Metaverse gaming has become a multifaceted industry with several unique approaches aimed at replicating our physical world to perform our daily activities in an immersive virtual world experience facilitated by blockchain technology.

Three key ecosystems have populated the metaverse gaming space: Play-to-Earn, Move-to-Earn, and Rent-to-Earn; all of these enable blockchain participants to monetize their participation and get rewarded while acting in the metaverse world.

What is Play-to-Earn (P2E)?

Play-to-Earn is an ecosystem that allows gamers to earn real crypto assets that can be sold for real money. The concept is similar to traditional gaming, where gems and coins can be earned; however, in P2E games, these gems and coins are tokenized as fungible or non-fungible tokens that can be used to progress in the game or cashed out for fiat money.

What is Move-to-Earn (M2E)?

Following the success of the Play-to-Earn ecosystem, several other metaverse concepts were developed, of which Move-to-Earn attained widespread acceptance. As the name sounds, Move-To-Earn requires participants to partake in physical activity to earn tokens; this could be walking, running, cycling, etc. This fitness niche expands the benefits of blockchain technology to provide rewards for healthy lifestyle choices as well as recreative exercises. Like P2E games, these rewards can be used within the ecosystem or cashed out for fiat money.

What is Rent-to-Earn (R2E)?

Rent-to-Earn could be described as a sub-niche of Play-to-Earn; it involves metaverses where people lease out their metaverse assets such as land parcels, game characters, tokenized digital assets, and other metaverse items. The lessee could use these items to make money within P2E or other ecosystems, while the lessor could use the items to make money.

Similarities of Play-to-Earn, Rent-to-earn, and Move-to-Earn

• Crypto Rewards: In all three models, participants can earn rewards via fungible assets (coins) or non-fungible tokens. NFT rewards can be sold for coins or leased out for returns (in an R2E ecosystem); similarly, coins received can be exchanged for fiat and spent in the physical world. Basically, activities you would participate in for free, or bragging rights can now be monetized, without eliminating the fun or bragging rights that come with it.
• NFT Assets: All assets in-game or within metaverse are tokenized as NFTs; hence, you, the participant, own them and not the platform. As a result, you can do anything you want with your assets; if you ever choose to stop participating within that metaverse, you can sell them for a fee and not lose them for free to the gaming platform.
• Backed by Blockchain Technology: It’s quite common knowledge that blockchain technology is one of the basic building blocks for the metaverse. All activities, including gaming, physical activities, leasing, asset transfers, sales, and purchases, are all recorded on the blockchain for all to see; hence, there is an immutable record of everything, helping to protect the integrity of the ecosystem, preventing cheating, theft, duplication, etc.

Comparing Play-to-Earn, Rent-to-Earn, and Move-to-Earn

Although they are very similar, these metaverse ecosystems are distinct in their rights; below are some of their key differences.

Final Takeaway

Away from P2E, M2E, and R2E, many other monetization models are available on the blockchain; they include, Create-to-Earn (C2E), Watch-to-Earn (W2E), and many incoming X-to-Earn projects. Perhaps, in the nearer future, the metaverse will see a host of traditional niches that can be uniquely monetized, rewarding user participation.

While looking out for other blockchain monetization niches, it is important to prioritize ecosystems that are sustainable, offer real value, engaging, and are deflationary in nature; this will boost your odds when attempting to invest in a novel ecosystem within the metaverse.

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