As Ronin approaches launch, an overview of the currently popular gaming blockchains

By Alexander

Everyone is waiting for the official launch of Ronin (token). The GameFi craze has made this sidechain token built for Axie Infinity highly imaginative.

If the golden age of major public chains is gradually fading, vertical-specific blockchains for gaming, socializing, and other niches are still in a Warring States era. Unlike large general-purpose chains, vertical chains rely more heavily on one flagship application—even just one—and can still maintain strong vitality and resilience.

As Ronin launches, TechFlow reviews today’s hottest gaming blockchains (in the broad sense, including EVM sidechains).

Ronin

Ronin is an Ethereum sidechain specifically built in late 2020 for Axie Infinity, the leading blockchain game project. It operates as a Proof-of-Authority (PoA) network run by validators appointed by Sky Mavis, the core development studio behind the game. Blocks require approval from two-thirds of the validators to be confirmed. Validators are responsible for creating and verifying blocks, updating price oracles, and managing deposit and withdrawal processes for assets (ETH, ERC20, and ERC721) moving between Ronin and Ethereum. Initial validators include Ubisoft, Binance, Animoca Brands, and Nonfungible.

Ronin offers the following advantages:

(1) Instant confirmation for fast, seamless transactions.

(2) Significantly reduced gas fees. Additionally, users don't need to pay Ethereum miners—gas fees can be retained by the community for tournaments, bounties, and similar activities.

(3) Ability to withdraw Axie assets back to the Ethereum mainnet (eventually).

(4) Simplified user onboarding through a custom wallet solution.

(5) Provision of a transparent block explorer.

Currently, the Ronin token RON can be obtained by providing liquidity in either the AXS/WETH or SLP/WETH pools. RON will serve as the gas fee token on the Ronin network.

Representative Games:

Axie Infinity: A play-to-earn (P2E) game popularized by the Philippine gaming guild Yield Guild Games (YGG), frequently topping market trading volume charts. Players collect and raise fantasy creatures called Axies, and can also battle their Axies in arenas.

Commentary: Axie Infinity is incredibly popular in the Philippines. Given the country's underdeveloped financial infrastructure, many locals experience financial services for the first time through Axie Infinity's wallet, enabling value transfer. From this perspective, gaming becomes a medium for value storage and transfer. Expanding this idea, could Ronin evolve into a financial blockchain dedicated to value storage and transfer for the Philippines?

Immutable X

Immutable X is an Ethereum Layer 2 scaling solution capable of up to 9,000 TPS, with zero gas fees for minting and trading. This chain also provides NFT liquidity, making it increasingly popular. Most NFT projects choosing Immutable X are concentrated in the gaming sector.

Immutable X uses ZK Rollup technology, incorporating batched zero-knowledge proofs similar to those used by the MINA blockchain. These proofs validate transaction snapshots, compressing the data required on Ethereum during transactions or NFT creation, thus eliminating gas fees.

Immutable X consumes less than 30% of Ethereum's capacity while supporting hundreds of millions of transactions daily. At the same time, its network is stable and reliable, enabling instant transactions and immediate asset transfers.

Commentary: Unlike most vertical chains competing within narrow sectors, Immutable X stands out by reaching into broader markets—for example, partnering with TikTok to help issue NFTs. In gaming, many games are preparing to migrate from other blockchains to Immutable X. From an ecosystem development standpoint, this is only the beginning.

Representative Games:

Gods Unchained: A turn-based card game launched in 2018, similar to Hearthstone. The game runs off-chain, but cards are stored on-chain as game assets. To reduce transaction gas fees, most Gods Unchained cards have migrated to the Layer 2 solution Immutable X.

Illuvium: A role-playing game (RPG) with NFT collectible value. As players traverse a shattered planet, they encounter beast-like Illuvial creatures to battle. Players can defeat these creatures in combat or choose to capture them in fragments. Successfully capturing a creature mints a new NFT representing that creature as an asset stored in the player's wallet. When players catch multiple creatures of the same type, they can fuse them together to create more powerful ones.

Flow

Flow is a blockchain platform developed in-house by Dapper Labs, the team behind CryptoKitties. Designed specifically for NFTs and gaming, Flow achieves high scalability without sharding at Layer 1.

While Ethereum horizontally splits transactions by categorizing them based on type, amount, and importance before processing, Flow vertically decomposes transactions using vertical sharding and specialized division of labor. It separates resource-intensive computation from time-consuming consensus processes, classifying transactions and nodes along unique dimensions specific to Flow, then assigning tasks according to each node’s inherent nature and capabilities.

According to Flow’s official website, compared to traditional underlying technologies, Flow delivers over 50 times higher throughput without compromising security or decentralization. Transactions are significantly faster, and fees are much lower, starting at just 0.001 Flow.

Additionally, Flow boasts a rich ecosystem with many heavyweight partners, giving it strong advantages in intellectual property (IP) markets.

