GameFi Weekly Data Report — October 5–11, 2026
Activity across the nine chains we track rose for a fourth straight week in the week of October 5–11, 2026 — 1,056,200 daily players, up 0.3%, and 3,833,100 daily game transactions, up 0.3%, on a weighted cost of $0.0987 per game transaction. The gain is again the smallest in the run and the gainer roster turned over for a second week running: Immutable left the growing list, Polygon took the seat. This is the October 12 edition of our weekly data report.
1. The week in one table
| Headline metric | This week | Last week | WoW | 4-week mean | vs mean |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GameFi daily active addresses | 1,056,200 | 1,053,000 | +0.3% | 1,050,425 | +0.6% |
| GameFi daily transactions | 3,833,100 | 3,822,600 | +0.3% | 3,814,775 | +0.5% |
| Transactions per player per day | 3.63 | 3.63 | flat | 3.63 | +0.0% |
| Chains growing (of 9) | 5 | 6 | — | 5.0 | — |
| Weighted cost per game tx | $0.0987 | $0.0992 | −0.5% | — | — |
The four-week climb is now visibly flattening: +2.2%, +0.8%, +0.3%, +0.3%. Five chains grew and four slipped, and the roster rotated again — last week Solana gave up a seat to Immutable, this week Immutable handed it to Polygon. Player-per-day intensity held at 3.63 for a third straight week, so the added players transacted at the network's existing rhythm rather than changing it.
2. The nine-chain scorecard
| Chain | GameFi DAU | Share of DAU | Daily tx | Avg gas/tx (USD) | Monthly cost at 50 tx/day* |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ronin | 307,000 | 29.1% | 1,232,100 | $0.0000 (gas-free) | $0.00 |
| Solana | 209,400 | 19.8% | 1,009,600 | $0.00023 | $0.35 |
| Immutable | 141,700 | 13.4% | 486,500 | $0.0000 (gas-free) | $0.00 |
| TRON | 118,000 | 11.2% | 233,100 | $0.7388 (rental median) | $1,108.14 |
| BNB Chain | 101,300 | 9.6% | 346,600 | $0.0936 | $140.40 |
| Polygon | 67,500 | 6.4% | 221,600 | $0.0204 | $30.60 |
| Arbitrum | 44,600 | 4.2% | 135,800 | $0.0792 | $118.80 |
| Base | 42,000 | 4.0% | 115,200 | $0.0406 | $60.90 |
| Ethereum | 24,700 | 2.3% | 52,600 | $2.9150 | $4,372.50 |
| TOTAL | 1,056,200 | 100% | 3,833,100 | weighted $0.0987 | — |
*Monthly cost = avg gas × 50 tx/day × 30 days.
The weighted average slipped from $0.0992 to $0.0987 with no chain changing its own fee — the fourth consecutive week in which every per-transaction price in the table is identical to the prior week's. The composite moved on mix again, and moved further than last week because Ethereum's transactions fell 2.4% while the two largest sub-dollar movers, TRON and Polygon, both added share.
3. What moved, chain by chain
| Chain | DAU WoW | Daily tx WoW | Reading |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ronin | +0.3% | +0.3% | Steady at the top of the table |
| Solana | +0.6% | +0.5% | Back up after one down week |
| Immutable | −0.4% | −0.4% | Gives back last week's single gain |
| TRON | +1.4% | +1.5% | Fifth straight weekly gain |
| BNB Chain | +0.4% | +0.4% | Modest drift up |
| Polygon | +0.4% | −0.9% | Players up, transactions down |
| Arbitrum | +0.7% | +0.7% | Extends September's gains |
| Base | +1.2% | +1.2% | Fastest grower this week |
| Ethereum | −2.0% | −2.4% | Slow bleed continues |
Base is the fastest grower for the second week running, this time at +1.2% on a $0.0406 fee. TRON's fifth straight gain is the number to sit with: +3.2%, +2.5%, +1.9%, +1.6%, +1.4% — a recovery that has now run five weeks while its weekly increment shrinks each time, leaving the level 7.5% above the September 6 low. Growth on this network still refuses to follow price: TRON charges 7.5× the network average per action and 18.2× the $0.0406 fee on Base, this week's fastest grower, and added players for a fifth straight week.
