Kraken Intelligence's Crypto Assets Market Recap for May 2022

According to statistics from Kraken Intelligence and CoinGecko's May 2022 market analysis, the data revealed that Sandbox (SAND) is up 470%, STEPN (GMT) is up 746%, Decentraland (MANA) is up 41%, and Infinity (AXS) is up 511%.

When investigating 1-year performance, Metaverse space has topped every other crypto category with a return of 395%. On top of that, the second-biggest category for year-on-year growth was exchange tokens, which increased by 6%.

Did you know?

Want to get smarter & wealthier with crypto?

Subscribe - We publish new crypto explainer videos every week!

What is Polkadot in Crypto? (DOT Animated Explainer)

SUBSCRIBE

ON YOUTUBE

On the other hand, all other sectors revealed negative performance last month. For instance, Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) saw a decrease of 13% and 25%, respectively, whereas decentralized finance (DeFi) was down 72% in the past year.

According to the report, “NFT volume saw a large decrease with daily volume dropping over 87%,” while losses in decentralized finance (DeFi) ranged from -3% to -53% among the sector's biggest assets.

In fact, according to DappRadar, blockchain-orientated games employing NFTs and Metaverse platforms have been quite popular this year, with roughly 1 million users per day participating in such projects.

On top of that, a significant amount of funds were allocated to the gaming sector. For instance, more than $2 billion was collected to explore and assist various Metaverse-related projects and blockchain-based games in Q1 of 2022. According to DappRadar’s first-quarter games issue, 52% of all blockchain activity originated from game decentralized applications.

“In the first three months of 2022, VCs and investors have raked at least $2.5 billion into blockchain games and their underlying infrastructure. At this pace, play-to-earn and metaverse-related projects will add $10 billion this year to keep building the future of this industry.”

For instance, back in May, Kevin Lin, the co-founder of the technology-driven entertainment company Metatheory raised $24M to continue creating high-quality games while implementing non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Likewise, in the same month, America's private VC firm dubbed Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) initiated a $600M fund to aid Web3-based gaming startups while providing a better future for the gaming industry.

Interestingly enough, every sector resulted in negative returns over the past 30 and 90 days, according to Kraken’s report. Metaverse was one of the sectors that saw the most significant price fall as it plummeted 42% over the past 30 days, following Layer-1 tokens, such as Cardano (ADA) and Solana (SOL), which dropped 43% over the past month.

On the contrary, while looking at the three timeframes tracked by Kraken, Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) suffered comparatively minor losses in comparison to other altcoins.

Aaron S., Editor-In-Chief

Having completed a Master’s degree in Economics, Politics, and Cultures of the East Asia region, Aaron has written scientific papers analyzing the differences between Western and Collective forms of capitalism in the post-World War II era.
With close to a decade of experience in the FinTech industry, Aaron understands all of the biggest issues and struggles that crypto enthusiasts face. He’s a passionate analyst who is concerned with data-driven and fact-based content, as well as that which speaks to both Web3 natives and industry newcomers.
Aaron is the go-to person for everything and anything related to digital currencies. With a huge passion for blockchain & Web3 education, Aaron strives to transform the space as we know it, and make it more approachable to complete beginners.
Aaron has been quoted by multiple established outlets, and is a published author himself. Even during his free time, he enjoys researching the market trends, and looking for the next supernova.

Full Bio

All Expert Contributors & Analysts