We do the research, you get the alpha!
Huge tokens have been dropping left and right so far in 2024, and gaming projects are getting in on the excitement. Tokens tied to games and networks have been among this year’s biggest launches as the broader crypto market rebounds and airdrops accelerate.
From Portal to Pixels, these are the gaming tokens that have made waves so far this year, ranked by peak market cap to date per CoinGecko, at the time of writing. But there are sure to be more big tokens ahead, as our gaming airdrops roundup suggests, so stay tuned—we’ll keep updating this list.
We're using a peak market cap of at least $100 million as our minimum benchmark for this list, as of this update, though we may shift that mark over the course of the year as more and more tokens launch.
1. Pixels (PIXEL)
Peak Price: $1.02
Peak Market Cap: $731 million
Crypto’s hottest game right now is also responsible for the hottest gaming token of 2024—at least so far. The PIXEL token launched in late February for the chill farming game on Ethereum scaler Ronin, and helped introduce even more crypto-native elements into the web game. It also generated more than $1 billion worth of trading in less than a single day.
With hundreds of thousands of daily users, Pixels has the crypto world’s attention and has helped build some serious momentum around Ronin too. PIXEL popped above a price of $1 in mid-March, taking over the top slot on the list in the process. The peak market cap listed above is based on the number of circulating tokens at the time, though more tokens have been unlocked since then.
2. Saga (SAGA)
Peak Price: $7.60
Peak Market Cap: $684 million
While not exclusively a gaming chain, the layer-1 Saga network has centered most of its initial push around games, including running play-to-airdrop campaigns and revealing plans for an in-house game publishing arm called Saga Origins. According to Saga, about 80% of testnet projects were focused on gaming.
And the SAGA token has made a big splash, first with a record-breaking Binance Launchpool campaign that saw customers stake over $13.4 billion worth of funds to earn SAGA rewards, and then with a peak price that pushed the token to the number-two slot on our list as of this point in the year. And there are more airdrop rewards to come.
3. Portal (PORTAL)
Peak Price: $3.36
Peak Market Cap: $561.6 million
Just launched on February 29, Portal arrived with a level of hype we haven’t seen in the crypto gaming space in some time. In part, that’s because of an airdrop farming push that saw users flood Twitter with tweets—and a then-record Binance campaign (since beaten by Saga) that saw users stake over $9 billion worth of crypto in hopes of yielding rewards didn’t hurt.
The price dipped pretty quickly, however, and hasn't come close to regaining that ground as of this latest update. Can this Ethereum-based token for the upcoming cross-chain gaming platform regain the hype?
4. Xai (XAI)
Peak Price: $1.59
Peak Market Cap: $440.6 million
The Xai layer-3 gaming network on Ethereum scaler Arbitrum had this year’s first big airdrop, rewarding owners and operators of the network’s Guardian Nodes and certain NFT holders. It’s been a hot start for XAI so far, rising to a peak price that’s more than double what it dropped at.
Games are starting to roll out on the network, which ought to drive even more attention and excitement to the token, plus Xai recently launched staking rewards too.
5. Heroes of Mavia (MAVIA)
Peak Price: $10.59
Peak Market Cap: $317.7 million
Heroes of Mavia is one of this year’s biggest new crypto game launches. The Clash of Clans clone has attracted millions of downloads across iOS and Android, and Skrice Studios celebrated the release by airdropping tokens to 100,000 early players, along with tokens for virtual land owners who had previously staked their NFTs.
MAVIA saw a big price surge after launching in February, rising above $10—a more than 5x improvement on the opening price. But it was short-lived, shedding about 40% of its value since. The game hasn’t implemented its crypto features yet, but has shared a sizable roadmap.
6. Gaimin (GMRX)
Peak Price: $0.03937
Peak Market Cap: $261.2 million
Gaimin is designed to power crypto games via a decentralized cloud computing platform, letting users contribute their spare computing resources to earn rewards. And the platform's GMRX token just launched in late March.
While the individual token price is tiny and hasn't yet hit $0.04 as of this writing, there's a sizable circulating supply, pushing the peak market cap to a meaty $261 million. The price is down by almost 50% as of this writing, however, so we'll see whether Gaimin can get back near that mark any time soon.
7. Apeiron (APRS)
Peak Price: $1.88
Peak Market Cap: $193.6 million
Apeiron is a buzzy Ronin strategy game that's currently holding a play-to-airdrop campaign, and also recently launched its APRS ecosystem token in the network's first-ever token sale.
The token's market cap came close to $200 million on the launch date, though as with Gaimin above, the price has fallen a fair bit since then. Still, it rose high enough to make this list—and the game still hasn't fully launched yet.
8. My Pet Hooligan (KARRAT)
Peak Price: $1.08
Peak Market Cap: $116.9 million
KARRAT is a new Ethereum token administered by The Karrat Foundation and tied to My Pet Hooligan, the battle royale-style shooter with NFTs. Dropped on April 22, KARRAT was served up to My Pet Hooligan NFT owners, who are able to claim an allocation of tokens.
At peak price, KARRAT rose as high as a nearly $117 million market cap based on the initial circulating supply, though the token price has dipped since then as of this writing.
Editor's note: This story was originally published on March 3, 2024 and last updated with new info on April 23.