<\/p>\n
Vladislav Ginzburg, founder and CEO of OneSource, says that blockchain gaming is ready to move past the hype. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Once hailed as the future of play, blockchain gaming has spent the last few years in the shadow of its own hype. Early ideas of player-owned economies, tokenized rewards, and interoperable universes never quite lived up to the promise. <\/p>\n
Still, as the noise faded, more serious efforts are emerging, with those who remained focused on not speculation, but infrastructure. To address the current state of blockchain gaming, crypto.news spoke to Vladislav Ginzburg, founder and CEO of OneSource, a Web3 data, API and infrastructure platform focused on making blockchain games work. <\/p>\n
crypto.news: Let\u2019s start with the current state of blockchain gaming. It had a moment of hype, but it feels like that moment has passed. What\u2019s your perspective?<\/strong><\/p>\n Vladislav Ginzburg: That\u2019s pretty typical of the blockchain ecosystem \u2014 hype often runs far ahead of reality. But that doesn\u2019t mean there\u2019s no reality behind it. It just takes longer to arrive. There\u2019s that old saying: \u201cA lie travels around the world before the truth can put its pants on.\u201d In this case, the hype laps the world a few times before the actual utility catches up.<\/p>\n But the reality is starting to catch up. In the last quarter alone, there were about 4.5 million daily unique active wallets engaged with blockchain games. From our perspective at OneSource \u2014 where we focus on infrastructure for decentralized applications \u2014 gaming consistently takes up about 25% of activity across all dApps.<\/p>\n So yes, in the context of blockchain, that\u2019s a big number. But if you zoom out to the entire gaming industry, 4.5 million users is a drop in the bucket. It\u2019s tiny. The conclusion? Inside the blockchain world, gaming is real. It\u2019s arrived. But how that scales into the mainstream gaming economy is still an open question.<\/p>\n CN: Blockchain gaming is back in the news, thanks to Valve changing how Counter-Strike 2 skins are created. What was your take?<\/strong><\/p>\n VG: From a technical standpoint, enabling players to trade assets like skins as NFTs gives developers a huge benefit: they can offload that trading activity to a decentralized network. That means lower server costs and infrastructure burdens. Trading no longer happens on your central servers\u2014it happens on-chain.<\/p>\n And beyond that, it opens up entirely new marketplaces. Think beyond just skins\u2014think of all types of in-game content. If a game lets users mint, trade, and sell assets, then others can also start creating and contributing assets.<\/p>\n Now, from a marketing perspective, that\u2019s incredibly interesting. Imagine a developer wants to attract holders from a community like Bored Ape Yacht Club. They can offer tools or licensing frameworks so that the community can import their IP\u2014avatars, themes, skins\u2014directly into the game. Suddenly, a game that didn\u2019t previously appeal to that audience now becomes meaningful to them.<\/p>\n That\u2019s a win-win: the developers reduce infrastructure costs and attract niche, loyal player bases through Web3 communities. That said, gamers themselves may not always respond enthusiastically. There\u2019s still a lot of NFT fatigue out there, and developers need to figure out how to make people care again.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n CN:<\/strong><\/strong> If you\u2019re trying to convince gamers to care about tokenized assets or blockchain gaming in the long term, what\u2019s the real benefit to players?<\/strong><\/p>\n VG: We\u2019ve been building in this space for years\u2014OneSource used to be called Block Party, and we were early movers on things like fan engagement tokens and record label partnerships. So we\u2019ve seen this from a lot of angles.<\/p>\n I like to simplify it this way: blockchains are really good at very specific things. They\u2019re not magic. But what they do well, they do better than anything else.<\/p>\n For example, blockchains are the best public scoreboards we\u2019ve ever built. They\u2019re great at transparently tracking points, tokens, ownership, movement, and transaction history. They\u2019re a perfect base layer for validating truth in a multiplayer context\u2014whether that\u2019s winning, losing, cheating, or proving ownership.<\/p>\n So from a gamer\u2019s perspective, that might mean transparent match records and rankings, proven history of in-game achievements, and immutable ownership of your character, skins, inventory, or even identity.<\/p>\n It solves for things like cheating, bans, and centralized control. And yes, there\u2019s also the ability to transfer value\u2014whether that\u2019s between players or between a game and its community. We saw this even before blockchain, with people selling Second Life or WoW items on Craigslist. Blockchain just formalizes that economy.<\/p>\n CN:<\/strong><\/strong> Another big issue is aggressive monetization in games. Gamers have been complaining about that since the early days of mobile. Do you think blockchain and NFTs address that problem\u2014or make it worse?<\/strong><\/p>\n VG: That\u2019s a great question. I try to look at it from both sides\u2014developer and player. When you say \u201caggressive monetization,\u201d I immediately think of play-to-earn. From a gamer\u2019s point of view: it\u2019s exhausting. No one wants to grind just to extract value. It makes the game feel like work.