With the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic, people have been confined to their homes, resulting in many losing their sources of income. Various sectors have been significantly hindered, and, in certain instances, the economy slowly grounded to a halt. Yet, in spite of all these, a certain industry has been thriving behind the scenes—the video gaming sector. As with the various restrictions imposed, such as lockdowns and community quarantines, people have much more time to spare. This has led to not only an increase in hours spent playing games but also a new era of innovation in this sector. Over the past few months, many people have taken an interest in playing a video game with a certain twist—it serves as a viable source of income. As the user number of this game grew, its stock price rapidly ballooned in value. In just a month, this game earned over 90 million dollars of revenue. Enter, Axie Infinity.
Axie Infinity was created and programmed by a Vietnamese company called Sky Mavis. The founders of this company met in a game called CryptoKitties and decided to make a game that promoted and showed the basics of cryptocurrency. While Axie Infinity was released in 2018, it only gained popularity in the latter half of 2020. As of October 2021, it garnered 1.85 million active daily users, an 4,768% increase since April 2021.
This definitely came out as a surprise for many. How did they gain that many users? How did they manage to earn millions of dollars in such a short amount of time? Before we get behind these questions, we’ll first be going through the basics. Axie Infinity is a blockchain-based game, specifically under the Ethereum blockchain. Ethereum is a cryptocurrency, currently ranked second below Bitcoin, that supports NFTs (non-fungible tokens), which are items that cannot be easily exchanged for another item of the same type. For instance, Bitcoin is considered a fungible token, since one bitcoin could easily be traded for another bitcoin; all bitcoins have the same value individually. However, a digital painting is non-fungible since it could not be easily traded for another digital painting. After all, both will likely have different individual values. The same goes for the in-game items in Axie Infinity. Axies tend to have different values, making them fall under the NFT category, thus based under the Ethereum blockchain.
Now that the basic terms have been broken down, it is the perfect time to learn how Axie Infinity works. To start an account, one needs to purchase (or borrow) three axies. Axies are in-game “creatures” that users collect, breed, and train in the game. The objective of this game is to develop those three axies in such a way that their worth increases. Smooth love potions (or SLPs) are the currency used to grow the axies, which you could also buy and sell at the marketplace. And for those who are in for the graphics, items such as decorations and accessories are also available. As a player, you have the option to fight battles against other players in the Arena, collect SLPs to level up your axies or sell the potions themselves to other users who need it, and even breed your axies to gain new ones. What is the recommended option? Well, just like in any game, that's for the user to decide on!
Axie Infinity may seem interesting and fun, but do remember that NFTs and cryptocurrencies have their fair share of downsides. When cryptocurrency grew in popularity in the 2010s, the currency that most people invested in was Bitcoin. During that period, Bitcoin was considered the safest and most credible cryptocurrency among many others. This was because it was considered a fungible token, where all “items” in Bitcoin have the same value; if the stocks of Bitcoin went up, all the coins people collected would have the same value.
However, people didn’t really trust NFTs during those times. Items under this category include rare pictures, video clips, Instagram posts, tweets, and other digital items with high values. Famous and original video clips would be sold for millions of dollars, yet the same videos could be viewed on Youtube for free. Video clips could even be duplicated, making the matter much worse. In short, people just didn’t see the point in buying expensive digital items like these. Who would buy an item for millions of dollars just for bragging rights?
Axie Infinity is different, however. Axies are definitely different from digital paintings and other digital items. Every item an axie user owns is exceptionally unique: each axie has its own ID, appearance, traits, abilities, and much more. An axie could not be duplicated into another axie or stolen from a user. Additionally, it is challenging for hackers to break into the cryptocurrency blockchain security. This is the case since multiple devices record every single transaction that is made on the blockchain. Accordingly, if one transaction is different from all the hundreds of thousands of other computers, that transaction would not push through. Furthermore, these computers are worldwide, making it exceptionally difficult to break through the system in any particular location. Cryptocurrencies are rarely stolen because of this advanced security system.
Although this security mechanism has not been fully developed, it definitely seems structured enough to establish a new future for the cryptocurrency world, where we could grow money without working outside our homes. Hundreds invested could be worth millions after a few years, all through playing a game. Although many possible roadblocks and hindrances may lie within this game, the future is bright for Axie Infinity and the world of cryptocurrency.
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