Axie Infinity has made multiple reports over the past week regarding its hype, particularly demonstrated by the price of its governance and one of its native tokens Axie Infinity (AXS). Making such reports has made me curious about what Axie Infinity is, and doing some research, appears as a great NFT game with great potential. In this post I will be going over some of the basics of Axie Infinity, particularly looking at the business side of things. If you wish for posts regarding starting the game and strategy, please comment below to let me know and I will happily do so.
Axies
Axie Infinity in simple words is a rework of the popular game series of Pokémon into an NFT ecosystem, coming through the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain, but at a more unique and complex level. Rather than having Pokémons battle each other out, Axie Infinity has cute little creatures called Axies, looking like a slime ball stretched with a face, horns, wings and other bodily features. These are essential to start playing the game of Axie Infinity, though are excruciating expensive, especially with the onslaught of hype from the recent bullish trend of Axie Infinity. For example, the cheapest adult Axie at the time of writing is 0.24 ETH (~$450) and is ignoring the fact of whether or not the Axie is suitable for gameplay (if want a post on finding the right Axies, comment below!).
Assuming each Axie to be the same price, that means that $1350 would be needed to start playing Axie Infinity in the current investment. This is a huge investment for many, especially for a game that is generally purposed for entertainment. When having Axies and playing through battle or adventure mode, income would come in the form of Smooth Love Potion (SLP) that can be used to breed new Axies. According to CoinGecko, a good player can earn on average 200 SLP a day, which with SLP around $0.35, equates to $70 a day. This is a good amount for just playing a game, and after the initial investment is passed, then income would be earned thereon. For $1350, it would take 20 days to re-earn the initial investment, which is a relatively good amount of time. However, note that this would be for a 'good player' and 'on average,' and for those starting Axie Infinity it is likely to be much lower.
Ecosystem
The ecosystem of Axie Infinity is quickly developing with added momentum over the past week as new hype is spawned. Over the past 7 days, Axie Infinity has almost doubled its volume, currently standing at $185.14 million, with about a 50% increase in traders and sales. That is incredible. In just 7 days half of the ecosystem of Axie Infinity has been created, and it would be interesting to see how the future flows through with it. Whether it would slow down as hype fades away or continue its bullish volume is a considerable question, likely to come out with the former. The community that has been worked for about a year has had half of it created in 7 days. Below are the 7 days statistics of Axie Infinity NFTs from DappRadar with more here: https://dappradar.com/ethereum/games/axie-infinity.
With Axie Infinity being based on the ETH blockchain, it would be expected that the fees to process transactions would be huge, and that was the case before in Axie Infinity. Perhaps the fees are what kept users back, profit had to make over the fees associated with every transaction they took. However, on the 1st of February 2021, Axie Infinity made a sidechain to its ecosystem drastically reducing fees where they can become free: Ronin. The adoption of Ronin had some bullish trend for AXS, pushing it up from around $1 to above $2, though lost some of the prices over by the start of March. It also opened up a new rework of the blockchain system for Axie Infinity, as shown below in 'FUTURE BLOCKCHAIN STACK.' Here Axie Infinity assets out from the ETH and Loom blockchain into the Ronin sidechain, thus setting itself as a unique ecosystem within the crypto world. Using Ronin with Axie Infinity is a great option in reducing fees and increasing convenience in interacting with the ecosystem that makes an investment more feasible.
Final Words
There is still so much to talk about Axie Infinity and its investment potential. Personally, Axie Infinity is a great investment, but note that time would also be needed to put in with money. The hype has made it a very popular ecosystem, pushing its Axie prices up to make it an excruciating expensive investment to begin playing, but can eventually be paid off as time goes. I am expecting to write more articles on Axie Infinity, finding it a great ecosystem with a promising future, going into its ecosystem. Comment below if you would like to see a particular area of Axie Infinity, and I would do my research and report back with an article.
Disclaimer: The information above is not financial advice and is for educational and entertaining purposes. All information is of my personal opinion and is based on the research I have made. Any information on this article should not be mistaken as fact, and any decision with crypto means you need to DYOR (Do Your Own Research)
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