Should You (or Anyone) Buy GALA?

There's reason to be optimistic about play-to-earn, NFTs, and the metaverse trends -- and even more so for crypto projects that support all three.

It's widely believed that the metaverse will be a large part of the internet experience in the near future, especially when you consider that technology-tracking firm Gartner recently issued a report that projects that by 2026, 25% of people will spend at least one hour a day in the metaverse playing, learning, shopping, or working.

While there are many crypto projects that offer ways to participate in the metaverse, Gala Games (GALA) is worth a closer look, because it also offers users entry into NFTs and play-to-earn gaming.

Last year, its price flared up more than 10,000%, and as of this writing, GALA is at a steep 70% drop from its peak, providing an interesting potential entry point for a proven multi-purpose project.

Why 2022 could be a breakout year for Gala Games

Gala Games (GALA) is an online, blockchain-based, play-to-earn gaming ecosystem where players are paid GALA tokens for in-game accomplishments. Users can also trade non-fungible tokens (NFTs) -- or the GALA tokens they've earned -- through the game or at off-game exchanges.

Not only can gamers own valuable tokens and NFTs, the player community has a voice in the kinds of games they would like to see created on the network by Gala Games developers. Gala coders are heeding the call of their community with planned launches this year of a role-playing fantasy experience called Mirandus, a Minecraft-type game called SpiderTanks, and another 12-15 games in development.

That type of crowd-focused game construction, combined with various ways for users to earn digital assets, gives the Gala Games' playing environment high user retention. Gala Games has more than 1.3 million monthly active users, with more than 26,000 NFTs sold since its inception in 2019, with the most expensive NFT valued at $3 million, according to CoinMarketCap.

Additionally, Gala Games announced in January on its blog site that it's in the process of deploying its own blockchain, since its gaming ecosystem currently runs via the congested Ethereum network. The GALA post states that migrating to its proprietary network -- GalaChain -- will ease game lags, screen freeze, and other problems related to bandwidth.

Is Gala Games a good buy now?

At the time of writing, GALA is trading at about $0.21 per token, a 70% decline from its top of $0.71 on Nov. 27 of last year, while GALA's market cap is at a stunningly low $1.5 billion, placing it at the No. 59 spot on the CoinMarketCap listing. With such a low valuation, increasing popularity of NFTs, the metaverse, and gaming protocols that pay players, GALA could pump up well past its current price, aided by its new games and blockchain scheduled to debut this year.

None of this discussion is financial advice, and investors should always do their own research, while investing only funds they can afford to lose.