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Axie Infinity is something of a phenomenon in the gaming industry. Built-in the tradition of massively multiplayer games with elements of clicker and card games, it was the first of the pay-to-earn series. Its specific feature is a technological base that allows you to monetize the results in fiat money.
What Does the Axie Infinity Ecosystem Include?
Conventionally, the Axie Infinity ecosystem can be divided into three parts:
- Human resources;
- Technological resources;
- Supporting platforms and environments.
This is a huge mix of blockchain technology, people, and DApps that harmoniously intertwine and create a single universe of Axie Infinity.
At the head of everything is Sky Mavis company, founded in Vietnam in 2017 by five developers. Its leader is General Manager Trung Thanh Nguyen. He started as a fan of the Pokémon game and tried to play CryptoKitties, but was not happy with the result. This is how the idea of a universal game was born, which later became a workplace for millions of people.
Geography of Users
The uniqueness of the game is the ability to receive “live” money. The pandemic period coincided with important updates to the game – it became faster and cheaper. A lot of people who earned money all over the world lost their jobs. First of all, these were the people in Central Asia who found themselves in a worse situation due to closed borders. Many of them got a new job – the Axie Infinity game.
At the time of writing, according to Google Trends, the distribution of interest by country was as follows:
- Philippines – 100
- Venezuela – 69
- Cuba – 36
- Argentina – 11
- Singapore – 9
These numbers show the level of interest that peaked in July 2021.
A very big stir was caused by the stories of poor Filipinos who lost their livelihood. They started playing Axie Infinity. Their average revenue was at least equal to the usual salary and often exceeded it. A Twitter poll conducted in 2021 by one of the founders of Sky Mavis company showed that only 15% of players were attracted by the game itself. More than 50% chose economics.
Axie Infinity Community
Axie Infinity Community includes a huge number of users around the world. Conventionally, in the Axie Infinity ecosystem, it is divided into Lunacians and Guilds.
Lunacians
They include players, enthusiasts, influencers, artists, managers, and breeders. These are the people who support the content marketing project and provide it with media promotion. Sky Mavis company is a part of this process, running contests for the best videos and articles about the game.
It also includes the players themselves, who ensure the very viability of the Axie Infinity economy. They pay money for purchasing and breeding Axie animals for gaming resources, thereby replenishing the treasury of Axie Infinity. According to DAppradar statistics, in the last month alone, the number of unique addresses amounted to more than 80,000. The total amount of incoming funds at the same time amounted to almost $365 million.
The very structure of the community of players is extremely interesting. Scientists are distinguished from them – those who devote all their time to the game. Some players buy Axies and rent them out, splitting the profits between themselves and the renter. This option is suitable for those who do not have enough time for the game but have enough money to invest in gaming elements. On the other hand, some can play but do not want to spend or have not saved enough money for Axie.
The Scientists act as breeders and fighters. Someone is a generalist; someone chooses one path. The Breeders breed Axie monsters, selecting genes in such a way as to get the most powerful individual. The fighters fight professionally in the arena, receiving SLP tokens for gaming victories.
Guilds
The Guilds are a part of the Axie Infinity Community, grouping based on their interests. Most of them are gaming teams pooling their resources to complete levels. The structure of the guild includes the Managers who manage the Axies and the Scientists who rent or provide resources for rent (Axies). One of Sky Mavis company co-founders, Mr Larsen, estimates that about 2,350,000 people own Axies, and about 60% of them are Scientists. Thus, the structure of the “caste” has developed – these are people rich in time or money, and the managers are those who manage such interactions.
Most of the guilds are created by Filipino players. There are also many people from India, Indonesia, Brazil, and Venezuela. Guilds from Canada, Great Britain, Italy, and Germany are represented by a smaller number. These are the most famous associations.
One type of a guild is the Axie Infinity Scholarship class. Experienced players who have developed their team offer gaming resources for rent. This is a great source of passive income in the form of gaming cryptographic tokens. To stay in the program, you need to earn a certain amount of SLP tokens every day. In return, the player receives an interest profit, half or a little more. A large number of offers are posted on the Axie Infinity Discord channel. This is an opportunity to create gaming experiences for free with the perspective of earning your start-up capital. To get into the scholarship program, you need to pass an interview and show knowledge of the basics. Such communities of Axie Infinity have powerful informational and educational support, as all participants are interested in success.
