Axie Infinity has seen their NFT transaction volumes increase 310% since the Axie migration late April, and now its entire economy exists on the Ronin sidechain. In the past 30 days players have been trading Axies, land parcels and land items with a total value of more than $36 million as reported by DappRadar.
At the moment gas fees are pretty low on Ethereum, but with the volatility on the market last month transaction fees can shoot up easily. That’s not ideal for a game like Axie Infinity, or any game actually. Some gaming projects move to Polygon, others embrace Immutable X. Sky Mavis chose to build their own sidechain, which they dubbed Ronin. They also introduced a fiat on-ramp, which means that players don’t need to deal with crypto exchanges to get into the game.
At the moment Axie Infinity has more than 92,000 active players per day. These players have assets or use assets that exist on the Ronin sidechain. They now have more than $21 million in token value stored on that sidechain, which includes $10 million WETH, $7,8 million in AXS governance tokens and $2,9 million in SLP tokens. Ronin supports the entire game economy of Axie Infinity, and the sidechain will soon supports governance and new forms of gameplay as well.
Ronin is a sidechain from Ethereum, and is therefore not as decentralized as the Ethereum blockchain. However, the sidechain still is connected with the Ethereum thanks to a permanent bridge. As a result players can move their earnings from Ronin to Ethereum. Even though Ronin is not as decentralized, gamers reap the benefits of not having to deal with any gas fees.
Axie Infinity roadmap
Axie Infinity will add a whole lot more features to their game in the coming months. An improved version of their battle mode is just one of many additions in the pipeline. Land gameplay, also known as Project K, is probably one of the most anticipated features. This will pitch kingdoms against each other in competitive gameplay.
In an effort to make it easier to get started playing Axie Infinity, Sky Mavis will introduce soulbound Axies. These are free game characters that aren’t eligible for play-to-earn mechanics, or perhaps ‘a very very small amount’. The idea is that players can then step over to paid characters to start earning from the game.
Sky Mavis is also working on creating their own decentralized exchange, a Ronin DEX if you will. In addition they want all their features to work on mobile devices as well. This is a work-in-progress.
What is Axie Infinity?
Axie Infinity is a tactical battle game in which two players fight each other using a team of Axies. These little balls of joy are from Lunacia, and they come in all kinds of shapes and sizes. Their characteristics influence which moves they are capable of performing. They can be damage dealers, healers, or bad ass tanks.
It is the battle system that makes Axie Infinity stand out. Axies will take turn to fight in a 3v3 battle. The Axies fight to win the victory. At the same time players need to be a real strategists. They for example need to wisely choose appropriate Axies for their team, placing them at the tactical positions.
Axie Infinity has a strong play-to-earn system. Gamers earn Smooth Love Potions (SLP) by winning matches. Yes, they are now called Smooth Love Potions. These can be used inside the game’s economy or sold to other players who are in need of some more. Soon they will introduce land gameplay, their AXS governance token and a lot more. Axie Infinity is becoming more than just a battle game.
