What is Axie Infinity
Many of us have already heard about the NFT boom in the past year, especially in the sphere of art. But the gaming industry did not stay behind in this race. Axie Infinity is a Pokémon inspired turn-based strategy game that incorporates both single and multiplayer gaming and is based on the Ethereum blockchain technology. Axies, the monster like creatures are the main premise of the game. A team of 3 Axies is used to battle and win the in-game currency called Smooth Love Potion (SLP). Axie Infinity incorporates the NFT into its formula. Those monsters in the game are the NFTs. They can be bred through the games breeding mechanics and minted as an NFT.
My in-game monster is an NFT – so what?
In August 2021, Axie Infinity became the world’s largest NFT collection on the planet. The immense success was driven by one simple factor: players can earn money while playing the game, although it does get quite complicated. The game accommodates a pay-to-earn economy where you must first buy your Axies on the marketplace to be able to play them. At this point in time, the cheapest Axies go for around 120-130$. A total of 3 Axies are required to start playing which puts the entry barrier at around 360-390$.
Yesterday – unemployed, today a manager!
Not much of a gamer? No worries. The game was designed for non-gamers to also be able to play the game. Well, sort of. You can become a manager that would provide the so-called scholarships. You buy these Axies, find yourself somebody who is willing to play the game for you, agree on the quota they need to reach per day and the division of profits made. You then provide them with the account information and voila, they do all the gaming. What about frauds you might think? Well, the scholar does not have access to the Axies themselves, because they are tied to an E-Wallet that only the manager has access to. This leaves them with no options of taking over your beloved little plushy beasts so all they can do is just play and expect their part of the share.
Let’s talk money!
Players can regularly cash out the tokens they earn. There are 2 types of tokens in the: SLP that i have mentioned earlier and AXS (Axie Infinity Shard). The SLP is the token that is often earned and cashed out. AXS is primarily used as a governance token, which allows players to perform certain in-game mechanics like breeding. Players are also able to trade these tokens on a cryptocurrency exchange platform like Binance. At the moment, the price of 1 SLP token is around 6 cents while an AXS token costs around 55$.
Final notes
There has been a lot of scepticism revolving around the game mechanics. The main issue revolves around whether the game is a ponzi scheme. The BloomX founder and crypto expert Luis Buenaventura has mentioned Axie Infinity is his newsletter and discusses whether the game is a ponzi-scheme or not. According to Buenaventura, in worst-case scenario, the value of the tokens will drop due to the demand being fulfilled (total supply of AXS is 270 million).
References
https://omr.com/en/axie-infinity-nfts/