Axie Infinity Technology
The game was originally based on Ethereum. However, slow speed and high commissions made it inaccessible to the wider community. Blockchain overload repelled many potential players. Paying commissions nullified all efforts to get revenue. Such an economy threatened to destroy the project since few people were ready to wait for transactions. Therefore, game developers decided to create their platform.
As an option, using some other blockchains as a basis was considered. For some time, they collaborated with the company Loom network, which provided layer 2 scaling on Ethereum. However, the partnership soon ended due to incompatibility of views. In order not to depend on third-party developers and administrators, another solution was found.
In 2020, the Ronin network testnet, a sidechain from Ethereum, was launched, and in February 2021, the mainnet was launched. In April, the migration of Axie Infinity was completed, and by July, the number of active users had grown. The diagram shows how the number of DAUs is growing.
Ronin network testnet, the main release of which took place in February 2021, by the end of the year, according to data on NonFungible.com, ranked second in terms of trading NFT volume, in the form of which the main gaming elements of Axie are presented.
Until March 2022, the blockchain was predicted to become the main gaming network in the future. However, the network hack and the founders’ politics are not yet attracting community developers other than Axie Infinity. Still, the main goal of the creation of Ronin was precisely to optimize the game itself and not to implement the popular DeFi and blockchain for games.
Ronin runs on a Proof-of-Authority (PoA) consensus algorithm, where a small number of validators control the security of the blockchain. This played a cruel joke on the gaming network. On March 23, 2022, Ronin was hacked. According to representatives of Sky Mavis company, a total of 173,600 Ethereum and $25.5 million were stolen from the accounts. The incident showed that 5 validators were too few, and in the coming months, developers committed to increasing their number to 21.
The consequences of the theft can be positive for the Axie Infinity project. Firstly, the company has pledged to compensate for the damage within a few years, and this is a powerful incentive for development. Secondly, two weeks after the unpleasant event, round B of investment was held and, despite the hack, $150 million was raised, which indicated the confidence of the investors. In the future, the money will be used to compensate users for damages. And the third factor – Ronin will improve towards safety, which in the end will only play in favor of Axie Infinity.
By the way, Ronin Bridge is still not available at the time of writing. It was required to convert Axie Infinity tokens into Ether. Wrapped ETH is used in Ronin to buy gaming cryptocurrency. And vice versa, it can be transferred to Ethereum to be sold on the exchange in the future.
The control token of the RON exchange is designed to vote on the Ronin blockchain, pay commissions, and get revenue. You can earn it on KatanaDex. Capitalization is not large yet – $76,524,511, and the price is $0.517.
It is based on the ERC-20 protocol and integrated into the Ethereum virtual machine (EVM). An up-to-date list of exchanges where trading RON is listed on Coinmarketcap.
Support Environment
Ronin Wallet
Ronin Wallet was vital to the creation of a comfortable interface. It allows you to easily exchange tokens on the internal Katana exchange and inside the Axie Infinity marketplace, spend them or, conversely, buy them. Wrapped Ether (WETH), Axie Infinity Shard (AXS), USDC, and Smooth Love Potion (SLP) is currently available for operations.
The wallet can be used as a desktop app, browser extension, or mobile app. It is non-custodial, which means that even Ronin developers do not have access to it – only the owners themselves. You can conduct operations with Ethereum either through the bridge or directly from Binance, which supports wrapped Ether. So far, these operations are quite complicated and confusing, but in the future, developers promise to significantly simplify the process of buying and selling tokens in the external environment.
A nice feature of Ronin Wallet is access to 100 free transactions per day.
Katana Exchange
On November 4, 2021, the Axie Infinity project blog announced the launch of its own decentralized exchange, Katana. Its main purpose is to become part of the Axie Infinity ecosystem to support operations between Ether and game tokens.
