GLHF, a gaming studio founded by crypto native game developers, has raised $2.3 million in funding to make its Gigaverse role-playing crypto game.
The investment will go to making the RPG, adding new features and game modes, beginning with an expansive open world update.
1confirmation led the round, with participation from crypto leaders including Luca Netz (CEO of Pudgy Penguins), Jeff “Jihoz” Zirlin (cofounder of Sky Mavis), Bharat Krymo (general partner at 6529 Capital), Burtle (head of partnerships at Stripe), Rob Allam (the No. 1 Redditor), and many others.
Gigaverse features an ETH pay-to-join mechanic of approximately $20. In the first six months, the game has attracted over 75,000 paid accounts, generated $4.5 million in revenue, and seen more than $9 million in peer-to-peer trading across its ecosystem. There have been 450,000 transactions in the custom in-game marketplace with over six million items sold.
“We’ve spent years building and studying crypto games, and we know what’s broken. Gigaverse is a next generation of crypto game built for greater scale and sustainability,” said Dith, cofounder of Gigaverse and GLHF, in a statement. “Gigaverse implemented an install fee, similar to how games on platforms like Steam are purchased, which has proven effective at building a serious community of real, like-minded gamers that we can reach thanks to Abstract’s audience and expertise in consumer crypto.”
Dith added, “We’ve also future-proofed the game by building the most agentically compatible crypto game, opening up an entirely new design space and class of economic primitives centered around autonomous labor.”
Gigaverse is designed with AI at its core, featuring Gigus, a sentient AI antagonist powered by GLHF’s VILL[AI]N protocol, which forms, controls, and enriches core mechanics. Gigus will orchestrate a social layer and meta game, as well as unexpected surprises. Gigus is the first character-rich agentic villain, developed by GLHF and a decentralized group of AI researchers and technologists to usher in a new paradigm in crypto gaming.
“With over 75,000 paying players, millions in revenue and a strong organic community, Gigaverse’s momentum has shattered expectations, and we love what they’ve built. We’re excited for Gigaverse to continue growing with Abstract and lead the next generation of consumer crypto gaming experiences,” said Luca Netz, CEO of Pudgy Penguins, in a statement.
“We’re excited to back Gigaverse and its founders Dith and Garnish. They represent the kind of crypto-native builders we love to support—operating at the bleeding edge with a real understanding of the space and a clear vision for the future. Gigaverse is already showing strong traction, and we believe they’re well-positioned to build one of the most important crypto games of the next decade,” said Brett Shear, general partner at 1confirmation, in a statement.
To celebrate the announcement and welcome new players into Gigaverse, GLHF have partnered with OpenSea on the Open Sea Mint of Gigaverse Eggs. Available now, eggs are mintable for 0.0069E each, they’ll hatch into steeds to traverse the open world.
Separately, Gigaverse is launching an in-game character auction, where players can bid for a one-of-one special character, Jucius Maximus, featuring special abilities that will be revealed at the time of the auction September 4 and running for 24 hours.
GLHF is known for its deflationary genesis NFT collection, the GLHFers on Ethereum mainnet, and for its Gigaverse ROM collection on Abstract. Together these collections have achieved over $10 million in trading volume.