Axie Infinity is not just creating games, it is building a Web 3.0 aggregator and reversely integrating as many value chains as possible.
Extended reading: “Selected Links | Axie Infinity, the King of Chain Games Reading Soaring in the Sky”
Original title: “Axie Infinity: Unlimited Benefits, Unlimited Possibilities”
Written by: Packy McCormick
Come get to know Axie Infinity, a cute game with huge growth and a bigger vision.
This game looks very simple, because there are cute Axies, they look innocent. But when you are playing a game, it feels like playing chess. It is a strategy game.
—Axie Infinity gamer Howard
In an Internet cafe in Cabanatuan, the Philippines, a 22-year-old young man named Howard described the blockchain game Axie Infinity as a “seemingly innocent” but “strategic” game. He played this Games to make a living. Axie Infinity is a Pokémon-like game based on the Ethereum blockchain. Players can buy digital pets called Axies. These Axies exist in the form of NFTs (non-homogeneous tokens). Players can breed and breed Trade these Axies and use them to fight other players. The images of these Axies pets are cute and honest. The picture below is what this game looks like:
It is a game and pets are very cute. The game contains blockchain stuff, which is very interesting! But there are many things under the cute appearance.
The whole idea behind Axie Infinity is as stated by Axie co-founder Jeff Zirlin:
The idea is to introduce something new and a little scary (cryptocurrency) through something interesting, familiar and nostalgic. Then, with property rights and economic freedom, this game becomes very special.
Axie has a very bold master plan to reshape economic policy and local governance by showing the possibility of people working in the “Metaverse.” In its white paper, Axie developer Sky Mavis clearly stated: “You can think of Axie as a country with a real economy.”
This is a grand plan. At present, people’s attention to Axie is mainly focused on its eye-popping growth… Axie Infinity is gaining players and generating revenue at an unprecedented speed. The following is its monthly earnings chart:
Axie Infinity’s monthly revenue, the revenue for the first 18 days of July this year has increased by 548% compared to June. Source: Axie World
In April of this year, Axie generated approximately $670,000 in revenue.
In May, its revenue was 3 million U.S. dollars.
In June, its revenue was USD 12.2 million.
Only in the first 18 days of July this year, its revenue has reached 79 million US dollars.
Delphi Digital (an independent research and consulting organization) predicts that Axie will reach $153 million in revenue this month.
The way the Axie agreement generates revenue is: when the player buys and sells Axie NFTs in the market in the game, the Axie agreement will charge a 4.25% fee, and when the player breeds Axies to create new pets, the Axie agreement will also locally The form of tokens (including Axie Infinity Shards (AXS) tokens and Smooth Love Potion (SLP) tokens charge fees. AXS and SLP are priced in ETH, although ETH has fallen by more than half since May; but even when the price of ETH has fallen Under the circumstances, Axie’s dollar earnings are still growing.
Delphi Digital’s estimated Axie Infinity revenue.
If this is the annual revenue growth data of any company, investors will salivate. A 200-fold increase in revenue in 3 years is almost unheard of, but Axie Infinity’s revenue increased 200-fold in 3 months? ! It’s incredible.
Delphi Digital predicts that Axies’ revenue in December this year will reach 1.1 billion U.S. dollars, mainly from its NFT market fee income and the demand for hundreds of thousands of players to breed Axies every month. Currently, Axie Infinity has more than 600,000 players worldwide, of which 60% are from the Philippines.
Although these revenue figures are coveted, they are not the largest or fastest-growing figures in the history of gaming. However, what is unique about Axie Infinity is that this crazy growth is only the first step in its larger plan, which includes vertical integration, aggregation, decentralization, and building the world (which we will explain below) ).
Even at the initial stage of its overall plan (the product is still in the “alpha” stage), Axie as a blockchain-based game has achieved this growth, while at the same time creating a brand new one at the intersection of work and entertainment. Mode: “Play-to-Earn” (make money while playing).
