovery, Proof-of-Play Rewards and Metadrop Launchpad.
Mr Jarindr said to achieve this mission, GuildFi looks to collaborate with game creators globally to identify and attract the right players, while supporting them through in-game asset investment, campaign collaboration, and ensuring successful launches and healthy growth.
"We expect the metaverse to see rapid growth in the next 5-10 years as the industry has room to grow 50-100 times," he said.
