Stablecoins break into top 3 growth drivers for Web3 gaming: BGA 2025 report

cointelegraphPublished on 2025-12-10Last updated on 2025-12-10

Abstract

According to the Blockchain Gaming Alliance's 2025 report, stablecoin adoption has emerged as a top-three growth driver for Web3 gaming for the first time, alongside high-quality game launches and revenue-driven business models. This reflects a shift away from speculative token cycles and reliance on major Web2 brands, indicating the industry's growing focus on fundamentals, sustainable infrastructure, and commercially viable games. The report highlights a five-year evolution in developer priorities, moving from external catalysts like play-to-earn hype to improved user experience and now to polished gameplay and stablecoin-integrated payment systems. Stablecoins are seen as crucial for enabling frictionless, fiat-like transactions in game economies. Additionally, dependence on traditional gaming publishers has significantly decreased, with interoperability, AI integration, and creator economies gaining prominence.

Blockchain game builders are increasingly prioritizing fundamentals and infrastructure over token-fuelled growth cycles, with stablecoin adoption emerging as one of the top three catalysts for the first time, according to the latest report from the Blockchain Gaming Alliance (BGA).

On Wednesday, the BGA published its 2025 State of the Industry Report, which shows a shift in what builders believe will drive success in blockchain gaming.

According to the report, the top three growth drivers were high-quality game launches (29.5%), revenue-driven business models (27.5%) and stablecoin adoption in payments (27.3%).

The findings suggest the industry is stepping back from speculative cycles and reliance on big Web2 brands and instead prioritizing commercially viable games built on Web3-native transaction rails.

“What we’re seeing in the data is an industry becoming more global, more disciplined, and more focused on building great games for real players,” said Sebastien Borget, the co-president of the BGA and co-founder of The Sandbox.

Key factors that are perceived to drive the growth of the blockchain gaming industry. Source: BGA Survey

How blockchain gaming drivers have evolved in the last five years

The report reflected a notable five-year evolution in what blockchain gaming builders believe will move the sector forward.

From 2021 to 2023, survey participants heavily favored external catalysts, which include play-to-earn (P2E) hype and hopes that major Web2 publishers would validate the sector’s legitimacy by getting involved.

By 2024, sentiment shifted over to improving user experience, accessibility and onboarding after friction and repetitive game loops stalled Web3 gaming adoption.

This year, the survey suggested further maturity. Developers increasingly tied success to polished gameplay, sustainable monetization and infrastructure that supports spending.

Stablecoins, long a core component of decentralized finance, are now seen as instrumental to game economies, the report said.

It also suggests that frictionless payment experiences, similar to fiat, could contribute to the success of Web3 games.

Related: Animoca, Solv to help Japanese Bitcoin companies generate yield

Waning dependence on Web2 gaming giants

The survey also shows a sharp drop in perceived reliance on traditional gaming giants. Only about 17.2% of respondents now view legacy publishers as key growth catalysts, down from 35.8% in 2024.

Instead of this, interoperability (26.1%), artificial intelligence integration (25.9%) and player-driven creator economies (25.5%) followed closely behind the top three drivers.

Developers’ growing focus on stablecoin rails mirrors broader policy momentum.

Regulatory frameworks for stablecoins are advancing rapidly worldwide, with the United States leading the way with the GENIUS Act and Europe implementing its Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework.

Magazine: Koreans ‘pump’ alts after Upbit hack, China BTC mining surge: Asia Express

Related Reads

Liberland Fires Tech Secretary After Alleged Blockchain And Website Takeover Attempt

Liberland's congress has voted to remove Technology Secretary Dorian Stern Vukotić, following a resolution accusing him of attempting to hijack the Liberland.org domain, removing administrative multisig protections, blocking the president from voting, and launching unauthorized tokens. The incident serves as a case study in blockchain governance, highlighting risks that go beyond smart contracts to include control over domains, admin keys, and off-chain authority. For the crypto industry, it underscores the need to scrutinize decentralization claims against operational realities, where a small group can still compromise governance. The story reflects a broader market shift where infrastructure security and governance are becoming as critical as price action. Editorial framing should treat the development as a verified information signal about governance risks, avoiding overstatement of Liberland's legal status and leaving room for follow-up evidence.