In the Philippines and Vietnam, many people quit their jobs and play Axie for a few hours a day to live a better life. They will get Smooth Love Potion (SLP), which is a Token (token) earned through Axie games, which can be exchanged for legal currency, which can be used to pay for food, shelter, medical expenses and other survival needs Items. Some people who used to earn only $5 a day now earn $20.
For the long-term success of cryptocurrencies, Axie has proven many important things:
- NFTs are still popular and perform well, and their success does not depend on high-priced art sales. On the contrary, you can glimpse the true promise of NFTs!
- Non-encrypted users enter the encryption field through electronic games.
- Cryptocurrency can create new economic opportunities for all kinds of people around the world, not just whales, DeFi Degens, and Bitcoin maximalists, and realize the promise of bringing a fairer playing field while capturing economic value. (Note: DeFi Degens refers to gambler-style DeFi traders and builders)
- The network effect of cryptocurrency can create fast-growing companies with moats.
So far, one of the main criticisms of cryptocurrency is that it has no real value or application, but Axie makes you reconsider what real value is. In Axie’s example, value comes from directly providing meaning, income, and opportunity to the player. A typical game usually invests millions of dollars in marketing and takes most of the profits for itself; but Axie does not invest any money in marketing and allows players to retain most of the value created. . This is expected to make the game more sticky and have more expansion opportunities.
This is just the first act of Axie. It wants to reshape work and create the most valuable intellectual property (IP) in history, all of which are owned by the players themselves. The famous venture capitalist Chris Dixon once said, “The next great invention will look like a toy at first.” Axie clearly fits this point.
In the past few weeks, you may have started to hear about Axie Infinity, you may see related news on Twitter, or read related reports on encrypted publications such as Coindesk, Delphi Digital, and Bankless. Or you may not have heard of the word “Axie” until two minutes ago. But there is no doubt that you will hear it everywhere soon. Today, we will learn more about Axie, this article will cover:
- The origin of Axie
- Modern history of game business models
- Play-to-Earn (Earn while playing)
- Data Interpretation Axie: Unlimited Benefits
- Vertical integration in the world of Lego blocks
- The decentralization of the Axie universe
- Unlimited possibilities
The origin of Axie
In November 2017, CryptoKitties was listed as the first NFTs digital asset using the ERC-721 standard. Less than a month later, in Vietnam, Sky Mavis founder and CEO Trung Thanh Nguyen proposed the idea of creating Axie Infinity: What if the gameplay of Pokémon can be combined with the NFT ownership and reproduction of CryptoKitties?
After being combined, it looks like Axie Infinity, which is “a universe inspired by Pokémon, where players can battle, collect, raise pets, and build a land kingdom for them.” When Trung combines Pokémon and CryptoKitties, the ideas behind and When it comes to mechanism, his ideas have several key differences:
- Instead of owning Pokémon cards, players buy Axies in the form of NFTs.
- Players can earn a living by earning ERC-20 tokens, which can be exchanged for local legal currency, not just holding cards or NFTs for appreciation.
Source: Axie Infinity White Paper
Trung started building the game in December 2017. In January 2018, when the price of ETH exceeded $1,300, he hired Masamune as the art director and game designer. At the same time, Trung continued to play the CryptoKitties game, where he met two other co-founders (also CryptoKitties enthusiasts): In March, Jiho joined and was responsible for Axie’s growth; in May, Aleksander Leonard Larsen served as chief operating officer official. In July, Andy Ho joined the company as chief technology officer. In the end, a joint founding team composed of these five leaders was determined.
The team conducted the pre-sale of Origin Axies in February 2018 (Note: Origin Axies is a digital pet created during the two-month pre-sale activity of Axis Infinity in 2018, so it is very rare and valuable for collection), and will be the first A batch of Axies characters were sold in the form of NFTs and 900 ETH was raised. At this time, the price of ETH is beginning to fall from a historical high. As ETH fell, they developed rapidly:
- In March, they launched their own NFT market, where Axie collectors can trade.
