Helen is Marketing Team Lead at Motion Trade with 4+ years in Web3 and crypto marketing. Before joining Motion Trade, she built and led the marketing function at CLS Global and managed social media campaigns for a portfolio of crypto clients at Ninja Promo. She specializes in turning complex trading products into clear stories.
Market making for GameFi tokens is different because the game itself creates a steady flow of sellers. Players earn tokens as rewards and many convert them to cash, so a gaming token faces structural sell pressure every day, not only at unlocks. A liquidity plan for a GameFi token therefore has to be built around the reward emission schedule, the sinks that take tokens back out of circulation, and the calendar of seasons and updates that move player activity. The 2026 environment makes this harder: CryptoRank data shows new GameFi listings on major exchanges down 84 percent from their 2024 peak to 15 in the second quarter of 2026, while GameFi was the second most delisted category in the first half of the year, with 141 tokens removed. Exchanges are listing fewer gaming tokens and removing the ones whose markets thin out.
GameFi was one of the defining narratives of the last cycle and one of the hardest hit since. Some games have rebuilt around better design and real players, and the sector still produces sharp rallies when a title launches well. For the token behind a game, though, the liquidity problem is the same in good months and bad ones: the economy pays people to sell, and the order book has to absorb that selling without the price collapsing or the exchange losing interest. This article sets out the 2026 numbers, explains what makes gaming tokens distinctive from a liquidity point of view, and describes how a market making engagement should be structured for them.
GameFi on exchanges in 2026
CryptoRank's July 2026 study of more than ten thousand listings and four thousand delistings across ten major exchanges, published here, describes a sector losing ground on both sides. New GameFi listings fell to 15 in the second quarter of 2026, down 84 percent from the peak two years earlier and the lowest level since the third quarter of 2023. At the same time, GameFi was the second most delisted category in the first half of 2026 with 141 removals, behind only DeFi. Of the 190 GameFi tokens listed during 2025, 27 had already been delisted by mid-2026, a rate of 14 percent, the highest among the high-volume categories in the study.
The funding and usage picture is consistent with that. Analysts quoted by Decrypt in January 2026 described a sector that fell roughly 75 percent in 2025 with around 55 percent less funding, and cited Delphi research showing that only a small number of games consistently exceed one hundred thousand weekly active wallets. The wider market context is in the future of crypto gaming.
For a founder, the implication is that a gaming token has less room for error than most. Exchanges have seen a cycle of gaming tokens list, spike and fade, and they apply their monitoring with that history in mind. The published thresholds are collected in why tokens get delisted.
What makes GameFi liquidity different
Rewards are structural sell flow
In most sectors, selling comes in waves around unlocks, airdrops and news. In a game, selling is continuous. Players earn tokens for playing, and a large share of them, especially those who treat the game as income, convert those tokens to stablecoins or local currency regularly. The daily volume of rewards that reaches the market is therefore a predictable, recurring sell order, and it has to be absorbed every day by someone. If the order book cannot absorb it, the price drifts down, rewards become worth less, players leave, and the economy loses the activity that justified the token.
Sinks decide the balance
Token sinks, such as crafting costs, upgrade fees, entry fees, land maintenance or cosmetic purchases, take tokens back out of circulation and create genuine demand from players. The balance between emissions and sinks is a game design decision, but it is also a liquidity decision. A market maker cannot offset an economy that emits far more than it absorbs. The design principles are in tokenomics design in 2026.
Dual-token economies
Many games separate a governance or premium token from a soft in-game currency that is emitted heavily. The soft currency often carries most of the sell pressure, while the governance token carries the exchange listings and the market capitalisation. The two markets affect each other, and a liquidity plan has to decide which of them is quoted on centralised venues, which trades only in pools or in-game, and how the conversion between them behaves.
Activity follows the game calendar
Season launches, tournaments, major updates and new land or item sales produce bursts of buying and selling that are known weeks in advance. So do the end of a season, when accumulated rewards are claimed, and the departure of players after a content drought. These are the GameFi equivalent of unlocks, and the market maker should have the calendar.
