According to a new report by Chainalysis, NFTs play a pivotal role when it comes to cryptocurrency adoption in Central and South Asia.
The report from a leading blockchain research company found that over 58% of web traffic from Central and South Asia and Oceania was NFT-related.
In addition to the large portion of NFT-related activity, the research highlighted that play-to-earn games and NFTs are closely linked for these geographies, with 21% of web traffic going to websites of blockchain games.
The report states “For countries with high web traffic to NFT marketplaces – especially Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines – a large portion of that NFT-related traffic may therefore come from players of blockchain games.”
Furthermore, the research identifies Vietman as the highest ranking country for cryptocurrency adoption and The Philippines jumped from 15th to second place in terms of adoption. Both of these countries have rapidly embraced blockchain gaming with a staggering 25% of Filipinos and 23% of Vietnamese claiming to have played a P2E game.
Gaming as a key adoption mechanism
GameFi and play-to-earn games have proved popular in the blockchain gaming community, especially across Central and South Asia. In an earlier report the same research firm found that much of the adoption in these countries was at the grassroots level.
The ability to own your assets, accumulate digital assets and trade assets as you play a game is providing increased utility for the gaming community globally.
It is also asking new game developers to consider various ownership models, factoring in different forms of NFTs as potential add-ons to their games.
Games such as Alien Worlds, Axie Infinity, The Sandbox and Sorare are already tapping into this market. With community involvement as a key metric for understanding the value of NFTs within games, many believe that the potential of NFT technology within gaming is still in a discovery stage with massive room for growth.
Additionally, Asia is the number one region in terms of users growth for Metamask wallets. Existing barriers to entry and TradFi policies that exclude low-income individuals are playing a role in the adoption across these geographical markets.
Blockchain Gaming and NFTs are providing an easy entry point for individuals wishing to discover cryptocurrencies.