bitcoinist32m ago

Liberland Fires Tech Secretary After Alleged Blockchain And Website Takeover Attempt

bitcoinist32m ago

How to Do Research Well: Deliberately Practice the Real Skills That Matter

No one truly teaches you how to do research. You're often given a desk, a pre-selected problem, and vague instructions to "create something new." Consequently, many people reverse-engineer the job based on visible outputs—papers, posts, announcements—learning only how to *appear* like a researcher rather than how to *become* one. True research capability is built from stacking small, trainable skills, nearly all of which can be developed through deliberate practice. **Pick Your Own Problem:** Most researchers absorb problems from advisors or trends, lacking the underlying reasoning. Choosing a problem you genuinely care about, as John Schulman advises, leads to original work. Develop "taste" like a muscle: predict experiment outcomes, guess paper results from methods, and track which findings remain important over time. **Upgrade Your Inputs:** Relying on shared reading lists (arXiv hot lists, filtered group chats) leads to unoriginal conclusions. Undervalued old literature often holds crucial insights (e.g., MoE, LSTM, backpropagation). Richard Sutton's "The Bitter Lesson" or Claude Shannon's 1952 talk on creative thinking are more predictive than lengthy modern surveys. Breadth matters as much as depth: draw from neuroscience, mechanism design, hardware knowledge, and honest statistics. Read papers directly, especially appendices and limitations sections. **Write Everything Down:** As Paul Graham noted, writing exposes flaws in seemingly mature ideas. Writing is the cheapest defense against self-deception. Following Feynman's principle, Darwin programmatically wrote down facts contradicting his theory to combat memory bias. Maintain a detailed log of hypotheses, setups, predictions, results, and updated understandings. Reviewing past logs fosters essential humility.

marsbit1h ago

How to Do Research Well: Deliberately Practice the Real Skills That Matter

marsbit1h ago

Backpack Surges Over 150% in Half a Month

BP, the token of the Backpack exchange, has surged over 150% since early June, driven by the platform's expansion into regulated US stock brokerage and asset tokenization services. On June 2nd, Backpack announced Backpack Securities, offering traditional stock trading and tokenization, causing BP's price to jump over 80%. Momentum continued on June 12th with the launch of SPCX, a tokenized product for SpaceX stock on Solana, facilitating seamless conversion between traditional securities and on-chain assets. This aligns with the RWA (Real World Assets) narrative, creating a bridge between traditional finance and Solana DeFi. The token's unique economics also support its growth. All 2.5 billion initially circulating tokens were airdropped to the community, with zero allocation to the team or investors at launch. A key feature allows users who stake BP for at least one year to gain the right to convert tokens into company equity upon an IPO or acquisition. Despite some initial community controversy over airdrop distribution, focus is shifting to BP's long-term utility and value alignment as real products launch.

marsbit1h ago

Backpack Surges Over 150% in Half a Month

marsbit1h ago

Following US Ban on Fable 5, Zhipu AI's Stock Soars 47%

On June 15th, shares of Zhipu AI surged dramatically on the Hong Kong stock market, peaking at a 47.6% gain before closing 32.82% higher. This sharp increase was directly triggered by two recent industry events. On June 12th, Anthropic announced it was suspending global access to its latest flagship models, Claude Fable 5 and Claude Mythos 5, to comply with a U.S. government export control order. The next day, Zhipu AI announced it would open access to its latest open-source flagship model, GLM-5.2, under the permissive MIT license. The Anthropic incident highlighted a critical issue beyond raw model capability: the risk of sudden, unpredictable loss of access to advanced AI models, especially for developers and enterprises deeply integrated with them. This has shifted industry and market focus toward factors like stability, sustainable access, and controllability. Zhipu's move, promoting "frontier intelligence for all," positions its openly available model as a reliable and accessible alternative. The GLM-5.2 model emphasizes "Long Horizon Task" capabilities with a 1M context window, targeting complex, multi-step coding and engineering workflows where maintaining context is crucial. Analysts note this event exposes the risk of dependency on closed-source models subject to single jurisdictional controls, potentially accelerating a shift toward domestic base models and localized deployments. The market's reaction signals a new valuation dimension in AI: providers who can offer stable, long-term, and sustainably accessible AI capabilities are gaining strategic importance.