Gaming chains and fragmented venues
Gaming tokens frequently live on gaming-focused chains or sidechains and trade in pools there before or alongside centralised listings. Bridging delays and thin pools on the home chain make price gaps between venues more common, and exchanges monitor those gaps. The chain decision is discussed in which chain to launch a token on in 2026.
| Feature of GameFi tokens | Liquidity consequence | What the engagement should include |
|---|---|---|
| Continuous reward emissions | A daily sell flow the book must absorb | Depth sized against the dollar value of rewards reaching the market each day |
| Emission and sink balance | Net selling no desk can offset if sinks are weak | Regular sharing of economy data between the game team and the desk |
| Dual-token economy | Two linked markets with different pressure | A decision on which token is quoted where, and how conversion flow is handled |
| Seasons, updates and tournaments | Predictable spikes in buying and claiming | A shared event calendar and pre-agreed depth for event windows |
| Gaming chains and pools | Price gaps between home-chain pools and CEX books | One party responsible for cross-venue alignment |
| High delisting rate in the sector | Less tolerance from exchanges for thin books | Spread, depth and uptime commitments that run well beyond launch |
How to structure market making for a GameFi token
Start from the economy, not the order book. Before agreeing depth targets, the project and the desk should estimate how many tokens reach the market each day from rewards, what share of them is typically sold, and how that changes during seasons. That figure, converted to dollars, is the baseline the book has to absorb on an ordinary day. The general sizing method is in how much liquidity a token needs at TGE, and the same logic applies to emissions after launch.
Then share data continuously. A desk that sees reward claims, sink activity and active player numbers can anticipate flow instead of reacting to it. A desk that only sees the order book will always be a step behind the economy. Agree in advance what data is shared, how often and under what confidentiality.
Write the event calendar into the engagement. Season starts and ends, tournaments and major patches should be known to the desk, with agreed depth for those windows. Treat a season end as you would a token unlock, because for the order book it behaves the same way.
Finally, keep the commitment running after launch. The sector's delisting record means a gaming token is judged on its sixth month as much as its first week. A liquidity budget that ends with the launch campaign is a common reason gaming tokens end up in the delisting data. The contract terms that make a long engagement enforceable are in what belongs in a market making agreement, and Motion Trade's approach for the sector is on our GameFi token page.
What a market maker cannot do for a game
A desk can absorb flow, keep spreads tight and keep venues aligned. It cannot make a game fun, fix an economy that emits far more than it absorbs, or hold a price that the economy is pushing down. When a gaming token falls steadily despite good liquidity, the problem is almost always in the emission and sink balance, and the solution belongs to the game designers. Honest desks say this early, and a desk that promises to support the price regardless of the economy is describing something it cannot deliver. The warning signs are in market maker red flags.
FAQ
How is market making for GameFi tokens different?
Gaming tokens face continuous selling from players converting rewards, not only periodic selling around unlocks. Market making has to be sized against the daily reward flow, coordinated with the game's event calendar, and supported by data on emissions and sinks from the game team.
How many GameFi tokens were delisted in 2026?
According to CryptoRank, GameFi was the second most delisted category on major exchanges in the first half of 2026, with 141 tokens removed. Of the 190 GameFi tokens listed in 2025, 27, or 14 percent, had been delisted by mid-2026.
Are exchanges still listing GameFi tokens?
Fewer than before. CryptoRank counted 15 new GameFi listings across ten major exchanges in the second quarter of 2026, down 84 percent from the peak in the second quarter of 2024 and the lowest level since 2023.
Why do GameFi token prices fall over time?
Usually because the economy emits more tokens as rewards than it takes back through sinks such as crafting, upgrades or fees, so net selling outweighs demand. Good liquidity makes the decline orderly but cannot reverse an imbalance in the game economy.
Should both tokens in a dual-token game be listed on centralised exchanges?
Not necessarily. Many games list the governance or premium token on centralised venues and keep the heavily emitted soft currency in pools or in-game markets. The choice should be made deliberately, with a plan for how conversion flow between the two affects each market.
What KPIs should a GameFi market making contract include?
A spread ceiling, depth at defined bands around the mid price sized against the daily reward flow, an uptime target, agreed depth for season and event windows, cross-venue alignment between home-chain pools and exchange books, data-sharing terms and clear exit conditions.