The one split worth flagging is Polygon, the only chain where players and transactions moved in opposite directions: DAU rose 0.4% while transactions fell 0.9%, the first time this week's seat-holder grew on players but shrank on activity. It is a one-week move on a small chain, but it is the kind of divergence intensity measurement exists to catch.
4. Where the cost sits
Three structural numbers, all essentially stable: 42.5% of players are on gas-free chains (last week 42.6%), 72.7% pay under five cents an action (last week 72.8%), and TRON costs 7.5× the network average per game transaction (last week 7.4×). The free-chain and sub-five-cent fractions each moved a tenth of a point on mix alone; the TRON premium ticked up a tenth because the composite average fell beneath a frozen TRON price.
The full nine-chain route comparison, including what each fee buys and the TRON rent-versus-burn split, is in the cost update.
5. TRON's weekly bill
At 233,100 daily game transactions, the network-wide TRON bill:
| Payment route | Per tx | Daily bill (233,100 tx) | Monthly per 1,000 tx/day |
|---|---|---|---|
| Energy rental (34 SUN median) | $0.7388 | ≈ $172,200 | $22,164 |
| Burn TRX fallback (100 sun/energy) | $2.1728 | ≈ $506,500 | $65,184 |
The spread between those two routes is the entire TRON cost story: $334,265.40 a day network-wide, purely from route choice. Nothing in the week's events — the Karst upgrade on Ronin, Abstract's shutdown notice, the Polygon payment stack, the Mezo and Onyx exploits — changed either number. Those items move adoption, uptime and chain risk, not the fee stack; the full route arithmetic is in the cost update.
6. Four weeks of network activity
| Week ending | Network DAU | DAU WoW | Network daily tx | TRON DAU | TRON WoW |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 20, 2026 | 1,042,300 | +2.2% | 3,787,400 | 112,500 | +2.5% |
| Sep 27, 2026 | 1,050,200 | +0.8% | 3,816,000 | 114,600 | +1.9% |
| Oct 4, 2026 | 1,053,000 | +0.3% | 3,822,600 | 116,400 | +1.6% |
| Oct 11, 2026 | 1,056,200 | +0.3% | 3,833,100 | 118,000 | +1.4% |
Four-week means: DAU 1,050,425; daily tx 3,814,775; transactions per player 3.63. This week sits 0.6% above the DAU mean and 0.5% above the transaction mean. TRON's four weeks read as a slowing but unbroken rebuild: four weekly gains before this one made five, totalling 7.5% from the September 6 low.
The intensity spread is unchanged: a Solana player initiates 4.82 transactions a day, a TRON player 1.98, network average 3.63. High-frequency play concentrates on the cheap chains; TRON's GameFi mix skews toward lower-frequency, higher-value loops — consistent with a chain where each action costs $0.7388.
7. Anomaly check
Trailing four weeks (Sep 20 – Oct 11), ±2σ thresholds:
- Network DAU WoW: σ = 0.78pp, this week +0.3% → z ≈ −0.6. Normal.
- Network tx WoW: σ = 0.92pp, this week +0.3% → z ≈ −0.7. Normal.
- TRON DAU WoW: σ = 0.42pp, this week +1.4% → z ≈ +0.6. Normal.
- Single-chain moves: largest this week was +1.2% (Base), far below the 30% single-day trigger.
No anomalies — with the same honest caveat as last week about the ruler. Both network σ figures are now below one percentage point (0.78pp and 0.92pp) because the two large weeks of early September have rolled out of the trailing window, leaving four tightly clustered ±0.3–2.2% changes. A narrower σ makes any given week look more unusual on a z-scale; that is a property of the window, not of the network. Read the levels, not just the z-scores.
