The story starts with a little monster: YGG during the Axie earning era.
If you were one of the old players who entered in 2021, you should still remember the absurdity of 'playing Axie while being a supervisor for Southeast Asian labor.'
At that time, YGG was a typical 'Guild 1.0':
• DAO buys a bunch of Axies, land, and items.
• Through Scholarship, NFTs are lent to new players who can't afford to buy in.
• Players use these NFTs to earn money, and the output SLP/Axie Token is shared with the DAO proportionally.
• The entire model is based on one premise:
—— Game inflation hasn't exploded, the Token can still rise, and everyone can still sing (We are early)
The narrative surrounding Axie and YGG at the time was very simple and crude:
YGG = The largest gold farming group + NFT asset pool
As long as GameFi continues to print money like crazy, guilds can keep making a killing.
The problem is that the P2E economic model is inherently fragile.
When the growth rate of new players slowed down, SLP collapsed, Axie went from being a "national game" to a "corporate slave hell," and YGG's old model was also crushed.
The period from 2022 to 2023 was actually the most awkward two years for YGG:
• Guild Tags = "Gold Farming Guild" "Asset Providers Who Profit from Exploiting Labor"
• The entire player-to-earn narrative is receding, with top games experiencing a further halving of their daily active users.
• The guild held a pile of assets, but their value and liquidity evaporated simultaneously.
• Token unlocking is underway, but business scenarios are shrinking.
You can understand this period of time as:
YGG has gone from being a "blue-chip P2E company" to the "big brother of the ragtag GameFi industry," but even the big brother himself hasn't had a decent meal in a long time.
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II. Guilds are no longer just about helping you farm gold: YGG aims to become the "Steam + Quest + Reputation System" of Web3 games.
YGG's real brilliance lies in the fact that it didn't cling to the tired old story of "gold farming guilds," but instead abstracted a layer higher from the two dimensions of "player relationships" and "data."
You'll find that YGG's narrative has gradually undergone three changes over the past two years:
1. From "Lending you NFTs" to "Giving you tasks + teaching you how to play"
In the old days: You came to YGG to borrow NFTs, farm gold, and share profits.
New Era: Joining YGG is more like integrating a "Task Center + Training Camp + Team":
• There is a seasonal GAP (Guild Advancement Program)
• There are mission seasons and leaderboards for the new game.
• Teams are led by KOLs/managers who participate in matches and generate match reports.
• Includes beginner tutorials that teach you how to use a wallet, how to manage assets, and how to understand the Web3 economic model.
Essentially, it's an upgrade from a "loan relationship" to a "professional player training camp + distribution channel".
2. Shift from "helping you extract profits" to "helping you build your reputation".
In traditional Web2 games, no matter how many ranked matches you play, the data is only meaningful for that one game.
In the Web3 era, YGG reversed this logic:
• The tasks you complete in different games, the ranks you achieve, the tournaments you participate in, and the NFT identities you hold are all considered part of your on-chain resume.
• GAP's quarterly tasks and rewards are actually a form of "reputation mining":
• Doing things → Keeping records
• Recorded → Qualified
• Eligible → Higher-value opportunities (whitelist / limited-time events / higher reward pools)
What YGG wants to do is not simply "help you make money from one transaction", but to transform players' participation behavior into a long-term "certificate of competence" on the blockchain.
There is a very realistic judgment behind this:
The tide can recede when gold is being struck.
But the question of "who are the high-quality players" will always have someone willing to pay the price.
Whether it's blockchain, studios, or institutions that will later develop GameFi financial derivatives.
3. From "running your own guild" to "providing distribution infrastructure for the entire chain/platform"
During the Axie era, YGG was "the largest guild on a certain path";
Now, YGG is more like a service agreement:
• A new game on the blockchain wants to cold launch:
→ It can be integrated into YGG's task system to apply for a partnership project on a specific season of GAP or the new Quest platform.
• Platforms/ecosystems want to build their own GameFi network:
→ Similar to Iskra, it can collaborate with YGG on initiatives such as quests, DAO governance, token swaps, and joint tournament organization.
• Regional guilds want to quickly increase their numbers:
→ You can integrate YGG templates to copy and format tasks, competitions, and tutorials.
At this point, YGG's role is no longer just that of a "guild," but more like:
Web3 games combining Steam, Galxe, and team alliances.
Platforms, blockchain companies, and game studios—anyone who wants users needs to consider buying traffic and player quality here.
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III. FDV from 500 million to 100 million: Can YGG make a comeback?