- In May, they released the Breeding function, which allows players to breed Axies to create new pets.
- In October, players can use their Axies to fight.
- In January 2019, they raised 3,200 ETH by selling the “land” of Lunacia, which is “an open world owned, operated and controlled by players.”
Above: Axie Infinity was born during the crypto boom in 2017, and will continue to be built during the crypto winter.
This idea first started at the peak of the crypto bull market in 2017, and later became a job they were happy to do in the downturn bear market known as “Crypto Winter.” When I talked to Jiho and asked him what contributed to the recent rise of Axie, he said it all started with “continuing construction during the bear market.”
This seemingly cursed time actually turned into an advantage. It allows the Axie team to carefully build and improve the product in relative obscurity, while attracting a small number of loyal core believers. This is very important. A common challenge facing games and new crypto projects is that they may attract a lot of hype and publicity, quickly generate a lot of revenue, and then quickly die. Jiho pointed out the paradox of building large-scale communities:
Before the community can become very large, it first needs to function as a small community. This is why Axie is difficult to copy – if you build an Axie competitor now, you will attract those who want to find the next Axie, rather than those who really want to push the game forward.
Starting with only a small community, Axie has now become very large. Last Friday, its daily active players exceeded 600,000; its Discord server is the core of the community, with more than 540,000 members. When I joined their Discord yesterday, a new member joined every five seconds.
Objectively speaking, the development of Axie is impressive, and it is even more impressive when you realize that the participation of new players is much higher than the typical game you are familiar with. The Axie team has released an introductory guide to “learn how to play” this game in 6 steps, as shown in the picture below:
Screenshot source
As shown in the figure above, at the beginning players need to obtain ETH, register MetaMask wallet, transfer ETH to MetaMask wallet, then download another Axie’s own wallet Ronin, deposit ETH into Robin wallet through Ronin bridge, and then use ETH in Axie market Buy 3 Axies (this is the number required to play this game), log in with MetaMask, and finally download the game application on your computer desktop or mobile terminal. 85% of Axie players are Android users.
Then there is cost. To start playing, you need to buy 3 Axies. You can buy Axies on the Axie market. The cheapest of all 99,323 Axies is priced at 0.1 ETH, which is about $195 at the time of writing.
Axies pets listed on Axie’s NFT market and their prices.
The introduction here is relatively simple, I may have missed something. Jiho once publicly stated that it was really difficult to play Axie Infinity at the beginning. However, despite these obstacles, Axie is growing wildly. In addition to these start-up steps, there must be something magical that is attracting people.
On the “Invest Like the Best” podcast, Gabriel Leydon, CEO of game company Machine Zone, stated a counter-intuitive view that investors should look for opportunities that break the norm but are still growing: if something is not designed As with UX, it is developing frantically, so it must be offering something truly innovative and catering to previously unmet needs.
As far as Axie is concerned, this innovation is the “Play-to-Earn” model, and the opportunity to make a living in the “meta universe” by playing games. In order to better understand why Axie is so innovative, we need to understand how current games make money.
Modern history of game business models
Axie Infinity is not the fastest growing game ever, nor is it the most profitable game. In order to understand why the development of Axie is so special, we need to look at some other game business models first.
In June of this year, the Japanese mobile game “Ni No Kuni: Cross Worlds” set a revenue record, generating $100 million in revenue in 11 days, even though the game was only released in 5 markets.
Screenshot of the Japanese mobile game “Ni No Kuni: Cross Worlds”
Just like the previous game “Pokémon Go” that reached 100 million US dollars in revenue, the most profitable mobile game in history “King of Glory” ($9.97 billion), Epic’s popular game “Fortress Night” and now most of the most popular Like the game, “Ni No Kuni” is also a “Free-to-Play” (free game).
