Gaming tokens hit in Trump tariffs fallout after Deadrop shutdown

Bitcoin and the rest of the crypto market took a turn for the worse over the weekend in price drops that have largely been blamed on Trump’s promised tariffs . I overheard a handful of X Spaces hosts sound the alarms about it on Monday, acting as though the bull market was over. But now that it’s Tuesday, things are already recovering. Tariffs on Mexico and Canada have been delayed, allowing bitcoin and some other cryptos to partially recover. As often happens, gaming tokens were harder hit. Immutable’s IMX token fell 14% from Sunday to Monday. Since then, it’s recouped a bit of that loss, but still remains down roughly 26% in the past week. Some other market notables: SAND, GALA, Ronin, AXS, MANA, BEAM, APE and PRIME all saw similar losses in the same period, with prices dropping anywhere from 21% to 30%. Notcoin, the Telegram tap-to-earn game’s token, is down about 35% in the past week. PIXEL fell roughly 32%. Still, it’s not all bad news across the gaming token sector. Sui is only down less than 2% in the past week. Sweat Economy continues to churn ahead, seeing its price rising about 8% in the past week. GoMining is also up modestly, as is Xterio and other smaller market-cap tokens. That’s just a handful of winners though — price data shows that most other gaming tokens have had a rough week. XP Alert Abstract , the blockchain from the Pudgy Penguins team, doesn’t have a native token (yet). But it is issuing XP — gamerspeak for experience points — and distributing it for the first time today . How did you do? Deadrop is dead — we all know why You’ve probably heard by now that Midnight Society, the studio behind the “vertical extraction shooter” Deadrop, has shut down. It had promise — think Call of Duty for crypto fans with a heavy Bladerunner vibe. And, I guess, cars you could drive into battle. Kind of cool? Deadrop’s premature death isn’t surprising, though. Last year, one of its other co-founders and primary marketer — Guy “Dr. Disrespect” Beahm — admitted in a (since-deleted) X post that he had inappropriate conversations with a minor. That incident was revealed as the reason for Beahm’s permanent ban from Twitch, which had previously been kept under wraps for years. Shortly after that news broke late last year, the studio laid off some staff in September. Then, last week, the studio posted a brief note announcing that it’s shutting down. The studio didn’t say exactly why, and instead asked the broader gaming community to help its 55+ developers find new gigs. One of its other co-founders, Robert Bowling, purged his social media accounts before the shutdown. One former Midnight Society employee told me: “It is what it is. We just couldn’t get the Dr. D stink off us.” Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. Subscribe to the Empire newsletter . Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. Subscribe to the Forward Guidance newsletter . Get alpha directly in your inbox with the 0xResearch newsletter — market highlights, charts, degen trade ideas, governance updates, and more. The Lightspeed newsletter is all things Solana, in your inbox, every day. Subscribe to daily Solana news from Jack Kubinec and Jeff Albus.