Coinbase’s Jesse Pollak argued that Fortnite’s economy would be “10x better onchain”

Coinbase’s Jesse Pollak set off a debate on Crypto Twitter after suggesting that Fortnite’s in-game economy could be “10x better onchain.”

In a post on X, Pollak, who heads Base, Coinbase’s Ethereum layer-2 network, argued that moving a title like Fortnite on-chain would unlock new opportunities for both companies and players. “For the company: because then their entire economy is open for anyone else to build on,” he wrote.

“There’s billions of dollars of value here – opening that up as a platform will unlock creativity a single company can’t imagine. For the players: because then they actually own their assets, the free market prices them, and they can win in real life when they win in the game. For everyone: easier global access, lower platform fees.”

The optimism, however, was quickly challenged by skeptics who say the track record of GameFi speaks for itself.

Roblox, not Fortnite

John Wang, co-founder of Armor Labs and a former product manager at Immutable, a Web3 gaming platform, replied directly to Pollak’s post, asking, “Why would it be better for the game company for their game to be onchain?”

Wang argued that games like Roblox already provide a developer-first platform with APIs for nearly every financial interaction imaginable. “I think going onchain is strictly worse for them because lower fees + worse experience,” he said.

He pointed to Roblox’s deep analytics capabilities, including tagging every UI component for retention and clickthrough rates, logging every trade, and regional pricing.

Pollak pushed back, noting that Roblox is not Fortnite. He continued his argument by claiming that a decade of experience working in the field has convinced him that on-chain systems can support a “more expressive and powerful set of financial and other APIs than web2 servers.”

Still, Wang countered that permissioned restrictions in Web2 platforms can sometimes be better for developers and players, urging Pollak to look more closely at Roblox as a model for what sustainable gaming platforms with product–market fit actually look like.

The exchange quickly drew in other voices from Crypto Twitter, many of whom pointed to the repeated failures of GameFi projects to scale or retain users.

GameFi is a faltering sector

The back-and-forth brought out the current realities surrounding blockchain gaming, which peaked in 2022. Since then, it has largely failed to maintain momentum. Axie Infinity, once the poster child of play-to-earn, collapsed under the weight of an unsustainable token economy and security failures. Its Ponzi-like dynamics left many players in debt when new user growth slowed.

A recent analysis found that blockchain games suffer from high churn, with more than 60% of users reportedly leaving within 30 days. Other challenges plaguing blockchain gaming are the low adoption and high costs, with more gamers still hooked on gaming on Web2 platforms.

In the meantime, platforms like Immutable are working on bridging both Web2 and Web3 gaming platforms by leveraging partnerships with gaming heavyweights such as Ubisoft.

Critics also argue that most projects have prioritized speculative token models over the actual fun of playing games. The result has been short-lived hype cycles rather than sustainable communities.

However, while progress has been slow and challenging, the GameFi industry is still growing, with a market cap of $13.2 billion.

Can on-chain gaming still work?

For Pollak, the ability to build “more powerful APIs” and introduce transparent, composable economies outweighs the current challenges. He also stated that on-chain systems can still incorporate permissioned restrictions when needed, countering Wang’s point about the benefits of centralized controls.

Pollak’s posts may reignite new projects in the GamFi space, and maybe Pollak himself may commit resources to bring games on-chain, find solutions to their unique challenges, and scale. For now, the skeptics seem to have the stronger case as the failures of past GameFi projects loom large.

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