Overview & History
Axie Infinity is an NFT-based game that combines the blockchain elements of CryptoKitties (the first blockchain game ever) with the competitive gameplay of games like Pokémon. Within this Play-2-Earn game, users can collect, breed, raise, battle, and trade in-game creatures named “Axies”. All in-game assets are represented via fungible ERC-20 tokens (each token is the same as the next) or non-fungible (NFT’s) ERC-721 tokens (each token is unique).
Axie was created in 2018 by the Vietnamese studio Sky Mavis, co-founded by Trung Nguyen and Aleksander Larsen. Since its inception, Sky Mavis has been increasing the game’s development pace with the help of funding rounds: In November 2019 they raised $1.5M, and in May 2021 they raised $7.5M of a funding round led by Mark Cuban.
By October 2021, they raised $150M in a funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz (“a16z”) and commenced the public sale of 11% of the token AXS. Between March and June 2021 land, items and Axies were ported to the Ronin sidechain.
Throughout Axie’s expansion, daily active users (DAU) kept growing, reaching by August 2021, more than 1M DAU. At present, it has a market cap of approximately 3 billion. The circulating supply is currently at 60.9 million AXS(1) and it’s all-time NFT sales are over $4 billion.
Current state of the SLP Token:
Smooth Love Potion (SLP) tokens are gained by playing the game. This token serves as a replacement for experience points from traditional games. In addition to being Axie’s reward token, it is used as the currency required to breed new Axies, along with the governance token, known as AXS. The cost of breeding increases gradually, and Axies can be bred up to seven times. The reason behind this limit is to prevent hyperinflation in the marketplace. Like AXS, SLP tokens are also ERC-20, so they can also be traded on most major exchanges.
SLP Hyperinflation:
By the first of May 2021, SLP price rallied to an all-time high of $0.3642, followed by a subsequent drop of almost 75% in its total value, an equivalent to $0.08243 by 23 May 2021. Prices peaked again in July reaching a high of $0.3462 and then plummeted by 97%, less than $0.01 on 1 February 2022.
Among the main reasons behind the SLP’s price fluctuation is its lack of supply cap. By that means, the number of players participating in the game’s ecosystem will be directly linked with the amount of SLP’s circulating the in-game economy. Higher number of players will equal higher levels of SLP in circulation.
This sharp decrease in SLP value caused turmoil and disapproval among the Axie community as a fast increase in supply contributed to the 97% drop from July 2021 to February 2022. Said drop in SLP price is caused by a supply-demand imbalance. Around 4 more times of SLP was being minted through battles than it was burned through breeding.
SEASON 20 UPDATE: Building a future towards stabilization
SLP price increased to $0.03956 (more than 300% from the bottom) on February 10, following the announcement of the “Season 20” Update. This update reduces the pace of minting SLP, cutting the daily new supply to 45 million per day.
The season 20 update removes all SLP rewards from Adventure Mode as well as from the Daily Quest, in order to stabilize the in-game economy.
The Season 20 update is a step in the right direction, but the Sky Mavis team is planning even more policies to further stabilize the economy. These include increasing the burn of tokens with new mechanisms, like special cosmetics and skins, upgraded Axie body parts, in-game emojis, breeding events, buy-in tournaments, Axies naming, vertical progression for Axies, and many more to be announced.
⚔️ Origin:
The Axie Infinity: Origin is a major update that will update the game’s interface, game mechanics, art, special effects, storylines, and will add new ways to utilize SLP. It will also add 3 free starter Axies that will make it much easier to recruit other players to join the Axie community. The starter Axies will not be NFTs and players cannot earn SLP from using them.
The update will also bring a new battle system (Battle v3 system) and it will also introduce Land Game Mode, which will allow players to build up a base by gathering resources and building structures and decorations. In the future, players will be able to fight for territory control and build custom experiences on top of their land plots.
Sky Mavis is also planning on releasing a Body Part upgrade feature that will enable an additional way to burn SLP, as a means to have a more sustainable economy and preserve its long-term value.
🗺 Land:
Lunacia, the Axie homeland, consists of 90,601 plots of Land. These Land plots are NFTs and can be freely traded by players. Plots will be able to be upgraded over time using resources that can be found when playing the game.
Land gameplay is still being actively developed and will be released in 3 phases. The project related to the Land gameplay was named “Project K” and its completion was delayed from December 2021 to 2022 in order to improve the art style from 2D to 3D.
💡Phase 1 will be focused on simulation and land management (production, resource gathering, building, and trading).
💡Phase 2 will add additional management gameplay elements (skill trees, jobs, and social/cooperative activities).
💡Phase 3 will focus more on group strategic gameplay (defend, battle, and conquer).
🏰 Project K:
Project K (short for Kingdom) is the new Land gameplay that Axie is developing.
They already have done a Demo, which has been a success. The team is still testing different gameplay modes. The intention is that Project K attracts all types of gamers, whether they prefer building, battling, puzzling, or even decorating. Some of the new features that players will enjoy are: resources harvesting, item crafting, chimera battles, progress through dungeons, operation of their own shops, the building of experiences using an SDK, and cooperation with friends on shared quests that require cooperation and coordination.
Axie & Developing economies:
Axie players from the Philippines represent about 35% of the game traffic and the biggest share of its daily active users.
In some developing nations, like the Philippines, Axie Infinity has become the major source of income for some families. The game has gained popularity in these countries where unemployment rates are high, and the economic consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic have been felt hardest. Many Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW) have returned to their homeland because of pandemic-related job cuts. The metaverse (and games like Axie) have offered repatriated workers an alternative.
In the Philippines, the SLP token can be used as real-world currency at some shops and merchants, like the Inflatable Island PH, The Dessert Museum, or Bakebe PH.
However, the earning rates are volatile, and in September 2021 they fell below the minimum wage of the Philippines. The SLP token has recently suffered from major drops, and the monthly earnings of these players have been affected.
In August 2021, the Philippine Department of Finance affirmed that income from Axie Infinity is taxable, and suggested that the SEC and BSP may classify its cryptocurrency as a currency or a security.
If SLP price recovers soon, and if the studio succeeds in making SLP less volatile, the earnings of players from developing countries would also be benefited from it.
Sources:
[SLP] — What is the SLP Token? — AXIE.GG
Introducing Ronin: Axie Infinity’s Ethereum Sidechain (substack.com)
[AXS] All About the AXS Token! — AXIE.GG
Smooth Love Potion to USD Chart (SLP/USD) | CoinGecko
Why Is SLP Going Down? (loadedgamer.com)
⚔️ [Axie] Arena Season 20! — The Lunacian (substack.com)
Axie Economy & Long-term Sustainability — Axie Infinity
https://axie.substack.com/p/landteaser?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
‘Life-changing’ or scam? Axie Infinity helps Philippines’ poor earn (france24.com)
So, the future is here. We are #pleiers. Meet our team leaders in Twitch and join us in discord https://discord.gg/uCpTeNdA!
You can also follow @plei.games in our social media accounts to learn Plei’s latest developments!