Katana is built on the principle of conventional DeFi exchanges and has all its features. On it, you can buy cryptocurrency RON, Axs, SLP, WETH, and USDC. Additionally, functions of AMM (automatic market maker) have been implemented:
- SWAP to switch between tokens;
- POOL – a liquidity pool where you can block tokens and receive 0.25% of each transaction for this;
- FARM – pairs of tokens for which revenue is charged are blocked for farming.
Until December 31, 2022, there is a program for a pool with a good daily reward:
- AXS / ETH: 24169.18, RON:
- SLP / ETH: 132,930.51, RON:
- RON / ETH: 84,592.15, RON:
Katana only works with the Ronin Wallet. To connect, you need to download and set up a wallet, then register with Axie Infinity through their marketplace. Further, the wallet is connected to the exchange, and all its functions become available.
Developers expect Katana to become a central exchange in the Axie Infinity ecosystem, its financial hub.
Staking Platform
The staking dashboard was launched on September 30, 2021, at stake.axieinfinity.com. Here users can block Axs tokens at 84%. This is a high return rate. The only limitation is that after the withdrawal of tokens, you need to wait a day to withdraw the next amount.
Marketing the Axie Infinity Project
According to the game developers themselves and the founders of the Axie Infinity ecosystem, word of mouth is the basis of the project’s marketing. In every appeal to the community, they do not forget to thank the enthusiasts and those who continue to believe in the future of Axie Infinity.
However, project marketing is ongoing and very active. At first glance, it may seem chaotic, but this is due to the rapid development. Each innovation requires full information support, which generates a huge number of articles and publications on the net.
The main sites from Axie Infinity where you can find up-to-date information are the Lunacian blog at axie.substack.com. It is conducted regularly and is about the news. It was on it that the releases of the Ronin blockchain, the Ronin network testnet, the Katana exchange, and the March hack were announced.
Each step on the road to success is accompanied by the release of documentation for the new Axie Infinity program. The main part is hosted on the axie-infinity.gitbook.io platform. Guidelines and rules for users can be found at www.notion.so/axie.
They are also active on Twitter. In April, there was a survey called “How did you learn about Axie Infinity”. In most comments, users posted links to those who recommended the game. Some found videos on YouTube or publications on the Internet.
Project Promotion Directions
Content Marketing
This is the most powerful Axie Infinity tool. Most of the content is generated by the users themselves. To stimulate their activity, contests are held for the best educational videos, cosplay, etc. The prizes are not of great value, like a hoodie or a mug, but the community is thrilled.
For example, on May 2, the results of the Origin Education Challenge, which had been started on April 9, were summed up. It was held in support of the release of the new version of Origin. A total of 800 applications were submitted. Educational value, originality, and quality were assessed. The main prize was given to a participant named Ryan, who had made a five-minute video to talk about the history of the game and its rules, and showed innovations. He got 180 AXS and an Axie sweatshirt. There were also 4 winners, and 50 more received 10 Axs tokens each. A large blog article was written about the event, and links to the authors and samples were available.
Such events cause great excitement among game fans and make you feel like a part of the huge Axie Infinity community.
Also, the community has several people who are game gurus and often publish detailed reviews. Marketing of experts and influencers in Sky Mavis company is done on a high-quality level. Because updates come out fairly quickly, they often reach out to opinion leaders who post articles, technology or game reviews, how-tos, and opinions. This is an important step in building trust and demonstrating the company’s expertise.
Financial Incentives
The promotion is largely based on financial incentives and user support. Each release of an update or a new program is accompanied by the payment of rewards. For example, to incentivize Katana’s liquidity, early liquidity providers were rewarded with a distribution of 10% of the total RON offer.
With the release of the new version of Origin, free starting Axies were installed. This makes it easy to enter the game, and game developers expect current users in the future to recommend and involve relatives and friends – a classic word of mouth.
On October 26, 2020, the founders of the company took a picture of the first game participants and entered it into a block. A year later, they allocated 800,000Axs (a total value of $50 million at the time) for rewards to missionary players.
Cybersport
Axie Infinity is divided into seasons and off-seasons. Now the trial season of Origin has started, and on April 25, the last, 21st season of the Classic version began. The prize fund of the latter has been increased to 130,171,90 AXS.
