An Aussie-founded play-to-earn gaming platform says it is enjoying “explosive player growth” since its launch 12 weeks ago.

Crypto Gaming United says over 100,000 community members have signed up to its Discord channel, making it by one measure the most popular play-to-earn gaming guild.

Yield Guild Games is the most well-known, and its YGG token is the No. 247 crypto with a market cap of US$453 million.

Both guilds offer “scholarships” so residents of developing countries can take part in blockchain games such as Axie Infinity, which rewards players so well that a number of people in the Philippines have actually quit their jobs to play the game full-time.

CGU says it has 5,400 active scholars from 30 mostly developing countries in its community, with that number growing daily.

Players can earn from US$150 to US$750 a month playing the game, CGG says. Axie is already a “cultural phenomenon” in the Philippines and Russia, while other players hail from Cuba, Venezuela, Turkmenistan and African nations.

“CGU offers a living wage to people who need it the most in the countries where jobs are scarce, access to loans is difficult, and opportunities to learn new skills are lacking,” said CGU co-founder Sergei Sergienko.

“By playing-to-earn and learn, our scholars are gaining critical new skills that will shortly be in huge demand by employers setting up shop in the metaverse.”

While there’s no requirement to join a gaming league to play Axie Infinity and other play-to-earn games, the NFTs required to play have become prohibitively expensive for many players.

CGU provides about US$1,000 worth of NFTs for each player and in return takes a split of their earnings.

CGU says its platform is different from YGG’s and others in that it includes a crypto exchange (TimeX) and a crypto labor portal (LaborX) that that enable custom player financing capabilities and player monitoring systems.

The Singapore and Dubai-based company has recently raised a total of US$17.5 million in three investment rounds, including a sale of its CGU token on the TimeX exchange last month for US25c apiece that sold out in just six seconds.

Recently the Binance Smart Chain tokens have been trading about US$2.

Coinmarketcap lists it as the No. 4737 crypto, but CGG says its token has a fully diluted market cap of US$2 billion, which would put it in the top 100.

“We believe that CGU is the lifeline for soon-to-be hundreds of thousands, and ultimately millions, of play-to-earn professionals, who will use these initial jobs to launch their careers in the metaverse,” said Australian venture capitalist Mark Carnegie, CGU’s largest supporter.

Carnegie recently discussed the CGU on Stockhead’s Crypto Frontier podcast, hosted by Kraken’s Jonathon Miller.