Let's break down this sensitive issue separately:
From "FDV of 500 million+ at the peak of the bull market" to "around 100 million" now,
Is YGG still able to turn things around, or has it already entered the "nostalgia stock" phase?
Putting emotions aside for now, let's focus on three key indicators: supply, demand, and narrative leverage.
1. Supply: High circulation + the unlocking period is nearing its end.
YGG has a total supply of 1 billion, and nearly 900 million are currently in circulation, meaning it has almost reached the "basically unlocked" stage.
This means two things:
• In the future, there will never again be a "waterfall-like selling pressure" of several years of sustained high inflation.
• Price fluctuations will be driven more by "actual demand + market sentiment" than by the unlocking of the table.
For medium- to long-term players, this is actually a "cleaner" phase:
Those who were going to dump their shares have basically done so. The projects themselves either actually generate cash flow and demand, or they gradually become marginalized.
2. Requirement: How should the tokens be used, rather than just held?
Several things YGG has attempted to do after 2025 are essentially aimed at enhancing the demand side of the token:
• Through Reward Vaults / Staking:
Distribute game rewards and cooperation incentives through a staking pool.
To earn rewards from specific projects, you need to stake a corresponding amount of YGG.
• Through the Ecosystem Pool (approximately 50 million YGG):
Some tokens were pre-packaged to provide long-term incentives for collaborative projects, infrastructure, and ecosystem partners.
• Upgrade via GAP/Quest platform:
Make YGG one of the key tickets to participate in missions, gain qualifications, and unlock specific rewards.
If these mechanisms truly work, you'll see a situation where good and bad coexist:
• Good things:
• To acquire traffic, leads, and core players, project teams are willing to buy YGG on the secondary market or accept YGG deposits.
• Players/operators will lock some of their chips into Vaults to gain more rewards and mission privileges.
• Bad things:
• This type of design can easily become just "old wine in new bottles" liquidity mining →
Without a truly sustainable cash flow, rewards are simply another form of "inflationary collapse."
YGG's current strength compared to most GameFi projects lies in:
What it's selling isn't "the future cash flow story of a certain game."
Instead, it's an "ETF narrative of a basket of games + player assets".
You may not believe in a particular generation of GameFi, but it's hard to deny that "Web3 games will succeed in the next decade."
As long as you believe in the latter, YGG possesses an extremely stubborn survival niche.
3. Narrative Leverage: Shifting from "Gold Farming Guilds" to "Web3 Reputation Infrastructure"
Token prices are always a function of narrative and liquidity.
YGG's past story is:
"We are the largest gold farming guild, and we have the most GameFi assets."
What it wants to say now is:
"We are the infrastructure for the reputation and education of Web3 gamers,"
They are the first guild that players are willing to contact when the game starts.
This shift has two consequences:
• It's unlikely to give you that "APY 300% gold-making" thrill in the short term.
• In the medium to long term, however, it may be given a completely new valuation label:
— From "GameFi Guild Stock" to "Web3 Gaming Infrastructure Stock"
The story of 500 million to 100 million FDV can be roughly understood as follows:
The foam has been completely eliminated.
The next step is to prove whether it truly deserves to be part of that track's infrastructure.
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IV. Project Team Perspective: If only one guild is chosen for the initial launch, why do many people still choose YGG first?
From the project owner's perspective, you need to calmly do the math:
Do I want "convertible players" or "hunters who just want to fleece you once"?
YGG's advantages lie mainly in these very practical points:
1. Player quality: Not just casual players looking to exploit loopholes, but "trained testers".
Because YGG has accumulated a large number of "veterans" over the past few years through GAP, competitions, and content education,
The most prominent characteristic of these players is:
• Not afraid of wallets, blockchains, signatures, NFTs, etc.
• Able to quickly understand new game mechanics and provide feedback
• "Stats/Records" are available in multiple games.
Such users are far more valuable to project teams than "one-time airdrop hunters"—
Because you can get it from them faster:
• Game balance feedback
• Economic model validation results
• Community acceptance and dissemination nodes
Instead of simply seeing a nice curve of "number of completed task addresses" on Dune.
2. Templated cold start and iteration process
In recent years, YGG has turned the process of "cold start for games" into something more and more like an assembly line:
1. Preheating stage:
• AMA, Content-Based Education, Basic Tutorials
• Clearly explain the game's positioning, economic structure, and target audience.
