Aside from a notable NFT collection release, there wasn’t a major shakeup in the top charts for NFTs (trading volume) and web3 games (player activity) this week. But that doesn’t mean that everything was quiet. Despite the holiday season (in some parts of the world), we still see a lot of game updates and alpha releases this week!
We’ve said before that we expected this year to be the year of the web3 gaming alphas, and even though we’re near the end of the year, the alphas keep coming. In addition to the ongoing, periodic alpha days or weekends from a number of games, we also saw closed alphas from Legacy and Echoes of Empire this week. War Park kicked off their closed alpha as well, while Coinbase Wallet and Voxie Tactics join in on the winter festivities.
Additionally, we received the results from the community-voted, Gam3 Awards, with some names you might recognize among the winners!
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Read on for a look at the most active web3 games and NFT projects for the week. And be sure to keep an eye on our website and Twitter feed for the latest developments in the web3 gaming space!
Top play-to-earn games by active users
| Game | Active Users 7 days | Change |
| 1. Alien Worlds | 337.16k | +7.8% |
| 2. Splinterlands | 258.92k | +4.07% |
| 3. Benji Bananas | 160.22k | -0.89% |
| 4. Farmers World | 83.4k | -6.66% |
| 5. Planet IX | 71.1k | +14.44% |
| 6. Upland | 69.67k | -7.96% |
| 7. Era7: Game of Truth | 41.85k | -5.05% |
| 8. Axie Infinity | 40.92k | +3.32% |
| 9. Trickshot Blitz | 37.72k | +3.31% |
| 10. Tiny World | 37.13k | +5.84% |
We see a change up in the top 5 this week, with Planet IX continuing its growth and pushing Upland down to the sixth spot. Another surge next week and they may even move up to fourth place!
But otherwise, not a lot of change in the top 10 charts for active users in web3 games.
Top 10 NFT collections by volume traded
| Collection | Volume traded 7 days | Volume Change |
| 1. Bored Ape Yacht Club | $13.84M | +18.3% |
| 2. Collect Trump Cards | $11.08M | +100% (NEW) |
| 3. Mutant Ape Yacht Club | $8.46M | -16.04% |
| 4. Valhalla | $7.75M | +107.49% |
| 5. Azuki | $3.82M | -52.22% |
| 6. Otherdeed for Otherside | $3.76M | +8.68% |
| 7. CryptoPunks | $2.63M | -22.01% |
| 8. Art Blocks | $2.41M | -16.39% |
| 9. Clone X | $2.25M | -62.2% |
| 10. Doodles V4 | $1.98M | +25.04% |
Somewhat unbelievably, the brand new, Donald Trump trading card NFT collection not only sold out at the price of $99 per card, but vaulted in secondary sales to over $11 million! And that’s just in three days!! I expect the novelty to wear off quickly, but who can guess the markets? I didn’t expect many of these cards to sell at all! But I guess they hit the right inflection crossing point of meme-ability, NFT scarceness, and ludicrousness to launch a buying spree!
But back to our regular program, the Bored Ape series returns to the charts after their mysterious absence last week, reclaiming first and third spots. The loot box buying frenzy for Undead Blocks seems to have slowed down, and Gods Unchained couldn’t make it back into the top 10 either.
CryptoPunks dropped to seventh place, but with a relatively low number of trades over the week (37 compared to BAYC’s 197) volume swings up and down should be expected.
Otherwise, the top 10 is just a shuffling of the projects we see on here from week to week, though Valhalla continues to leap up the charts. There are a few projects outside of the top 10 that seem to be surging, but trading volume for tenth place reaching nearly $2 million, getting in becomes a harder task!