Most “Free-to-Play” games provide players with complete game content for free and make money by selling virtual game items such as skins and emoticons. Chris Dixon (famous venture capitalist) pointed out how successful this model is in the video game industry:
Take “Fortress Night” as an example. In “Fortnite”, you can use _normal character_ to start the game for free, but if you want to upgrade to Wolverine, you can use the “Fortnite” in-game currency V-Bucks from the game through the item store The developer Epic Games bought the skin of Wolverine.
The role of the game in Fortnite
This “Free-to-Play” is a very good mode. In 2020, “Fortnite” will generate $5.1 billion in revenue. What’s important is that in Fortnite, everything the user buys is decorative: buying a specific skin does not give you a better chance of winning the battle, just like buying a new shirt in real life. Will make you stronger like that. Your purchase is just to show off, or you have your own style, or for other reasons why people buy expensive things. “Fortress Night” is a game, but it is also a “meta universe” prototype and community. Its Discord server has 805,000 members. It is a mini-economy that is centrally managed by Epic Games and earns huge profits from players.
The two fastest-growing mobile games ” Ni No Kuni ” and ” Pokémon Go ” also use “Free-to-Play” games, but critics believe that these two games are “Free-to-Play” The “dirty subset” of the model, that is, a model called “Pay-to-Win” (pay-to-win):
Source: Reddit
In a game in the ” Pay-to-Win ” mode, players can spend money to purchase items or skills to gain an advantage in the game . The Reddit attack on “Ni No Kuni” quoted in the picture above emphasizes the problems caused by this model: “This is a massively multiplayer online game where you will get stuck in a certain level and cannot move forward because of the experience value. , Equipment and pet gacha looks like a huge Pay-to-Win, you can hardly get coins.” (Note: gacha refers to the virtual machine that sells props in the game). Basically, either pay or get stuck. There are also many reddit users who questioned the claim that the game generated $100 million in revenue in their posts, because of its weak downloads, and believed that either the revenue data reported by SensorTower was inaccurate, or the game’s above-average consumption from whale players Benefit from it.
Even a seemingly simple game like “Candy Crush” launched by King will allow players to spend a lot of cash to buy more game life and the like. When the game first became popular, the Internet was full of terrible stories: Parents checked their credit card bills and discovered that their children spent thousands of dollars on “Candy Crush” with their credit cards. In 2014, Apple refunded $32 million to parents of children who purchased in-game products without parental authorization in various “Free-to-Play” games.
Screenshot of Candy Crush
Another well-known game ” Roblox ” was established in 2012. The players are mainly children. It is also a “Free-to-Play” type game, but it is innovative in some aspects. First of all, parents can buy a certain amount of “Robux”, which is the virtual currency in the game, so that their children can spend instead of accessing a credit card to allow their children to spend at will. Secondly, “Roblox” does not produce all the content by itself, but establishes a platform on which other developers and designers can make their own games and props and sell them to users in exchange for “Robus” revenue . In the first quarter of 2021, “Roblox” generated $387 million in revenue and paid $118 million in fees to all developers on the platform (31% of revenue).
Source: Roblox
According to the company, 27% of every dollar spent on Roblox goes to all game developers on the platform, 25% goes to the app store, 12% goes to investing in and supporting the platform, and 27 % Flows to ” Roblox ” itself. See the diagram below:
Source: Roblox
Games/worlds like Roblox and Minecraft have taken a big step forward. Not only can users pay game developers, but they can also make money by developing games for this ecosystem. However, it is really not the definition of “platform” as Bill Gates (Gates once said: “If all content built on the platform earns more than the platform itself, then it is a platform. “), because this kind of game platform itself gets as much revenue as the developers. In Roblox, ordinary users can make a living through games. This is a victory. In the past, people could only make money by winning e-sports competitions (only a few elite players could participate) or “gold farming” (note: game gold refers to making money by using games).