The season is the fights between teams in the arena. The developers of Axie Infinity put a great value on these competitions very seriously. Grants are allocated for the prize fund, and clear rules for participants have been developed. One season lasts at least one month. For example, the last one will end on June 24.
The games are streamed live, usually in four languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Tagalog. The team can apply for an Axie Esports grant. The rules for the use of funds are clearly regulated: up to 5% of the funds are spent on one event, and the organizers can present no more than three events. They are also required to create a website with a description of the event, its rules, and requirements. This is a great marketing ploy.
After discovering that purchasable fights were taking place, the founders of Axie Infinity penalized three players involved and decided to found the Axie Esports Competitive Integrity Council (AECIC). The Council started its work on March 30 and will accompany the final season of Classic. Its purpose is to monitor the fairness of the fights so that cyber-sportsmen can be sure that the strongest will win and not the richer one. The Council consists of 7 people – 4 from the company, one experienced player, one of the organizers, and an elected one appointed for the year by Sky Mavis. You can follow the Council’s activities on Discord.
The off-season also lasts about a month and is intended for the release of updates. After leaving the season, the rating of the players is reset, so in the next season, they start to play with an average overall score.
Involving the Axie Infinity Community in Generating Ideas
The community members know the best what the target audience needs. Since the target audience of the Axie Infinity project is in the millions, the organizers took the most logical but also difficult path. They actively ask their followers and offer to make suggestions on any occasion.
For example, in 2021, before the organization of the next season in July, players were asked to send their ideas for the rest of 2021. You could suggest the following:
- Events and their schedule;
- Event format;
- List of sponsors;
- Logistics plans for event programs;
- Streaming plans;
- Audience assessment methods;
- Marketing events.
After the end of the pandemic, the company began to encourage face-to-face meetings between its followers. Anyone can become an organizer and propose an event with a face-to-face meeting of the players.
The admission rules are pretty strict. The event organizer must apply. Once approved, it is his responsibility to ensure security following COVID-19 measures and support events. He must ensure a positive attitude towards Axie Infinity, be constantly in touch, and attract professional photographers and videographers. And also to monitor the absence of drugs, weapons, etc.
Participants who have been registered in the game for at least 3 months and have not been mixed up in fraud, with a crystal-clear reputation, are allowed to meet up. A 20-minute interview is preliminarily conducted.
Axie Infinity Builders Program for Game Developers
The most notable event of 2022 was the launch of the Axie Infinity Builders Program on January 19. This is an experiment in which game developers provide resources and comprehensive support. In general, Axie Infinity has most of the tools unavailable for public access. Those who receive a grant from the Axie Infinity Builders Program will have access to them in the future.
The goal of the Builders Program is to create new gaming experiences as well as new development tools in the Axie ecosystem.
The grant includes:
- $10,000 in Axs tokens.
- Supervisory support from the Sky Mavis development department.
- Contribution from gaming design and product departments.
- Access to Ronin SSO.
- Access to integrations with Ronin Wallet and Ronin network testnet.
- Comprehensive marketing project in the Axie Infinity community.
The organizers put forward several requirements for the future project. For example, in a new application, it is possible to pay out only in Axs tokens and/or SLP, and a certain interest must be deducted in favor of the treasury.
Participants of the Axie Infinity Builders Program must submit their project roadmap and initial developments, but their intellectual property is preserved. When making a decision, the availability of functions, usefulness for the ecosystem, and compliance with the “spirit” of the Axie Infinity community are taken into account.
Another requirement for community developers from the Axie Infinity Builders Program is the creativity, originality, and usefulness of the community. An important requirement for the Builders Program is the feasibility of the project. So, an idea alone will not be accepted. It must have a solid technical background.
An interesting point of the Builders Program agreement is the guarantee that the applicant is not under the sanctions of the US Department of the Treasury and also does not participate in transactions with a country that is under sanctions. Also, no one except team game developers should have intellectual property rights for the idea.
