Crypto Gaming Becomes Hot Income Driver in Argentina

With inflation chipping away at salaries, crypto gaming has become a hot income driver in Argentina, with 9,400 visits this year to the metaverse site with the most players worldwide, Decentral Games.

Argentina is the fifth economy in the world playing games for income, with Brazil ranking seventh. Decentral Games had just a few hundred players in 2021, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday (March 22).

Both countries are dealing with double-digit inflation, with Brazil over 10% and Argentina wrestling with a 10-month high of over 50%.

“Argentina and Brazil’s trends show the numbers will keep rising,” Gabriel Mellace, Decentral Games head of investor relations, told Bloomberg. “Young people are not only looking for profitability. They’re also looking for fun.”

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Axie Infinity is another platform that attracted the most users from Latin America, particularly from Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela. Axie Infinity enables gamers to earn tokens and is credited with igniting the gaming craze in the region.

With affordability being an issue, Latin Americans typically participate in gaming on behalf of Americans, according to Mauricio Ramos, Axie’s head of Latin America.

Gaming platforms like Decentral Games, Axie Infinity and Sandbox require users to have an NFT (non-fungible token) to play. Decentral Games require users to have an NFT worth $5,200 in order to play. Because that is too expensive for gamers in Argentina and Brazil, they play on behalf of Americans and Germans, Mellace said.

Money made through the games is paid to crypto assets in accounts in other countries, allowing users to avoid capital controls and have the upper hand regarding how much they bring into the country.

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Decentral Games has been busy developing its presence in the metaverse with virtual properties, like its fully digital replica of the iconic Amnesia nightclub in Ibiza. It also recently brought in brand assets from Atari, hoping to attract nostalgic gamers to play with a wide range of digital tokens at their disposal.