As described in a 2007 article in The New York Times, some Chinese employees spend 12 hours a day collecting gold coins and other digital assets in World of Warcraft, and they earn $0.30 per hour. And their boss earns $3 by selling these coins to online retailers, and then the retailer earns $20 by selling these coins to American or European players. These players don’t want to spend all their time collecting these. currency. “Playing gold” is considered a form of exploitation and is banned by major games . It would be great if players all over the world could make money for themselves …
All this brings us back to Axie Infinity.
Play-to-Earn (Earn while playing)
With the help of blockchain , Axis operates a new kind of game: ” Play-to-Earn ” (play and earn). Unlike the traditional ” Free-to-Pay ” game model (that is, developers sell game items to players to earn) or models such as “Roblox” (that is, other developers can also publish games on the platform to make money), ” “Axie Infinity” is a player-to-player game .
” Play-to-Earn ” is a new model that “rewards players for the time and energy spent in playing games and developing the game ecosystem.” According to Axie’s documentation:
Axis has a real currency economy that is 100% owned by players. Rather than selling game props or copies, game developers are more focused on developing the economy among players and charging a small fee to make money. Axies are created by players using in-game resources (SLP & AXS tokens) and selling them to new players/other players. Holders of AXS tokens are like governments that receive tax revenue. Game resources and props are tokenized, which means that these tokens can be sold to anyone on the open p2p market.
Axie is obviously not a “Free-to-Play”_(free game)_ mode. To start playing Axie Infinity, you need to exchange fiat currency into ETH to buy 3 Axies. As mentioned above, the cheapest Axie is 195 USD at the time of writing. But unlike paying a developer to rent a virtual character (or land, props or props), you have ownership of your Axies . By playing this game, you own the game, you can decide the future development of the game or get real income by completing tasks. If you want to stop playing this game, you can sell your own Axies, AXS and SLP tokens.
When new players enter the game, instead of buying Axies from Sky Mavis (the startup behind Axie Infinity) or Axis Infinity, they buy Axies from other players . These players either sell their own Axies or breed new ones and sell them go out. As Jiho said, this is like “the player sells tickets to enter this universe.” The Axis agreement charges a 4.25% commission for each transaction in its market, and charges a fee when the player breeds new Axies (in AXS And SLP tokens).
Different from the traditional model, in Axis’s “Play-to-Earn” model, 95% of the trading revenue goes to the player . Jiho said, “Axie’s first principle is: In the attention economy, users who follow us should be rewarded . (Note: Attention economy means that the company maximizes the attention of users or consumers. , In order to obtain the greatest future commercial benefits of a special economic model). Why?
Playing this game is an important job. You need a lot of people to play at the same time to make the game fun. Part of the reason why PvP (player vs. player) games are interesting is that players are playing against other players who have the same skill level as you. In order to achieve this, you (the developer) need to quickly match players against other players. Make a match. By adding player liquidity, the “Play-to-Earn” model makes Aaxis more interesting; it is worth investing most of the money to achieve this goal.
Approximately 5% of the proceeds obtained by the Axis agreement will flow into its ” Community Treasury ” (community treasury), which currently has 4,600 ETH (approximately US$95 million at the time of writing), and the treasury is controlled by token holders , Including but not limited to the developers of Sky Mavis (holding approximately 20% of the governance token AXS).
Above: The growth of funds in the Axie community vault and its composition (the purple area represents the fees from the platform’s trading market, and the yellow area represents the fees charged by breeding Axies). Source: AxieWorld
Axis is creating more than just a game; it is building a virtual country with its own economy. But it all starts with the game. The following is how Axie Infinity works (should be familiar to “Pokémon” players, and may be unfamiliar to others):
In Axie Infinity, players collect and raise cute digital pets Axies and eventually use them to fight other Axies. The core of this game is combat : either player versus player (PvP) or player versus environment (PvE).
Each Axie has four attributes: Health (Health), morale value (Morale), skills (Skill) and speed (Speed), give them the advantages and disadvantages in battle.