The Axie Infinity Builders Program requires community developers to have a deep understanding of blockchain technology principles and how cryptocurrencies and smart contracts work. All the results obtained are prohibited from being used outside of the Axie ecosystem. Debugging will be performed in the Ronin network testnet.
The predecessors of the Axie Infinity Builders Program were several mini-games that worked in the Axie universe in 2018-2019. But after the project was transferred to the Ronin blockchain, they were abandoned.
According to Dappradar data, after the announcement of the start of accepting applications for the Axie Infinity Builders Program, the number of user wallets on the Ronin blockchain increased by 20% on the first day. Activity on Katana increased by 40%. This shows the level of interest of community developers and users of cryptocurrency. The biggest hopes seem to be placed on the Axie Infinity Builders Program now.
The main result of the Axie Infinity Builders Program will be the growth of the platform, the deployment of new games and DApps, and attracting the attention of a large number of people to it, all without increasing the company Sky Mavis team.
Along with the Axie Infinity Builders Program, it is planned to create similar programs with grants for content generators and those who can attract new users to the community.
Events Support
Each game or ecosystem update is accompanied by a powerful information release. Influencers, experts, and missionary players are involved in content generation. Polls and online events are constantly being held on the Twitch platform since Steam has banned games with cryptocurrencies.
The blog publishes the event agenda with a detailed schedule in advance.
Such events attract many participants.
Social Media
Sky Mavis company considers social networking very important. The main platform is Twitter, where polls are conducted, and there is an active interaction with followers. There are streams on Facebook, during which the participants play live. Next, the company’s marketers collect data based on the feedback.
The main community developers and players are present in Discord. Here some channels have been created for games, communication, developers of the Axie Infinity Builders Program, help, as well as suggestions for joining the guild.
Axie Infinity Economy
According to data from Messari, in October 2021, Axie Infinity ranked fifth in the TOP 10 games built on Ethereum.
Investments
Throughout its existence, Sky Mavis has collected a huge amount of investment from companies such as Binance, a16z, Libertus Capital, and others. In 2019, $1.5 million was raised. In May 2021, an investment round of series A was held. As a result, the company received $7.5 million. In October, the invested capital already exceeded $150 million, and the same amount was invested in April 2022. The company itself was valued at three billion dollars. 21% of all issued Axs tokens belong to Sky Mavis.
The result of the investment was not long in coming: new projects appeared, for example, Axie Infinity Origin and Land, the project switched to a new blockchain, staking was introduced, and Ronin Wallet was created. All this shows the real thinking model of the founders of Sky Mavis company.
Axie Infinity Community Treasury
Representatives of Sky Mavis company often talk about decentralization, but so far, there have not been any real discussions. When launching Ronin, it was immediately determined that the validators would be selected from trusted nodes. These include Binance, Ubisoft, and Animoca. Additional validators are now also appointed by the company’s managers. The holders of Axs governance tokens have gained the right to vote, but at present, decisions on global matters are made by the owners of Sky Mavis. According to them, they are striving to bring the Axie Infinity universe to a full-fledged DAO, but so far, this is not possible. Here we can agree with them – this project requires too large-scale development actions.
The main financial structure is Axie Infinity community treasury. It is a pool for storing assets that are generated during the game process, as well as a result of the Katana exchange (for example, 0.05% of swaps go to the Axie Infinity community treasury). The community treasury lists commissions for transactions and other deductions. Holders of Axs tokens will be able to influence it directly by voting. It is planned that in the future, it is the owners of governance tokens who will decide where to direct investments, what remuneration to pay, and much more.
The owners themselves explain their control over assets by problems of an operational and legal nature. In this regard, the Axie Infinity community treasury is blocked for now. We must pay tribute to Sky Mavis company – while the ecosystem is in the development stage and its rules have not yet been formed, they are not striving to implement decentralization that has been fashionable lately but is moving forward very carefully. Without padding the company’s staff number, they attract new users to community development with events such as the Axie Infinity Builders Program. Such a solid approach inspires confidence. It is too early to talk about decentralization until the main product is ready.
