The Aavegotchi community voted to migrate its NFT gaming ecosystem from Polygon to Base, an Ethereum Layer 2 supported by Coinbase. Pixelcraft Studios will shut down its "Geist" Layer 3. The migration is expected to take four to six weeks, including an auditing period. Although Arbitrum and Ronin Network were also considered, the community chose Base due to its widespread use and support from Coinbase. After the migration, all Aavegotchi assets will be minted on Base at a 1:1 ratio.

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The community behind the Aavegotchi web3 ecosystem has voted to migrate from its existing deployment on Polygon to Base, the Etheruem Layer 2 supported by Coinbase. As part of the move, Pixelcraft Studios, the development firm behind the blockchain-based game and wearables ecosystem, will sunset its “Geist” Layer 3.The move comes amid a moment of reckoning for the NFT scene, which has largely been in a tailspin since the collapse of the pandemic-era bull market. It also represents a moment of consolidation among Ethereum rollups, which can split liquidity and attention among the web3 user base.“Given the broader market downturn on alts, especially in NFT and gaming, Pixelcraft Studios recently made significant team cuts to reduce our burn and extend runway,” Aavegotchi founder coderdan wrote in a proposal in February. “The L2 market is becoming increasingly competitive, and the L3 market is not gaining significant traction.”“Although in theory it should not be important where you deploy your game, in practice eyeballs go where liquidity flows, and TVL on Polygon PoS has been sideways or decreasing ever since 2022,” he added. “Thus, it is the right move for Aavegotchi to leave Polygon and either create our own chain, or join a growing chain with strong ecosystem support.”On Tuesday morning, the Aavegotchi DAO reached a quorum to move ahead with the redeployment. As part of the plan, Aavegotchi’s Polygon-based smart contracts will be upgraded to prevent transfers and state adjustments while all Aavegotchi assets — including Aavegotchis, wearables, badges, REALM Parcels, Forge assets and FAKE Gotchis — will be minted “1:1” on Base.The migration is expected to take four to six weeks, including an audit period. Regardless of the vote's outcome, coderdan noted Pixelcraft had decided “to sunset Geist, no matter the outcome of this proposal.” The vote passed with over 95% support, according to Snapshot.While Arbitrum and Ronin Network were also considered, the Aavegotchi community voted to support Base because it is “the most used EVM chain” (besides BNB and Tron) and the onboarding supported offered by Coinbase. They also cited integrations with Coinbase Wallet and social media platform Farcaster as well as the GHST token liquidity pools on Base-native versions of the Aerodrome and Uniswap decentralized exchanges.“It’s been a rough cycle for EVM projects, most crypto gaming projects, and Aavegotchi, but we are still bullish on gaming on EVM and believe it’s a ‘when, not if’ situation,” coderdan wrote. “We believe that Base is the EVM ecosystem best poised for long-term growth and would make a great long-term home for Aavegotchi.”Notably, the vote comes shortly after Aave DAO voted to pull its deployment on the Polygon PoS network after a debate over Polygon’s potential rehypothecation of bridged assets.Aavegotchi was created by Pixelcraft Studios in collaboration with leading decentralized lending protocol Aave and is overseen by an independent DAO. The name is a portmanteau of "Aave" (meaning "ghost" in Finnish) and "Gotchi" (as in Tamagotchi virtual pets). Aavegotchis are ERC-721 NFTs that can be staked with Aave’s interest-bearing "aTokens," which are minted when users deposit assets into Aave’s lending pools.Aavegotchi raised $30 million in a multi-year token sale that closed in 2023. It was said to be one of the largest funding rounds with no venture capital participation. Pixelcraft received about a quarter of the funding, leaving the remaining $22.5 million to fund the DAO's treasury.

The Aavegotchi community has decided to migrate to Base and shut down the Polygon deployment.