Polygon (MATIC) popularity is increasing in the gaming space

With blockchain games taking an increasingly larger share of on-chain DApp activity, the likes of Polygon and Wax appeal to developers with low gas fees and by reducing the cost of creating NFTs. Not to be outdone, Solana recently went live with a new upgrade that enables mass minting at a fraction of the previous cost.

As blockchain gaming matures, the various underlying technologies that enable the space are vying for a piece of the action.

Polygon sees an increase in activity

Thanks to a 53% monthly increase in daily active wallet users in the gaming space, in March. Polygon overtook Hive to become the second most popular gaming chain after Wax, DappRadar recently reported.

The analysis shows that Wax still dominates the space in terms of wallet activity. With blockchain games accounting for a growing share of all DApp activity, Polygon’s success points to increasing competition in the space.

But what draws blockchain game projects to certain platforms?

First, the ability to scale easily and without incurring large transaction fees is essential. Game developers looking for rich smart contract functionality and abundant transaction processing capacity have found a welcome home in ecosystems built on Wax and Polygon and protocols.

While distribution of ERC721 tokens directly to the Ethereum Mainnet has proven popular in digital art. For example, the associated gas fees make such a solution unsuitable for the mass issuance of NFTs typically required by gaming applications.

Instead, their ability to mint large batches of tokens at once without breaking the bank has allowed alternative solutions to shine.

Of course, when it comes to bringing down transaction costs and improving scalability. It’s not just game-friendly blockchains like Wax that have been busy. In recent years, a handful of tier-one solutions like Solana have caught the attention of developers of all stripes.

Solana introduces efficient NFT minting mechanism

Also, in a move likely to appeal to new blockchain gaming projects, the Solana Foundation announced on Thursday the introduction of government compression. A new, more efficient way to store data in the chain.

Taking advantage of Merkle Trees, a type of data structure that allows fast and secure verification across large data sets, state compression has some important implications for the way NFTs are minted and stored on the Solana blockchain.

The latest upgrade will have a dramatic impact on the cost of minting new tokens. Because it enables a more compression-friendly data structure. Solana says that compressed NFTs are 2400-24000 times cheaper than their uncompressed counterparts. This will allow developers to mint 100 million for as little as 50 SOL.

Based on cost data obtained from April 5th, the Solana Foundation shows that the cost of creating the new compressed NFTs is now cheaper than using Ethereum by scale. In fact, state compression makes the cost for Solana developers more comparable to using Polygon. It is even significantly cheaper in batch minting on the scale of millions.

Many players may not be too interested in the underlying technology of a given game. This includes unnecessary fees, and expensive gaming can have a detrimental effect on the user base.

As such, technical development that makes the release of new items and features in the game more affordable is an attractive proposition.