In their address to the Axie Infinity community, Sky Mavis clearly explains why the voting system has not been introduced. They analyzed the experience of Vitalik Buterin and concluded that about 100 holders of governance tokens vote on decentralized sites. This means that there is no question of any management of the entire community – all decisions are made by the richest, the “whales” of the market.
Sky Mavis has set themselves a gigantic task of getting the entire community, all Axs owners, to vote. The main problem is this: realizing that a small number of tokens gives a very small weight in voting, such users simply do not participate in it, not believing in the ability to manage community treasury. Huge social and marketing work is needed to involve the entire community in decision-making.
It is assumed that in the future, contributions to the ecosystem will be taken into account in addition to ownership of governance tokens, the creation of gameplay tips, and the accumulation of voting rights, which will become invalid after a vote. The transition to decentralization is supposed to be carried out in three stages:
- Bringing the product to the needs and requirements of the gaming industry – now Axie Infinity Origin is actively developing.
- When 10 million active users appear, the growth rate becomes at least 5% in six months, and a management portal is developed, it is expected to move to the growth phase. This should, according to Sky Mavis, happen in 2023. In the future, in the second phase, voting should be held but still under the control of the company.
- The third stage is the complete rejection of centralization and the transition to user control.
Axie Infinity Tokens
The game itself uses two tokens:
- Axie Infinity Shards (Axs) governance tokens.
- Smooth Love Potion (SLP) gaming tokens.
You can see the participation degree of tokens in the ecosystem in the diagram.
Axie Infinity Shards
Cryptographic tokens of the ERC-20 protocol. They are used to pay commission and staking. In the future, their holders will be able to participate in the management of the Axie universe. Interest is accrued on Axs in Ronin Wallet.
At the time of writing, Axs has a total market capitalization of $1,350,428,101, and the price has fallen to $22.17. The total number planned for release is 270,000,000 AXS. During the initial offering, 10,800,000 AXS were distributed for a price of $0.08.
Below is a diagram of the distribution of Axs tokens.
Smooth Love Potion
These are in-game utility tokens. These tokens are used solely as a reward and payment in the game itself. However, not only can they be earned on Axie Infinity, but they can also be bought on the Binance, Bybit, Uniswap, and other exchanges. The price at the time of writing is $0.005869, and the market cap is $31,546,786. Their production is not limited in any way. They are minted and burned in the process of breeding new animals.
You can earn SLP during the adventure mode(PvE), in battles (PvP), and in quests. The number of tokens awarded depends on the rating of the player currently in the arena and the difficulty of the level in the adventure mode.
In 2021, Axie Infinity’s economy was out of balance, with more SLP being minted than burned. This caused inflation as well as the devaluation of the token, and the company’s management is still trying to deal with this problem. Incomes in the game have plummeted, and since most players perceive it as a job, interest in Axie Infinity has begun to fall.
The second problem has the same roots – most of the players work, but they do not play. This means that the earned tokens are not burnt when breeding new Axies but are withdrawn into fiat currency.
One of the ways out in this situation is to attract the players – people who are interested in the process of games and not making a profit. To do this, the design must be extremely attractive, and the levels must be interesting. The game is in balance when it has scaled value generation in the form of entertainment, communication, and achievement of mastery. Now Sky Mavis is moving in that direction, offering opportunities to buy and develop land, unusual resources, and collectible Axies.
Sky Mavis plans to turn Ronin into a platform for blockchain-based games in the future, but this ambitious project is still far from being realized. The fact that only game developers associated with Axie are allowed to participate in the Axie Infinity Builders Program suggests that, at first, all the efforts and attention will be spent on the development of the Axie universe. On the one hand, this may put Axie Infinity out of competition inside Ronin in the future. On the other hand, Sky Mavis has greatly limited the growth of the blockchain while the idea is on the wave of hype.
Gameplay Features
In Axie Infinity Classic, you were required to purchase three Axie characters to enter. It was quite expensive at the peak of the game, so the rental of monsters developed, and people began to unite in guilds. In the new version of Origin, the first Axies are given away for free. According to the creators, this encourages people to create gaming experiences.
In total, there are three types of games in Axie Infinity.