In addition, the attributes of each Axie depend on its category (beasts, reptiles, aquatic animals, insects, plants, birds, moon, nuts, and stars) and body parts (eyes, ears, horns, mouth, back and tail). Some types of Axies are better at attacking, and some are better at taking damage; Axies are set in groups of three (to form a team), and the skills of each group are partly derived from the configuration of “attacker” (attacker) and “tank” (tank) Mixed form, assembled in the best way to fight with other groups of Axies in the configuration.
In the battle, both sides take turns using their Axies cards to attack each other. Cards may have different effects, depending on the type of Axie you use it against. For example, using a “bird” card to attack a “beast” Axie will cause an additional 15% damage. The relationship between each group of categories is as follows:
As the player Howard mentioned at the beginning of the article said, this is a “strategy game.” Playing games depends more on skill than luck. If you want to learn more about the Axie game itself, start here :
As far as the player’s purpose is concerned, the most interesting thing is that by winning PvP and PvE battles and completing daily missions, players can obtain Smooth Love Potion (SLP) tokens. The reason for this name is that players need SLP to breed new Axies. This is the entry point of “Play-to-Earn”.
Top PvP players can earn up to 600 SLP per day; but for ordinary players, they can earn up to 200 SLP , which is equivalent to US$52 based on the SLP price of US$0.26 at the time of writing. In the United States, this is not a lot of money, but in many developing countries, more than $1,500 per month is a meaningful and life-changing fund. With these SLP tokens, players can do a few things :
- Breed new Axies. Axie Infinity will not create new Axies pets out of thin air. In order to meet the needs of new players (each new player needs to use ETH to buy 3 Axies before they can start playing the game), existing Axies holders can breed new Axies through a pair of existing Axies. Each Axie can breed up to 7 times, and the cost of each time is 4 AXS plus a certain number of SLPs (the more a certain Axie breeds, the more SLP it needs to spend increases, see the figure below). The breeding cost of a “Virgin Axie”_(first breeding Axie)_ is 4 AXS + 150 SLP (calculated at the price at the time of writing, approximately US$108.92). Given that the minimum price of each Axie is $195, breeding a new Axie is a profitable transaction.
- Speculation. SLP token holders may want to hold SLP for price speculation. In the past year, the price of SLP has increased by 21.8 times, from 0.0122 USD to 0.2664 USD, as shown in the figure below.
- Converted into legal currency. Both AXS and SLP can currently be traded on major DEX_(decentralized exchange)_ such as Uniswap. In the near future, they may be able to trade on Axie’s own DEX. Many players earn SLP and then convert it into local legal currency to pay real-world bills.
It was the third use case that caught the imagination of the public and promoted the explosive growth of the use of Axie. During COVID-19, many people in developing countries lost their jobs and could barely make ends meet. They switched to playing Axie Infinity to make ends meet . There is even a documentary called “Play-to-Earn” about this phenomenon:
This documentary shows a small Filipino town called Cabanatuan, where the Axie game spread from one person to many people, including a 75-year-old couple Lolo and Lola (see picture below), the couple played Axie The income from the game is used to supplement the 5-6 US dollars they earn from their own small shop every day to pay for their medical expenses.
Screenshot source: documentary “Play-to-Earn”
You may ask: “How can Lolo and Lola afford the 3 Axies needed to start the game? Doesn’t the cheapest Axie cost $195?”
I’m glad you asked. This is one of the most attractive economic Axie things: project-related scholarship __ _ (scholarship programs) ___ around the world have sprung up to provide the necessary Axies players have fighting spirit. The scholarship is actually to rent Axies to players and get rewards through _revenue sharing_ of SLP token revenue.
The documentary highlights Cabanatuan’s local scholarship program, which provides local players with Axies and training, as well as the blockchain union organization Yield Guild Games, which is globally known as _Axie Infinity_ and such as ” The Snadbox ” and ” League ” of Kingdoms and other emerging games provide the same service. Every day, many people send real, well-formed resumes to Yield Guild and other scholarship programs to apply for the scholarship, not only showing their professional credentials, but also their gaming experience.
