Aqua Shuts Down Amidst Funding Challenges

Aqua, a gaming NFT marketplace, has ceased operations, according to a Friday LinkedIn post by CEO Sean Ryan. Although it was first disclosed a month ago, the plan is official today.

Ryan wrote, “At Aqua, we did some things well and others poorly, but the Web3 gaming market is not scaling to mass market scale in a logical time frame.”

“Therefore, it was ideal to conclude the matter and progress to alternative prospects, particularly about our exceptional staff.”

The CEO continued, “I remain a staunch believer that gamers will eventually own their gaming assets; however, that day will pass more slowly than we had all anticipated.”

Ryan, a former vice president at Facebook, established Aqua in 2022 in collaboration with blockchain companies, including Immutable and Polygon Labs.

Having been in operation for less than two years, the “player-centric” NFT gaming venture has ceased operations.

Ryan added, in a graphic that was appended to the post, that the startup encountered difficulties in securing funding within the crypto gaming industry as a whole, which was experiencing “growth that lagged behind expectations.”

Ryan stated on Friday, “I am a firm believer in the category, but there are instances when it is simply too early.”

Aqua intended to provide game developers with a gaming NFT marketplace and more white-glove, embedded marketplace solutions.

The marketplace also supported scaling networks Polygon and Immutable X, in addition to NFTs on Ethereum.

Ryan stated in an interview earlier this year that Aqua was intended for genuine gamers and not “degen” crypto traders seeking to profit from the sale of gaming NFTs.

Furthermore, Ryan discovered through interviews with more than fifty distinct blockchain game developers that most developers desired a unified game marketplace that did not require them to redirect players to a third-party website.

Aqua’s competitors at Sequence, which has just released its utility for developers to create their own in-game marketplaces, have recently reiterated this sentiment.

It has become highly competitive, for better or worse, in the gaming NFT marketplace.

G2A, a major retailer in the gaming industry, has recently begun selling NFTs; OpenSea has redesigned its gaming content and offerings (but has cast off personnel); and Magic Eden has also made gaming its future primary focus.

However, Aqua is not the only NFT gaming platform that has experienced a setback this year. GameStop declared the discontinuation of its NFT wallet in August, citing “uncertainty regarding regulations.”