Daily Quest
It represents the tasks that the player gets every day. You need to log in, confirm your presence, go through 10 levels of adventure and defeat five opponents in the arena. For successful completion, you get SLPs.
Adventure Mode
It includes 36 levels of increasing difficulty. Its maximum number is limited to one hundred tokens per day. The progress depends on the skill of the player and the parameters available Axies.
Arena
This gameplay in battle mode allows you to get income and pump your skill level as a player. This is where teams of different members meet. Major tournaments are held.
Axie Nature
Charming Axie monsters participate in battles and can be bred. In respect of the program code, they are non-fungible tokens. Each birth of a new Axie is recorded on the blockchain. This process is based on smart contracts, where generation mechanisms are prescribed.
According to Chainanalysis, in 2021, NFT Axie Infinity became the most traded token in gaming. The sales volume was $3,485,878,200. That’s more than four times the turnover of NBA Top Shot, the second-best-selling gaming NFT.
2022 showed a general decline in the NFT projects market. Nevertheless, according to Nonfungible.com gaming, the market continues to keep its leading position. The assets of this sector remain highly liquid. Also, blockchain-based games are distinguished by the largest society – there are more than a million active wallets. At the same time, sales volume is ten times less than among collectors. Axie Infinity also lost its ground – sales fell to $237 million.
You can buy Axie on OpenSea, but most people prefer the native project marketplace – marketplace.axieinfinity.com. The dashboard will help you analyze which Axies have been sold in the last 24 hours, a week, or a month, as well as quickly see newly put up for sale pets. For example, over 12,000 Axies were sold on Saturday, May 14.
A convenient filter allows you to select the right monsters by class, body parts, and other characteristics. Here you can also buy gaming resources or a piece of Lunacia land – the Axie Infinity universe. Sometimes free lots come across on the marketplace, but on average, the price starts from $8 and can reach millions.
The cost of land varies from proximity to important locations. The closer to the center, the higher the price. At the time of writing, the cheapest lot was $2,156. So far, the Land mode is under development, but the creators promise to introduce a lot of interesting things and new useful options soon, for example, the appearance of resources on the plots.
Each animal belongs to one of 9 classes. Their combat qualities depend on this, directly affecting the outcome of the gameplay. For example, the Beasts are the strongest in battles, while the Birds are faster. Players make up a team of Axies, combining their qualities in such a way as to get the maximum chance of winning. It is also important to consider the amount of damage that classes inflict on each other.
The combat system is based on a turn-based card strategy, where players expose cards and thereby strike. The game is designed in such a way that only the strongest strategists win – it requires human thinking approach. The founders of Sky Mavis designed such an organizational structure specifically to protect themselves from automatic bots.
Axies Breeding
Axies are positioned as pets, so their breeding is an important part of the Axie universe. In addition, the Axie Infinity treasury receives payments for gas since breeding new animals is done via smart contracts.
Axie selection has many rules and nuances, which are detailed in the game blog. You can breed one animal no more than seven times. The characteristics of the offspring are made up of the genetics of the parents, each of which has dominant, recessive, and minor recessive genes. Sky Mavis company has developed a calculator that can calculate the probability of having different characteristics in the offspring depending on the genes of the parents.
In any case, the child is guaranteed to have a class from one of the parents.
When choosing a pet on the marketplace, you can see who its parents are.
Breeding Axie is also a strategy game with a lot of mathematical calculations. The player’s success depends on the parameters of his/her team, so experienced users build their strategy and breed animals with the desired characteristics.
Many players make money from breeding, creating their collections, and then selling them.
Axie Infinity Origin
On April 7, the release of the alpha version of the new Origin modification was announced. It is supposed to replace Classic. Keeping the basic rules from the previous version, Origin offers the players a much wider range of possibilities.
Porting and synchronizing Axies between versions is easy. However, so far, according to the developers, the alpha version does not imply saving the achievements. Its main task is to collect feedback from the Axie Infinity community.
Another important point – players’ access has become easier, and the necessary to start Axies are provided for free. Thus, it is supposed to attract the maximum number of people to the Axie Infinity community and show them the advantages of the game.