2. Cold start phase:
• Design layered tasks using GAP/Quest
• From "easy to get started" to "advanced challenges", with tiered rewards
3. Deep phase:
• Internal tournaments for teams or guilds
• Content creators follow up, producing battle reports, strategies, and tutorial videos.
4. Data Feedback:
• Analyze player retention, mission completion depth, and paid/secondary market behavior.
• As input for subsequent version iterations of the game
Traditional "task platforms" only push traffic to you.
YGG is more like a "complete package of support and delivery" –
From teaching players to impression management, and then to data closed loop.
3. Reputation swap: Project teams are not only buying traffic, but also buying "endorsements".
When you see a game deeply integrated with YGG, especially as a key project in the GAP season or a co-host of a major tournament, you subconsciously have one thought:
This game has at least undergone a "hardcore player test" in terms of gameplay.
The YGG community is willing to stand by it.
In the context of Web3, an environment of extreme information overload and rampant fraud, this is a very direct form of "reputation endorsement trading":
• The project team gains players, content, and reputation extension.
YGG benefits from the project's growth, narrative synergy, and solidified ecosystem position.
This is especially true for blockchains and platforms.
If the strategy is "I want to do GameFi / Restaking for Game Assets / Asset-based blockchain games",
Bringing YGG into the project for infrastructure cooperation is itself a strong signal.
V. 2025: What exactly is YGG betting on in its so-called "year of rebirth"?
If you piece together the above fragments, you'll find that what YGG did in 2025 was a high-risk, high-reward structural restructuring:
1. Shed the baggage of the old P2E model.
• Instead of heavily promoting "gold farming profits," they now emphasize "education, reputation, and the accumulation of long-term players."
• Transform yourself from a "guild reliant on a single GameFi model" to an "infrastructure spanning multiple games and platforms".
2. Use GAP's final season to pave the way for the new Quest/reputation platform.
• GAP S10 is officially positioned as the "final season".
• All subsequent missions, seasons, and player progression systems will be consolidated into a more standardized platform.
This essentially encapsulates all the operational experience from the past few years into a single product form.
3. Make an all-in gamble with a 50 million YGG token pool.
This is a stake worth nearly ten million US dollars.
• If used properly, it can firmly integrate YGG into the critical stages of the "Web3 game launch process".
• If used improperly, it could turn into another round of inflationary history based on decentralized airdrops and liquidity mining.
4. Shift the token's value anchor from "NFT earning" to "Web3 player reputation & distribution rights".
• The long-term goal is to make YGG:
• The first stop for players entering the Web3 game world
• The top choice for project developers to attract high-quality users
• When deploying blockchain and platform infrastructure to build a GameFi ecosystem, the following infrastructure components must be considered.
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VI. From a more detached perspective: What is YGG worth paying attention to?
If you're not holding the stock out of sentimentality, but rather viewing YGG from the perspective of an "institutional trader," you can focus on a few key indicators:
1. Quest / Reputation Platform's Authentic Adoption
• How many new games/chains/platforms will actually be integrated in the next six months?
• Does YGG play a "substitutable" or "irreplaceable" role in this?
2. Efficiency of Ecological Pool Fund Utilization
• Should projects be mindlessly dumped on a bunch of short-cycle projects, or should the focus be placed on a few games/tools with long-term potential?
• Will there be a corresponding "revenue return/repurchase/authorization sharing" mechanism?
3. The quality of player activity
• Besides the number of participants, what about retention rate, activity level, and repeat participation rate?
• After the mission, have there been any structural improvements in the game's real-world data (on-chain interactions, secondary market, lifecycle)?
4. Emotional Rotation and Narrative Relay
• Each GameFi mini-cycle has the potential to become a "topic amplifier" for YGG.
• True alpha often doesn't come from the initial wave of enthusiasm, but from the second round of "selection"—
Let's see which games manage to weather the initial noise, and whether YGG is standing alongside them.
If YGG in 2021 was "the largest guild standing at the top of the P2E bubble";
YGG in 2025 is more like "an old player trying to rebuild infrastructure in the shattered bubble".
It no longer features the simple script of getting rich overnight.
Instead, a long-term gamble that needs time to prove itself is being wagered:
Will Web3 games need an infrastructure of "player reputation + mission distribution + education" in the next decade?
If the answer is yes,
YGG will at least be at the poker table.
As for whether it can get back to the center of the table...
Let's look at this "year of rebirth".
Can we tell this story in a way that players, project teams, investors, and even the next bull market can all understand? @Yield Guild Games #YGGPlay $YGG
