Axie Infinity, inspired by Pokemon and Tamagotchi, is one of the largest decentralized play-to-earn (P2E) games on the Ethereum blockchain. It was developed by the Vietnamese game studio Sky Mavis and released in March 2018. The game features virtual pets called Axies that can be collected, bred, and used for battles against each other.
Axies, like several other in-game assets such as land plots and abilities, exist as non-fungible tokens (NFTs). As a result, they can be freely traded between players in the market. Players also participate in real-time Axie battles, with each unique Axie based on Ethereum's ERC-721 non-fungible token standard.
Axies also have unique "ability cards" that determine their offensive moves. Players can battle against non-player characters called Chimeras to earn additional tokens and rewards, which can be used to upgrade their Axies.
In Axie Infinity, players can earn two tokens: Axie Infinity Shards (AXS) and Smooth Love Potion (SLP). AXS is used to purchase in-game assets like Axies and land plots, and can be staked for rewards. Staking AXS rewards users through freshly issued additional AXS tokens and the right to vote on the game's governance proposals through a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) called Axie DAO. Meanwhile, SLP is used in-game for breeding Axies and can be traded on cryptocurrency exchanges.
The Axie Infinity Marketplace is a digital marketplace within the Axie Infinity platform where users can buy and sell Axies using AXS or Ether (ETH) tokens. In 2020, Axie Infinity announced they were developing an Ethereum sidechain called Ronin, specifically for the game.
AXS developments
The blockchain game originally ran on the Ethereum network. However, due to scalability issues on the Ethereum blockchain, Axie Infinity created its own side chain named Ronin Network. Ronin remains fully compatible with the Ethereum network so that gamers can seamlessly transfer assets from one blockchain to the other, and vice versa.
On March 29, 2022, the team behind the Ronin Network, a gaming-focused Ethereum sidechain owned by Sky Mavis, announced that it had suffered an exploit. It lost about $625 million worth of cryptocurrency assets in this hack.
The attacker exploited a flaw in the bridge between the Ronin Network and the Ethereum blockchain to loot 173,600 ETH and 25.5 million USDC. These were worth over $625 million at the time. The attacker was later found to be the infamous Lazarus Group.
Three months after the Ronin hack, the network was restarted, with all user funds lost during the hack restored to them. The Ronin Network underwent one internal and two external audits by blockchain security firms Verichains and Certik. New measures were put in place to prevent similar occurrences in the future.
In June 2022, Axie Infinity announced that it would spend $216.5 million on reimbursing the Ronin bridge hack victims. In addition, the company raised $150 million from the crypto exchange Binance to fund this reimbursement.
Owing to its vast popularity, Axie Infinity has a substantial buzzing community on all popular social media networks. The game has over 400,000 followers on Facebook, close to a million followers on Twitter, and more than a million members on its multiple geo-specific Discord servers.
AXS price and tokenomics
AXS is primarily used for the governance of the Axie Infinity ecosystem. It has a limited supply of 270 million, which were all minted at the time of the token launch. The total AXS token supply was allocated in the following manner:
20 percent: Reward Axie Infinity players
29 percent: Staking rewards for holders who stake their tokens
8 percent: Axie Infinity Ecosystem fund
21 percent: Sky Mavis, the developer of Axie Infinity
7 percent: Advisors
11 percent: AXS public sale
4 percent: Private sales
AXS tokens follow a 65-month release schedule from the public sale date, which ended on November 4, 2020. More information on the release and unlock schedules of AXS tokens can be found in their whitepaper.
About the founders
AXS was developed by Sky Mavis, a Vietnamese game development company founded by its CEO, Trung Nguyen, alongside Tu Doan, Aleksander Larsen, Jeffrey Zarlin, and Andy Ho.
Axie Infinity was created to introduce people to blockchain tech in a fun and educational manner. Nguyen began developing the game in 2017 after playing and being inspired by Cryptokitties success. The game's beta version was released in 2018.
In October 2021, Axie Infinity announced that it had raised $152 million in a series B round led by venture capital firm Andreesen Horowitz. The funding round saw its valuation rise to $3 billion. It came after the game had hit the 2 million daily active users (DAUs) milestone and reportedly generated almost $2.3 billion in total sales volume.
Axie Infinity: The go-to P2E game
Although there are several NFT-based P2E games in the market, only a few have accomplished the kind of success and popularity that Axie Infinity has. As per the game's official website, the game has recorded 2.8 million daily active players. In addition, over $3.5 billion worth of assets are already traded in its in-house marketplace. With nearly $800 million worth of assets in its smart contracts, Axie Infinity has become the go-to game for many players to earn a regular passive income.