Ethereum Game ‘Aavegotchi’ Will Dump Polygon for Base, Shutter Layer-3 Network

Crypto game Aavegotchi is set to migrate from one Ethereum scaling network to another following a successful community vote—and in the process, another gaming-centric network is set to bite the dust.

On Tuesday, a DAO vote for Aavegotchi to migrate from Ethereum sidechain network Polygon to Coinbase’s Base layer-2 network reached quorum. The proposal, written by Aavegotchi developer Pixelcraft Studios, suggested that the game “perform a full, ‘all-in, no-looking-back’ migration to Base.”

Aavegotchi is one of the longest-running projects in the crypto gaming space, with the play-to-earn virtual pet game first announced in 2020. The game’s GHST token launched later that year, and character NFTs dropped in early 2021.

But the crypto gaming space has changed dramatically in the five years since, with play-to-earn gaming experiencing a massive surge and crash in 2021 and 2022 centered around Axie Infinity, while a resurgence in crypto gaming sentiment last year has led to cratering token valuations in recent months amid market shifts.

Aavegotchi attempted to pivot last year with the launch of its own layer-3 gaming chain called Geist, which would be powered in part by technology from both Arbitrum and Base. The network launched with a “member’s only” model that would require fees, but would then reward players as a result.

But now Geist will be “sunsetted” as a result of the vote, and according to Aavegotchi founder CoderDan, the move was prompted in part by what he saw as a lack of gaming traction on Polygon, as well as stagnant or declining DeFi activity. He added that spinning up another layer-3 chain was unlikely to benefit Aavegotchi at this time.

“Although Geist is a good idea in theory for the Aavegotchi ecosystem,” he wrote, “the benefits of migrating to our own L3 in this current environment are outweighed by the downsides—namely isolation, onboarding friction, and costs of running our own chain, including developer tools, in addition to the rollup itself.”

According to the proposal, the migration is expected to take 4-6 weeks, due to preparation work that had already been done for the Geist launch. All existing NFT assets will be cloned and re-minted on Base, with the original Polygon assets “frozen and not usable” as the new versions take over.

Aavegotchi’s GHST token is down 4% on the day and 28% on the week, currently priced at $0.438 per data from CoinGecko. The downswing comes amid a highly volatile market of late—one that has not been kind to the vast majority of gaming tokens.

Numerous gaming chains launched in 2024, but already a few have folded. The makers of the Minecraft-like Hytopia revealed plans in February to shutter their Hychain network, while Treasure aims to “retire” its Treasure Chain following a recent team downsizing and budget crisis. Xterio Chain is also shutting down, with all assets being migrated to BNB Chain.

But the trend hasn’t completely subsided. Earlier Tuesday, iCandy Interactive and ZKsync builder Matter Labs debuted ZKcandy, their new Ethereum scaling network focused on mobile gaming.