8. What a player actually pays
Persona monthly costs at the median TRON rental route versus burning TRX, unchanged this week:
| Player type | Tx/day | Monthly rental cost | Monthly burn cost | Rental saving |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Casual | 3 | $66.49 | $195.55 | 66.0% |
| Regular | 15 | $332.44 | $977.77 | 66.0% |
| Grinder | 50 | $1,108.14 | $3,259.25 | 66.0% |
| Studio | 500 | $11,081.45 | $32,592.50 | 66.0% |
The 66.0% rental saving is a ratio of two frozen prices — $0.7388 against $2.1728 — so it cannot move until either the rental market's median or the energy price moves. On the free chains the same table reads $0.00 across, which is why the persona question only really exists on TRON, BNB Chain, Arbitrum, Base, Polygon and Ethereum. Polygon, this week's seat-holder, sits at $30.60 a month for a 50-transaction-a-day player — about 2.8% of TRON's $1,108.14 on the same profile.
9. Method and confidence
Chain-level activity comes from our own contract-label set across the nine chains — the same methodology as every week, so week-on-week comparisons are apples to apples. There is no comparable public dashboard for cross-chain GameFi activity specifically; totals will differ from general dApp counts by design. Per-transaction costs are measured from live network parameters: energy at 100 sun per unit, the rental market's 34 SUN median for a standard USDT-sized transfer, and each chain's native gas market. The 4-week statistics use population standard deviation over the trailing four WoW changes. Where this report cites market events, they are documented in the news review.
FAQ
Why did the weighted average fall if nothing got cheaper?
Because the weights moved. The composite is Σ(cost × tx) ÷ Σ(tx); Ethereum, the $2.9150 chain, lost 2.4% of its transactions while the sub-dollar chains added share, and with every per-transaction price frozen the mix alone moved the average from $0.0992 to $0.0987. This is the fourth straight week the composite has moved on mix alone.
Is +0.3% growth a stall?
It is a plateau inside normal variation. The trailing four-week standard deviation on weekly DAU changes is 0.78 percentage points, so +0.3% sits about 0.6σ below the recent mean — statistically indistinguishable from flat. Four straight weekly gains is still a recovery; the flattening magnitude (+2.2%, +0.8%, +0.3%, +0.3%) says it is converging, not accelerating.
Why did Polygon grow on players but shrink on transactions?
One week is not a trend, and the magnitudes are small — +0.4% DAU against −0.9% tx. What it means mechanically is that the average Polygon player transacted slightly less often: intensity fell as the player base grew. It is exactly the divergence the intensity column exists to surface, but on a 67,500-player chain a single week at these magnitudes is noise, not migration.
Did the Mezo or Onyx exploits move any numbers here?
Not in this table. Both were contract-level losses on funds held in DeFi positions, not changes to chain throughput or fees. Mezo's bridge was paused and its chain halted for part of October 6, but Mezo is not one of our nine tracked chains, and Onyx DAO is a governance treasury incident on existing infrastructure. Neither touches any DAU, transaction or fee figure above.
What would make the 66.0% rental saving change?
Only a move in one of its two inputs: the 34 SUN rental median or the 100 sun energy price that sets the $2.1728 burn fallback. Both were stable through the window; the last structural change to the energy price was the 2025 proposal that set 100 sun.
Where can I see each chain's full fee breakdown?
In the weekly cost update, which prices each chain's per-transaction cost, the TRON rent-versus-burn routes, and the monthly persona bills in full.
Sources
- Our own nine-chain contract-label set, week of October 5–11, 2026（GameFi DAU and daily transactions per chain, WoW changes, four-week series; modelled from contract interactions, see Method and confidence）.
- TRON chain parameters, read from network state and checked against TRONSCAN, October 2026（energy price 100 sun per unit since the 2025 proposal; standard transfer 64,285 energy; new-address transfer 130,285 energy）.
- TRON energy rental market listings, sampled across the week of October 5–11, 2026（market range 22–38 SUN listed, 26–74 SUN indicated; 34 SUN median used for the rental route; TRX reference $0.338）.
- Ronin blog, October 7, 2026（Karst upgrade live on mainnet at 16:00:01 UTC; execution-layer and contract-manager changes; no change to any fee, keeping Ronin's per-transaction cost at $0.0000）.
- BlockchainGamerBiz, October 6, 2026（Abstract wind-down announced, shutdown December 15, 2026, 144+ apps and 400,000+ users — context for a consumer L2 leaving the tracked set）.
Not financial advice. This report analyses on-chain activity and public network parameters for informational purposes; nothing here is a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any asset.