Representative Games:

NBA Top Shot: A blockchain-based collectibles game co-developed by the NBA and Dapper Labs, the creators of CryptoKitties. Dapper Labs states that the game allows NBA fans to purchase, sell, trade, and collect digital highlights of iconic season moments for use in on-chain games or tournaments. Josh Goodstadt, commercial director at the National Basketball Players Association, said the association believes blockchain technology creates truly unique products that allow fans to collect, manage, and interact in engaging environments.

KardiaChain

KardiaChain is a public chain platform focused on interoperability, providing hybrid blockchain solutions and infrastructure for enterprises and governments in Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries.

Its dual-node technology enables cross-chain communication between any public or private chain, regardless of protocol. This offers institutions an easy-to-adopt solution: private chains provide efficiency and privacy, while public chains help build customer trust through transparency.

KAI is the native token of the KardiaChain ecosystem. KAI is used for staking, paying transaction fees, deploying smart contracts, funding cross-chain operations, and accessing all products and services on KardiaChain.

Representative Games:

Thetan Arena: A blockchain-based esports game where players can form teams with friends to battle others and earn symbolic rewards based on skill. Thetan Arena combines individual player skill with teamwork, offering various game modes such as MOBA and battle royale, updated monthly with attractive rewards.

My DeFi Pet: A DeFi pet-raising game available on both KardiaChain and BSC. Players can breed, evolve, buy, and trade pets, build their own teams, battle other players, and earn rewards. Each pet is an NFT asset, and players can even create new pets to sell on NFT marketplaces.

WAX

WAX is a public chain focused on NFTs, built upon EOS and inheriting its DPoS consensus mechanism. WAX theoretically supports over 3,000 TPS, with gas fees far lower than Ethereum’s. WAX plans to enable interoperability of NFT assets across independent dApps, enhancing liquidity. Additionally, WAX is actively working on cross-chain capabilities.

Dubbed the “King of NFTs,” WAX leveraged OPSkins—the operator of the world’s largest digital marketplace—to establish a user base in the millions from day one. In 2020, primary NFT sales on WAX sold out within minutes, and secondary market trading volume was five times higher than the primary market.

Data shows that in Q2, WAX became the market leader, with NFT sales surpassing the combined total of Ethereum and Ronin. The number of daily active wallets interacting with blockchain games on WAX grew by 1,082% quarter-over-quarter, reaching 306,707.

WAX: Who is the real EOS?

Representative Games:

Alien World: A comprehensive blockchain game integrating mining, staking, combat, DeFi, NFTs, and DAOs. The game is free to play. There are six independent planets in total, each functioning as a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). Players can colonize planets through battles.

Farmers World: An NFT farming game running on the WAX blockchain. Players select tools, develop resources, purchase land to build expansive farms, and enjoy the immersive experience of working within the Farmers World ecosystem.

Chromia

Chromia is a blockchain platform designed to solve scalability issues for dApps. It consists of a network of relational blockchains. dApps can be developed using familiar programming methods, whether for large enterprise applications, games, or small projects. Similar to sharding on Ethereum, each blockchain in Chromia is associated with a set of validator nodes, which form a subset of all nodes in the Chromia network. This subset runs a Byzantine Fault Tolerant (BFT) consensus algorithm.

Network consensus is further strengthened by anchoring Chromia’s transaction history onto proof-of-work (PoW) blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum—once a block is anchored, it is considered final. CHR is Chromia’s native utility token. Users spend CHR within dApps, and dApps in turn pay transaction fees to block producers using CHR.

Chromia allows dApps to issue tokens backed by CHR, and investors in dApp projects can receive compensation in CHR via profit-sharing agreements. For developers, Chromia offers revenue-generating opportunities, and popular dApps drive greater demand for developer-owned tokens. Current dApp implementations on Chromia span finance, gaming, real estate, and healthcare. In the future, Chromia will also focus on dApps involving supply chains, enterprise services, and the Internet of Things.

Representative Games:

My Neighbor Alice: A multiplayer blockchain building and NFT game where players construct virtual land, interact with neighbors, complete daily tasks, and earn rewards. Players use the in-game token ALICE to purchase items and NFTs on the marketplace, claim staking rewards, and participate in community governance.

Hive

Hive is a DPOS-governed blockchain created by hard-forking the existing Steem codebase. Hive originated as a fork of the Steem blockchain but aims to take responsibility for building something better, operating completely independently from the original chain.

Since its inception, Hive has steadily grown as an ecosystem. Countless dApps, APIs, and frontends offer universal and straightforward access to data, transactions, and records, ensuring widespread utility and diversity that appeals to content creators, consumers, investors, and builders alike.

Hive was developed to store vast amounts of content and make it available for time-based monetization. The blockchain is designed with mass adoption of currency and platform usage in mind. By combining lightning-fast processing speeds with low-fee transactions, Hive is poised to become one of the leading blockchain technologies used globally.

Representative Games:

Splinterlands: A collectible multiplayer trading card game whose design evokes a symbiosis between Pokémon Trading Card Game and World of Warcraft characters. The game features a story set in a mystical world. Built on the Steem blockchain, it offers fast transactions and full transparency. Enter the game, conquer the world, or complete quests.