The popular play-to-earn (P2E) cryptocurrency game axie infinity reached new heights in 2021, with massive jumps in transaction volumes and income, as well as the addition of millions of new community members. However, when we approach the midway point of the year 2022, the following issue arises: Is axie infinity able to live up to the hype?
Axie Infinity was released by its parent firm Sky Mavis in May 2018, but it didn’t gain traction until the second part of last year, when it began to get positive reviews.
According to the company’s co-founder Jeff “Jiho” Zirlin, “2021 was a year of growth and scaling of axie infinity,” whereas “2022 is a year of creating, deploying goods, and offering better and more accessible gaming experiences.”
The author recalls attending seminars and talking about axie infinity until he was unable to speak any more. He claims that it no longer requires an introduction as one of the largest and most well-known play-to-earn games in the cryptocurrency market.
According to Zirlin, “We had this incredible growth cycle that placed our company on the map and brought us resources to transform this into a decades-long adventure.” “I believe we are now in the process of developing the items that will propel us into the next growth cycle.”
For those who are unfamiliar with axie infinity, it is a crypto-focused gaming world and platform that features animals, known as Axies, that players can purchase or acquire as pets, which they can then use to combat, breed, and nurture in exchange for cryptocurrency.
According to statistics from Token Terminal, Axie’s AXS token had a completely diluted market valuation of around $16.7 billion at its peak, and its total income from in-game purchases and market fees paid was $364.4 million in August 2021, when it reached its highest point. According to the statistics, the company’s market capitalization has decreased by 19.76 percent to $13.4 billion, and its total revenue has decreased by about 99 percent to $2.5 million in April 2022 from its peak.
Bitcoin is really cyclical, and at times you’re in a growing cycle, and at other times you’re in a building cycle,” Zirlin said. A refractory interval is necessary because exponential growth cannot be sustained all of the time.
According to the REKT Database, Axie Infinity ‘s Ronin Network was the victim of an exploit earlier this year that was worth at around $625 million at the time, making it the greatest crypto theft to have occurred to date. Sky Mavis secured over $150 million in a financing funded by cryptocurrency exchange Binance shortly after the incident in order to pay victims.
In Zirlin’s opinion, “we made errors because we were moving too quickly, racing for more adoption,” and “I believe that the whole ordeal from last month will be viewed as a badge of pride for those who have gone through it.” “It’s difficult to consider other scenarios, but the apparent solution here is to increase investment on Ronin’s security and make it a higher priority [coming ahead].”
The company’s market capitalization and revenue have both declined significantly from their peaks, but the company is still flying much higher than it was at the same time last year, according to Token Terminal data. Axie’s market capitalization is up 228.3 percent, and total revenue is up a whopping 50,950.8 percent from the same time last year.
In addition, the game is attracting new players. Zirlin said that the firm published Axie Infinity: Origin, a free-to-play version of the game last month in an attempt to attract to more customers who may want to give the game a try first before committing to purchasing it.
According to Zirlin, “I believe that providing free starting axes to new players is a significant moment for NFTs since it allows people to fall in love with the IP and world and test it out to see whether it’s right for them before making large financial commitments.”
Axies are listed for sale on the game’s marketplace for a variety of prices, with some going for as little as $8 (0.003 ether), while others are listed for hundreds of thousands of ether, or billions of dollars (though that doesn’t necessarily imply that they’re being purchased at that price; someone out there is pushing their luck).
According to Zirlin, the community had around 45,000 Axie Infinity holders on April 24, 2021, and that number has climbed by approximately 5,567 percent to 2.55 million by April 24, this year. Over the same period, the game’s daily active users (DAUs) increased by 2,926 percent from 38,000 players to 1.15 million, according to the game’s developer.
Most play-to-earn games demand a financial commitment of anything from $1 to several hundred dollars in cryptocurrencies before you can begin playing, but others are completely free to begin with. The play-to-earn ecosystem provides gamers with the opportunity to generate more value for their investments via in-game activities and prizes such as more bitcoin, a non-fungible token (NFT), or an increase in the value of their original investment. Users are encouraged to earn incentives and exchange objects for monetary worth, in addition to having fun, in P2E, which differs from typical games.
In the previous year, a slew of funds for the crypto gaming sector have been established, ranging from GameStop and Immutable’s $100 million joint fund for gaming NFTs in February 2022 to decentralized blockchain TRON’s $300 million fund to invest in GameFi in August 2021. Recently, Framework Ventures announced the creation of a $400 million fund with a focus on blockchain gaming, which would be launched in April 2022. Axie Infinity intends to digitize the real world.
It is anticipated that Axie Infinity will begin developing a digital gaming environment that will be comparable to that of the actual world in the second half of this year, according to Zirlin. People will be able to log on to Axie Infinity to meet new people, interact, play games, compete, and even work and earn a livelihood, according to the CEO.
“There is a greater transfer of spending from the real world to digital surroundings,” Zirlin said. “Although it may be difficult for some generations to comprehend this, the fact is that more and more time is spent in front of screens, which represents a significant change that is leading more people to see the metaverse as a transition away from the physical to the digital.”