No.206
Yield Guild Games YGG
the guild that lends rookies their gear, then splits the loot
๐ญ a hooded pack leader who guards a war chest of game items and hands them out so newcomers can fight
๐ฌ โCan't afford the sword? Borrow mine. Go win, and we split what you bring back. That's how a guild grows, one rookie at a time.โ
- What it is: a gaming guild run as a DAO. It buys game NFTs and lends them to players.
- The deal: the guild owns the gear, a player ('scholar') borrows it, and the earnings get split.
- 2020: born in the Philippines when a co-founder lent out his own Axie Infinity NFTs.
- The token: YGG is an ERC-20 on Ethereum, capped at 1 billion, used for voting and a share of revenue.
๐ The Story
2020, the Philippines. The world was locked indoors, and a game called Axie Infinity was paying real money to people who played it. There was one catch: you had to buy three creatures first, and they were expensive. Plenty of people who needed the income most were locked out at the door.
So a man named Gabby Dizon started lending out his own Axie NFTs to neighbors who couldn't afford them. They played, they earned, and they kept a fair share. That small act of lending grew into a guild. Together with Beryl Li and a pseudonymous co-founder known only as 'Owl of Moistness', Gabby turned it into Yield Guild Games, a guild that buys game gear in bulk and hands it to whoever needs it.
2021. YGG sold its token to the public, and trading opened on July 27. The guild swelled into dozens of smaller branches, called SubDAOs, each one organized around a single game or a single region (there is a YGG Japan, for example). By 2025 there were 42 or more of these sub-guilds.
The early play-to-earn boom cooled off, and YGG had to grow up. It stopped being just a landlord for game items and started building tools: quests that train players, an onchain record of who has earned their stripes, and in 2024 a plan to become a 'guild of guilds', a place other guilds plug into. The Guildmaster is older now, and a little less about the quick payout.
๐ Stats
These bands are our editorial read of the coin's character, not market data or a score to trade on.
๐งฉ How it works
The heart of YGG is the scholarship model. The guild's treasury buys the expensive game NFTs once. A player who can't afford them, called a scholar, borrows the gear for free, plays, and earns. The earnings are then split three ways between the scholar, a manager who helps them, and the guild itself. The YGG token sits on top of all this: holders vote on guild decisions, can stake it in vaults, and share in the revenue.
๐ Light & Shadow
- It solves a real problem: it lets people who can't afford the NFTs still join a play-to-earn game and keep a share of what they earn
- Its supply is capped at 1 billion and not minted forever, with roughly 45% set aside for the community (more than founders and investors combined)
- The SubDAO design lets it spread by game and by region, so local guilds can run themselves instead of waiting on one head office
- It lives or dies with play-to-earn itself. When the Axie boom faded, the whole guild model came under serious doubt
- The scholarship model only works if the games stay fun and the rewards hold value (many P2E games lean on new players paying in, which can stall)
- A big chunk of tokens went to investors and founders and unlocks over time, so supply hitting the market can press on the price
๐งฌ Evolution lineage
YGG is not a fork or a sibling chain of any coin. It is an ERC-20 token plus an organization, born out of the Axie Infinity play-to-earn boom. Its only family is thematic: it stands beside other GameFi guild tokens like Merit Circle/Beam and GuildFi, not as a code relative but as a sibling in the same category.
๐งญ Meet other friends
โ FAQ
- What is Yield Guild Games?
- A Web3 gaming guild run as a DAO. It pools members' money to buy in-game NFTs, then lends them to players so they can join play-to-earn games without paying the high upfront cost, and the earnings are split.
- Does YGG have its own blockchain?
- No. YGG is an organization, not a chain. The YGG token is an ERC-20 token that lives on Ethereum, used for governance voting, staking in vaults, and sharing in the guild's revenue.
- What is the scholarship model?
- The guild's treasury owns the NFTs and lends them to players called 'scholars'. The scholar plays, the earnings are split between the player, a manager, and the guild. No one has to buy the gear to start.
- How many YGG tokens are there?
- Supply is capped at 1 billion YGG, and it is not inflationary. Roughly 45% is set aside for the community, with the rest split among investors, founders, the treasury, and advisors, released over time.
- Where can I buy YGG?
- YGG has traded publicly since July 2021 and is listed on many major crypto exchanges. It is a small, cyclical token tied to GameFi, so only try a small amount for fun. (Information only, not advice to use any particular exchange or to invest.)
โ ๏ธ Not investment advice. All figures are for information only