Web3 in October: NFT market still collapsing, blockchain gaming far from mass adoption but valued highly by players

Here we summarize the third quarter in the Web3/NFT world using reports from various sources. We’ll discuss security and scams, blockchain gaming and NFT sales.

Security

Blockchain security platform Immunefi, released a report showing that the Web3 marketplace lost $428.7 million to hacks and scams in the 3Q. However, that’s 62.9% less than the same period in 2021.

• According to Immunefi, about $398.9 million was lost as a result of 30 hacks, while about $29.8 million was lost in nine fraud cases, including $24.5 million to the projects themselves.
• Decentralized Finance (DeFi) platforms suffered more than 98% of the losses (in 36 incidents totaling $423.4 million). In comparison, centralized exchanges (CeFi) suffered a loss of $5.2 million due to three incidents. Most of the DeFi platforms that were attacked were in BNB and Ethereum. Attacks on Solana and Avalanche networks accounted for 6.8% of all losses.
• Since the beginning of 2022, the crypto industry has lost about $2.3 billion to hackers and fraudsters. By the end of the 1Q, total cryptocurrency losses reached $1.2 billion, with the Ronin Network project and the Wormhole bridge accounting for more than 70% of losses.

Blockchain games

Coda Labs, a provider of blockchain game development services, noted in its research that despite the enormous investment in the industry, Web3 games are still far from mass adoption by regular players.

Coda Labs analysts surveyed 6,921 people from five countries. It turned out that ordinary gamers avoid NFT games because they don’t understand how such projects work, and also because they don’t want to have a cryptocurrency wallet.

At the same time, most users are attracted by the possibility of making money in Play-to-Earn (P2E) projects. In fact, this term is the most recognizable among average gamers.

Interestingly, gamers usually rate Web3 game projects quite highly. On average, people without cryptocurrency experience rate games with NFT at 7.1 out of 10, and crypto enthusiasts — at 8.3 points.

NFT

As shown in the data of the leading NFT marketplace OpenSea, the turnover of digital assets collapsed at the beginning of the summer and held at a low level throughout Q3. According to Dapp Radar, NFT demand volumes collapsed 62.5% over the past three months, but if we compare the quarterly result to the historical maximum, the decline was 72.8%.

In fact, everything from fan tokens to virtual portions of the Metaverse land has devalued. This once again proves the highly speculative component of NFT.

The Dapp Radar report shows that the Ethereum blockchain continues to account for the largest number of NFT transactions. In Q3, the network processed 91% of such transfers worth $645 million. The Flow and Ronin specialized blockchains processed 2.54% and 2.53% of NFT transactions.