marsbit2h ago

Following US Ban on Fable 5, Zhipu AI's Stock Soars 47%

marsbit2h ago

Fully Entering the AI Era: Alipay Bets on Conversation, WeChat Holds Fast to Social

In May 2026, Alipay announced over 300 million AI payment transactions. Shortly after, WeChat opened its mini-programs for AI integration, sparking controversy by requiring developer source code access. This highlights their diverging approaches to AI integration. Alipay is testing "Project Treasure," an optional AI-native interface replacing traditional app grids with a conversational window. Users can command complex tasks (e.g., "book a ride and order coffee") handled end-to-end by AI. This shift follows an abandoned standalone AI app, focusing instead on enhancing its existing user base. For unmodified mini-programs, Alipay's AI uses "screen-reading" to simulate user interactions, bypassing the need for developer overhaul. It also introduced "Token Pay" for micro-transactions and "AI Wallets" for autonomous agent spending. WeChat, prioritizing its core social function, is taking an embedded approach. Its AI agent will operate within existing contexts like group chats and official accounts, assisting without a separate interface. To enable this, WeChat offers developers two paths: granting source code access for direct AI control ("Automatic Mode") or manually encapsulating services into standardized "Skills." Both place significant burden on developers. Key differences emerge in handling legacy services: WeChat demands developer cooperation (code or labor), while Alipay's screen-reading offers immediate, if potentially less stable, compatibility. Alipay's 3 billion AI transactions demonstrate user acceptance of AI-driven commercial actions. The divergent strategies may reshape mini-program ecosystems—Alipay passively "AI-fying" services, WeChat potentially favoring resource-rich developers—and set competing technical standards. Ultimately, the competition centers on where users entrust the command to "help me get things done."

marsbit2h ago

Fully Entering the AI Era: Alipay Bets on Conversation, WeChat Holds Fast to Social

marsbit2h ago

Trading

Spot
Futures

Hot Articles

How to Buy TOP

Welcome to HTX.com! We've made purchasing TOP AI Network (TOP) simple and convenient. Follow our step-by-step guide to embark on your crypto journey.Step 1: Create Your HTX AccountUse your email or phone number to sign up for a free account on HTX. Experience a hassle-free registration journey and unlock all features.Get My AccountStep 2: Go to Buy Crypto and Choose Your Payment MethodCredit/Debit Card: Use your Visa or Mastercard to buy TOP AI Network (TOP) instantly.Balance: Use funds from your HTX account balance to trade seamlessly.Third Parties: We've added popular payment methods such as Google Pay and Apple Pay to enhance convenience.P2P: Trade directly with other users on HTX.Over-the-Counter (OTC): We offer tailor-made services and competitive exchange rates for traders.Step 3: Store Your TOP AI Network (TOP)After purchasing your TOP AI Network (TOP), store it in your HTX account. Alternatively, you can send it elsewhere via blockchain transfer or use it to trade other cryptocurrencies.Step 4: Trade TOP AI Network (TOP)Easily trade TOP AI Network (TOP) on HTX's spot market. Simply access your account, select your trading pair, execute your trades, and monitor in real-time. We offer a user-friendly experience for both beginners and seasoned traders.

3.4k Total ViewsPublished 2024.03.29Updated 2026.06.02

How to Buy TOP

Discussions

Welcome to the HTX Community. Here, you can stay informed about the latest platform developments and gain access to professional market insights. Users' opinions on the price of TOP (TOP) are presented below.

活动图片

Top Questions

Hot Categoriesright-arrow

Hot Tagsright-arrow