Pixels has announced the launch of $PIXEL Staking, a new feature designed to give players a greater role in shaping the success of games within its ecosystem. This system allows users to stake their $PIXEL tokens directly into individual games such as Core Pixels, Forgotten Runiverse, and Pixel Dungeons. Through this mechanism, players can support titles they believe in, while earning staking rewards tied to the in-game economic activity of those games.

How to Stake $PIXEL

Unlike conventional staking models, $PIXEL Staking operates on a stake-to-vote principle. This approach allows players not only to earn rewards based on a game’s performance but also to contribute to the visibility and viability of the games they support. Games that attract more staking activity and user engagement achieve higher rankings within the $PIXEL PopRank system, which increases their share of ecosystem rewards and platform exposure. In return, developers are incentivized to build experiences that retain and engage players over time.

A percentage of every $PIXEL spent in-game is returned to the ecosystem and redistributed to players who supported that game through staking. This model ties rewards directly to player activity and game quality, creating a more transparent and community-driven feedback loop. The data collected through this process will also inform Pixels’ proprietary play-to-earn infrastructure, supporting the development of improved prediction tools and performance analytics to guide future growth.

How to Stake $PIXEL in Pixels

Staking Phases Designed for Decentralization

The rollout of $PIXEL Staking will occur in several phases, each contributing to the gradual shift toward a decentralized, data-informed publishing system. In the initial phase, staking will be limited to a select group of games that have been hand-picked by the Pixels team. These games will receive fixed monthly reward allocations, with the majority designated for Core Pixels. Each participating game will determine how its rewards are distributed among stakers.

In the next phase, rewards will no longer be fixed per game. Instead, the size of a game’s reward pool will depend on the amount of $PIXEL staked by players. This change is designed to reward games based on community interest and support. The third phase will remove the curation model entirely, allowing any game that meets a minimum threshold of user activity to become part of the ecosystem. In the final phase, once the system demonstrates a sustainable return on reward spend (RORS), Pixels will introduce support for other tokens, such as USDC, to enhance user acquisition services. However, $PIXEL will remain the core currency required for staking rewards.

How to Stake $PIXEL in Pixels

$vPIXEL and Shifting Metrics

As part of its broader strategy, Pixels also announced the upcoming release of $vPIXEL, a utility token backed 1:1 by $PIXEL. The token will be usable across partner games without incurring transaction fees, enabled through Limit Break’s ERC20c technology. This addition is intended to streamline user experiences across the ecosystem while maintaining value alignment with the core $PIXEL token.

Following a year marked by strong performance, including $20 million in revenue in 2024 and active community participation on the Ronin blockchain, Pixels is now focused on building a more sustainable and scalable ecosystem. The emphasis is shifting from measuring success by daily active accounts to evaluating daily active users who actively stake, spend, or hold $PIXEL. This move is intended to prioritize meaningful engagement and long-term player retention over short-term activity spikes.

How to Stake $PIXEL in Pixels

Ecosystem Expansion and Future Outlook

The Pixels ecosystem continues to grow, with ongoing updates to core gameplay and increased focus on casual, social mechanics. The upcoming Chapter 3 content release is designed to enhance user retention through improved game design and infrastructure. Alongside these developments, Pixels is implementing more advanced systems for user segmentation, reward distribution, and predictive analytics to support both players and developers.

The broader vision includes expanding publishing opportunities and introducing new utility for $PIXEL, as seen in its recent integration with Forgotten Runiverse. As the staking system matures and additional use cases for $PIXEL and $vPIXEL are introduced, Pixels aims to establish a scalable, decentralized ecosystem where value is distributed transparently and performance is driven by active community participation.