While 2024 has undoubtedly been a great year for crypto investors, not all categories of digital assets have delivered consistent results. One category is GameFi – a segment that has significant promise but where longstanding tokens such as Enjin’s ENJ and The Sandbox’s SAND have struggled to make gains over the last twelve months. However, MYTH is one GameFi token that’s standing out, having delivered over 40% returns in the 2024 year leading up to July 15.
This puts it far more in line with the rest of the crypto markets than some other tokens in its category and many other alts – and we can see a similar performance in the seven-day timeframe. So, what’s driving these results?
The interdependencies between the MYTH token, the Mythos blockchain ecosystem, and the leading Web3 game studio Mythical Games are the main forces currently driving demand for MYTH.
An Interconnected History
The Mythos blockchain and Mythical Games have an intertwined history since the former was founded by the latter as the platform for its Web3 gaming ecosystem. In 2022, the project delegated development responsibility to the Mythos Foundation, a newly formed DAO, as part of its commitment to democratizing gaming. The MYTH token became the native token of the Mythos platform, and Mythical Games became the first to adopt MYTH as its own token.
Therefore, MYTH currently has several important utilities. It’s the governance token of the Mythos Foundation DAO, allowing token holders to vote on governance matters such as upgrades or changes to the protocol. It also acts as the native token powering the decentralized apps on the Mythos chain, serving as the currency for paying fees and rewarding validators.
The adoption of MYTH by Mythical Games also means that the token is used as the base currency for the Mythical Marketplace, where players of Mythical titles buy and sell their in-game assets. This is perhaps the biggest opportunity for MYTH since Mythical CEO and veteran gaming executive John Linden has publicly stated his vision to “make Web3 gaming great” via “shrewd partnerships and strategic alliances.” These efforts are already visible in Mythical’s game portfolio.
Driving Demand from Mainstream Brands
The company’s flagship title is currently NFL Rivals, the only NFL game apart from Madden to be officially endorsed by the NFL itself. It’s reached over five million downloads, and, in June, surpassed $1 million in monthly NFT trading volume for the first time.
One factor that’s likely to be helping NFL Rivals achieve mainstream success is the fact that users can onboard to a Web2 version without needing a crypto wallet. While this doesn’t immediately support demand for MYTH, it does mean that the game is more likely to appeal to users who prefer a soft landing but will ultimately seek out the higher stakes and bigger challenges offered by a Web3 game. This could prove to be critical in onboarding a larger proportion of the NFL’s huge fandom, which has one of the largest viewerships in the world, attracting 17 million viewers each week.
Mythical has also already announced plans to branch out, with a Pudgy Penguins game in the pipeline for 2025 that will also run on the Mythos chain, potentially attracting another large user base into the ecosystem and driving further demand for MYTH. Pudgy Penguins remains one of the only NFT collections to achieve mainstream success, with over $10 million in sales of physical merchandise to complement its blue-chip NFT status.
Tokenomics and Past Performance
There are one billion MYTH tokens, with a circulating supply of just over 637 million in July 2024. At launch in late 2022, 35% were allocated to the Mythos Foundation as unlocked tokens. The remaining supply was all subject to a three-year vesting period, with 34% distributed to launch partners, 15% to a game fund, and 16% to employees and advisors.
The token has undergone several notable price movements since launching in late 2022. As is typical for newly-launched altcoins, the price spiked shortly after launch to an all-time high of $1.91, but as the 2023 bear market kicked in, it couldn’t sustain the same momentum. In December 2023, the token underwent another sudden spike, reaching a short-term high of $0.66. However, since that time, MYTH has mostly been on an upward trajectory , with two notable rallies in April 2024. As of mid-July, it’s trading in the $0.30-$0.35 range.
With a market capitalization of just over $200 million, MYTH is classed as a mid-cap GameFi token that shows healthy trading volumes and liquidity. However, due to the heft of its partnerships and the opportunities for ecosystem development that these enable, the token shows substantial upside potential over the medium to long-term time range.
