Splinterlands — a trading menu game built on the blockchain — has ended a private token sale that netted the company $3.6 million in proceeds, offering further prove that investors are keen to back promising crypto plays.

The auction centered around the SPS token, which was built for the Splintershards Decentralized Autonomous Organisation and will form the footing of game-related governance proposals. Through the SPS token, users volition have the ability to influence a range of governance-related decisions, including sponsored tournaments, rewards and card balance updates, amongst other things.

Related: NFTs brand it possible for gamers to accept digital property rights

Several crypto-native funds and ecosystem players contributed to the token raise, including Animoca Brands, Blockchain Founders Fund, Enjin, Polygon, Yield Guild Games, Gate.io, 3Commas Capital, Alpha Sigma Capital, AGE Crypto Nugget Investment Fund, TechmeetsTrader and many others. Individual investors included Ran Neuner as well equally the founders of Simplex and Sandbox.

The token auction ended around the same time that Splinterlands marked some other of import milestone: reaching 150,000 players.

Jesse Reich, Splinterlands' co-founder and CEO, told Cointelegraph that the game surpassed 100,000 users on June 18, three years and one month since launching. Withal, the game would then add another 50,000 users over the side by side six weeks.

"Splinterlands has been pushing limits in crypto gaming for iii years. We've played threescore 1000000 games and sold out of four editions of cards," Reich said. "2021 is the best yr in company history and concern is booming."

The Splinterlands CEO also told Cointelegraph that games similar Axie Infinity testify how "NFT gaming can be one of the near powerful economic tools on the planet."

Related: Nonfungible tokens from a legal perspective

When players join Splinterlands, they essentially compete for a limited reward pool of Night Energy Crystals (December) — the in-game cryptocurrency — as well as deficient NFTs. Splinterlands has built a strong following since early on 2022, around the time Cointelegraph first analyzed the title as office of its crypto games review. Splinterlands' use of NFTs was considered fairly unique at the fourth dimension. In the yr-and-a-half since, nonfungible tokens have reached mainstream status, with sales topping $2.5 billion between January and June of this twelvemonth.