Key Takeaways:
- IMX price and market cap declined sharply in Q1 2025 amid a broader Web3 gaming downturn.
- Immutable zkEVM saw a rise in transactions but a decline in user growth and address activity.
- Immutable plans to unify its networks under a single blockchain in late 2025.
The first quarter of 2025 witnessed Immutable’s native token, IMX, experience a precipitous decline in price and market cap, showing the strain in the whole Web3 gaming space.
IMX dropped by 60.1%, from $1.32 to $0.53, and its circulating market capitalization dropped by 58.4% to $946.4 million. Overall ranking dropped from 53rd to 64th.
This performance followed a general decline in the Web3 gaming industry with diminishing investor appetite and decreasing valuations of the tokens, as described in Messari’s report.
Immutable’s NFT business demonstrated mixed performance. Immutable X and zkEVM sales volume fell slightly by $78.3 million. But on closer inspection, there are diverging collection patterns shown in the data.
While Guild of Guardians Heroes NFTs decreased by 8.5%, the Avatars collection jumped more than 40%. Nevertheless, average buyers and sellers fell sharply, indicating user engagement decreased amid rising transaction values.
Immutable zkEVM, now in command of over 99.9% of NFT trading volume on the platform, was also subject to divergent usage patterns, with average daily transactions increasing to 498,000 while active addresses and new address creations decreased dramatically.
Developer Activity Surges Post-Allowlist Removal
Immutable zkEVM’s permissionless environment fueled significant increases in development. Contract deployment accelerated after its deployer allowlist was removed. There were 87,000 new contracts that were released in Q1, adding to the cumulative total by more than 83%.
While this figure points to heightened developer engagement, it was largely attributed to existing developers scaling activity through automation or bulk deployments. This was evidenced by a 57.4% drop in daily verified contracts, suggesting fewer unique and peer-reviewed creations.
Transaction fees paid in IMX increased almost 29%, while the frequency and complexity of transactions increased even as user counts dropped, perhaps attributable to extensive contract interactions and in-game mechanisms built into NFTs.
Immutable Prepares for Network Consolidation
For the foreseeable future, the network has announced that it will consolidate its two flagship blockchain infrastructures, Immutable X and zkEVM, into one integrated system by the end of the year 2025.
The new “Immutable” chain will simplify user and developer experiences across its gaming platforms. Immutable X assets will be migrated seamlessly to zkEVM wallets, and developers will need to rewrite their apps to meet the new zkEVM infrastructure.
This move is indicative that Immutable is looking to build a unified foundation for Web3 gaming, minimizing the fragmentation and providing scalability along with onboarding through initiatives like Immutable Passport.
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