In Axie Infinity Origin, the design has been updated – now, pets are much easier to distinguish from each other due to the clarity of drawing nuances. The cards that are tied to each Axie have changed. Most retained the same parameters, but in general, they have been improved. Previously, the “Eyes” and “Ears” parts did not have their cards. Now they have been added. Additional resources appeared, for example, runes and amulets.
After the release of Origin, a week later, the first statistics were summed up. 298,117 people have joined the game. There were 1,102,230 fights. At its peak, 28,000 people participated in the game simultaneously, and 35,364 new users were attracted. Since the release of Origin, different events have been held almost continuously to promote the game.
An analysis of messages in the Discord community showed that users have high hopes for the new version. It is expected that the algorithm of the game itself will become perfect. There will be many new locations, events, and bonuses.
The date of the global launch has not yet been announced, and it depends on the community’s feedback. Updates are released almost continuously, which indicates the active work on Origin.
Promotion With Icoda
Having analyzed the marketing of Axie Infinity, we at ICODA got a lot of ideas. By promoting projects on the EOS blockchain, we understand the importance of community development. The main driver of DeFi is the followers, who help developers make their software even better and more useful.
EOS is a platform for developing decentralized applications with high speed of transaction execution and low commission. It features a well-designed account security model, convenient development tools, and great opportunities for implementing DApps functions. EOS has solved many problems with the implementation of smart contracts.
Stages of Defi Projects Promotion
The goal of ICODA is to attract a maximum number of followers to your project, convey information about its benefits, and increase your revenue. We always act carefully, starting with the audit and achieving the project’s success.
Audit
Research and analysis of project documentation help to form a promotion strategy as a whole. We receive full information about your advantages, study the target audience, and conduct a competitive analysis. As a result, we clearly understand which aspects of the project users need to focus on.
We will write a White paper for you and create and promote the website. We will develop a business process model and help optimize communications with the community. In fact, at the first stage, a plan for building an ecosystem is generated, including, among other things, a financial model, a concept, and tokenomics.
Competitors Analysis
It is quite possible that your project is unique, and there are no competitors yet. But our experience shows that ideas in DeFi often repeat, so it is important to analyze competitors in detail. We analyze the community, marketing, and business model. Based on this information, competitive advantages are formed, and the marketing strategy is supplemented.
Marketing
A marketing project includes many aspects. Its main goal is community development. We need those enthusiasts that other users will follow. Information support plays a leading role.
Blog
Your company’s blog can be hosted on leading platforms, or you can create your website. The blog is updated regularly and contains all the important information about the current state of the project.
Documentation and Help
Separate sections with a clear description of blockchain technology and project functions are always drawn up in a separate section. This makes it easy for users and developers to get information quickly. We help organize information and present it concisely and clearly.
PR Campaign
Branding is an important step in marketing your project. The brand name should be associated with the best features of your application. The name of the brand contains trust, respect, and the desire to cooperate.
A PR campaign is carried out in the form of advertising on social networks and search engines. We attract the best influencers, experts, and opinion leaders. They talk about your project from different perspectives and communicate its benefits to the general public. We prepare various publications: reviews, reports, analytics, and specifics of the use of certain functions.
Social Media Marketing
The work is done in all social networks where your target audience is represented. Community development is very important to us. ICODA pays special attention to working with the project community because, as the experience of Axie Infinity has shown, this is the main driving force.
Referral and Financial Marketing
We will work out a program with profitable offers to attract partners and develop a system of bonuses and airdrops. Your users will refer their friends to get even more benefits. And your project will begin to develop actively.
Promo Video
Often a video conveys much more information in a shorter time. We will develop a video content plan, select platforms, and shoot bright, attractive videos that help users interact with your application.
We will pay great attention to YouTube promotion. In addition to creating our channel, we will attract the best bloggers to help increase the reach of each video. Thanks to this, millions of people will learn about your project.
We will pay special attention to educational content. This will help crypto novices to easily integrate into your ecosystem and start using the features of your application.
Marketing is the most important component of the DeFi project, so it is very important to pay special attention to it. By attracting professionals, you are guaranteed to get business growth and community development around it.