<\/p>\n From the developer\u2019s side, though? I totally get it. They have investors breathing down their necks. They\u2019re told, \u201cGo monetize it now.\u201d So naturally, their first experiments with blockchain and tokens end up being tied to monetization.<\/p>\n But of course, players hated it. That\u2019s the pendulum of the industry\u2014we overcorrect one way (play-to-earn), the community pushes back, and now we\u2019re swinging back to ask: What do gamers actually want from Web3?<\/p>\n What I\u2019m seeing now from an investment perspective is a huge shift away from token economies and into infrastructure. Capital is going toward solving technical challenges: scale, mobile performance, and throughput. That\u2019s where the focus is now. And I think that\u2019s a very healthy move.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n CN:<\/strong><\/strong> Can you dig deeper into that infrastructure shift? What are the technical bottlenecks, and who\u2019s solving them?<\/strong><\/p>\n VG: Sure. Let\u2019s start with what games need. Multiplayer online gaming has always been about massive scale. That\u2019s right there in the name: \u201cmassively multiplayer online games.\u201d<\/p>\n Now imagine trying to run a massive online game on-chain. Most Layer 1s just aren\u2019t designed for that. It\u2019s expensive, slow, and often unusable. Remember when CryptoKitties crashed Ethereum? That was years ago\u2014and the underlying challenges are still there.<\/p>\n That\u2019s where infrastructure comes in. You\u2019re now seeing serious progress. For one, Solana with Firedancer is promising major throughput upgrades. On the other hand, Immutable is building specific tooling for game developers. At the same time, MegaETH, which is currently mid-public sale, is focused on ultra-high transaction volumes. And at OneSource, we layer on top of those chains to push further scaling<\/p>\n We\u2019re running experiments on testnets right now\u2014trying to push millions of on-chain events per minute and see how much load we can actually handle.<\/p>\n Because here\u2019s the reality: if every player login, loot box, or skin trade is an on-chain event, that\u2019s millions of blockchain calls per second during peak gameplay. And most infrastructure just isn\u2019t ready for that yet.<\/p>\n CN:<\/strong><\/strong> Another thing that gamers are concerned about is games that players paid for being suddenly deleted and sunsetted. We\u2019ve recently seen the \u201cStop Killing Games\u201d initiative in the EU. Do you think that blockchains can help preserve access to older versions or single-player games? <\/strong><\/p>\n VG: It\u2019s a really cool use case. Let me give you both sides of it\u2014glass half full and glass half empty.<\/p>\n Yes, if there\u2019s a decentralized storage layer\u2014like Storj, Filecoin, etc.\u2014then developers can offload hosting of game versions to decentralized networks. That means reduced server costs, happier customers, and resilience even when a game is officially shut down.<\/p>\n If enough players care and are willing to contribute capital, that\u2019s essentially a form of crowdsourced preservation. And that\u2019s very Web3.<\/p>\n Still, that model only works if enough people care. Keeping a game version alive on a decentralized infrastructure isn\u2019t free. It can be expensive. So you\u2019d need a large, passionate niche to make it work. And while it\u2019s easier for single-player games, multiplayer is a whole different animal\u2014servers, matchmaking, etc.<\/p>\n So technically, yes\u2014it\u2019s possible. But it\u2019ll take effort and coordination, and probably isn\u2019t viable for every game.<\/p>\n CN:<\/strong><\/strong> Is there anything else you\u2019ve been thinking about recently that others in the space might be missing?<\/strong><\/p>\n VG: Yes, actually. I still believe in the metaverse \u2014 not the buzzword, but the idea behind it.<\/p>\n I\u2019m part of that generation that grew up with Second Life, World of Warcraft, and StarCraft \u2014 virtual worlds where you spent real time building things, developing characters, and grinding for gear. And when you really invest in those experiences, there\u2019s something deeply meaningful about owning your progress and your identity in that world.<\/p>\n So for me, the idea of owning your in-game assets, avatars, or achievements \u2014 truly owning them \u2014 still matters. Even if the hype has passed, the work hasn\u2019t stopped. A lot of serious builders are still here, still moving toward that future.<\/p>\n That\u2019s their superpower. Let\u2019s not ask them to be everything. They\u2019re not game engines, they\u2019re not user experience platforms, they\u2019re not advertising tools. But when you need to record truth, to validate ownership, to transfer value transparently\u2014blockchain is the best tool we\u2019ve ever had.<\/p>\n So whether it\u2019s for tracking leaderboards, enabling asset ownership, or proving you didn\u2019t cheat, that is where blockchain belongs in gaming. Everything else can be built around that layer.<\/p>\n <\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Vladislav Ginzburg, founder and CEO of OneSource, says that blockchain gaming is ready to move past the hype. 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