Axie Infinity launches new program to crank up tokenomics

Highlights

• Axie Infinity is an online game where players collect, breed and battle little digital creatures known as Axies.
• Axie Infinity has so far generated US$4.17 billion in all-time NFT sales – third highest after Opensea’s US$23.21 billion and LooksRare’s reported US$18 billion.
• The game’s surging popularity has meant the costs of competing have rapidly increased – requiring players to get financially backed with scholarships.

One of the biggest success stories to come out of last year’s crypto boom was the rise of crypto play-to-earn gaming. Play-to-earn gaming is where players are able to earn crypto tokens by obtaining non fungible tokens (NFTs) within the game.

One of the most popular of these is Axie Infinity (AXS), in which players are required to collect little Pokémon-like creatures called Axies.

However, with the wider market downturn, Axie Infinity’s price has also struggled to reach the dizzying heights of last year.

Throughout this downturn though, Axie Infinity’s development team has been coming up with new ways to boost its tokenomics. Tokenomics refers to a crypto asset's qualities that make it attractive for both users and investors, including the supply and demand characteristics of the token..

Image Source: © Jarretera | Megapixl.com

What is Axie Infinity?

Firstly, let’s look at what Axie Infinity is and how it became last year’s unlikely blockbuster. Axie Infinity is an online game where players collect, breed and battle little digital creatures known as Axies. Players can also purchase land to build kingdoms for their Axies.

The game is built on the Ethereum blockchain, where players can own the assets collected within the game. Each Axie is an NFT and can be sold or traded both inside and outside the game. In fact, the sales that have been made within the game equal the third-highest sales for NFT projects.

Axie Infinity has so far generated US$4.17 billion in all-time NFT sales – third to Opensea’s US$23.21 billion and LooksRare’s reported US$18 billion.

In the past year, Axie Infinity’s price has grown from just under US$5 to US$46.58 – a more than 800 percent increase.  

Axie’s booming ecosystem

Axie Infinity’s popularity has been particularly strong in certain developing countries, such as the Philippines, where young people earn thousands of dollars a month. In fact, of the estimated 2.5 million daily active users, around 40-50 percent of those are in the Philippines.

The booming ecosystem surrounding Axie Infinity includes players as well as the bankers who finance them. Then there are community managers whose job is to recruit players, coaches that teach new players and landlords that own the virtual property within the game.

The game’s surging popularity has meant the costs of competing have rapidly increased – requiring players to get financially backed with scholarships, which are provided by heavily cashed up managers, who, in exchange, receive a cut of the player’s earnings.

As you can see, this ain’t Donkey Kong.

Axie Hikes Fees

In a move to increase its tokenomics, Axie Infinity launched a new program this week, which will hopefully share the wealth with game players.

Axie’s marketplace fees moved up to 5.25 percent on Monday, with the extra revenue going to Axie’s content creators.

A crypto game that can net you cash? This is How You Play Axie Infinity

The fee hike coincided with the launch of “creator codes” which players get when they make a transaction on the Axie marketplace. When they do that, they collect 1 percent of the transaction’s value. In case the creator code is not supplied, the Axie Community Treasury claims the fee.

While the creator codes aim to provide a greater level of sustainability to the Axie marketplace, concerns have been raised about players abusing the system by “farming” likes or followers. While this problem is yet to be solved, there are developers currently working on the problem.

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