Because the needs of players are beyond what the Yield Guild can meet, the organization launched a “Sponsor-a-Scholar” program that allows donors to provide players with their start-up funds. Li Jin recently announced the “Leaping Corgi Scholarship” program, which used the proceeds from an NFT sale to fund a total of 87 scholarships. The proceeds from this NFT auction are used to fund people in developing countries who want to make a living by playing NFT-based games in the “Metaverse”. This is very wild.
CoinGecko recently listed a list of 10 Axie scholarship providers (see picture below). Most of these providers are based in the Philippines . It can be said that this is not about the exploitation of developing countries by developed countries, but that people in developing countries help each other and build larger businesses on the Axie platform.
In a fast-moving online world, where blockchain-based companies and the economy have a market match, Axie Infinity is more likely to be a glimpse of the way of working in the future, rather than a flash in the pan . No matter where people live, they are building a business in “Metaverse.”
The “Meta Universe” has arrived, and it is evenly distributed.
In addition to these scholarships, some sponsors are already supporting players and providing their own “Play-to-Earn” missions. For example, the DeFi protocol is the first batch of larger sponsors to reward the native tokens of the DeFi protocol to Axie players who complete tasks: For example, Maker rewards players with stablecoin Dai, Aave rewards players with AAVE tokens, and Digix rewards players with real gold. In other words, these sponsors are directly rewarding players who follow them.
The opportunity to earn a living by playing games is enough to allow hundreds of thousands of people (about 60% of whom are in the Philippines) to complete Axie’s more complicated start-up process. Axie’s current approximately 600,000 players account for only a small part of the 111 million population of the Philippines, not to mention the global “Play-to-Earn” players.
Even before the craze of the past three months, the attractiveness of the Axie model has caused a large influx of demand into the Ethereum network, and the high gas fees of Ethereum have in turn inhibited the growth of Axie . Therefore, Sky Mavis, the development company of Axie, decided to solve the problem on its own.
Introducing Ronin
去年6 月，当DeFi 盛夏刚刚起步时，以太坊由于区块空间的巨大需求从两年的沉睡中苏醒。当时，Axis Infinity 将其最常使用的Axie NFTs 和SLP 代币部署在以太坊区块链之上，同时将较少使用的Land NFTs 和Item NFTs 放在Loom 侧链上，当时尚未发布其治理代币AXS。
Axis NFTs 和SLP 代币的活动加剧了以太坊网络的拥堵，并在以太坊Gas 价格飙升时受到影响。在6 月的一篇博客文章中，Axie 团队也写道，以太坊网络拥堵是「我们永远的障碍」 。为此，在该文章中，他们宣布他们正在搭建自己的侧链： Ronin 。
Axis 需要一个长期的解决方案，即能够(使玩家) 快速、廉价和无缝地参与到Axis 游戏和经济中。我们需要这个方案既有趣又简单！这就是为什么我们今天宣布Ronin 一个专门为Axis Infinity 设计的以太坊链侧链。Ronin 原意是指日本封建时期没有主人的武士，Ronin 侧链代表了我们想把产品的命运掌握在自己手中的愿望。
许多搭建在以太坊上的dApps (去中心化应用) 都感受到了网络拥堵的痛苦。但很少有应用去构建自己的侧链，而是选择使用其他L2 扩容方案(如Polygon 和Optimism)。就连以太坊上消耗最多Gas 的Uniswap 也决定在以太坊主网和Optimism 上推出v3 版本，而不是构建自己的解决方案。
但Axie 并非如此。Axie 搭建了一条有着自身钱包的侧链。以目前庞大的交易量来看，这是一个雄心勃勃的计划。鉴于2020 年6 月的时候，Axie 的营收仅为2044.09 美元，其野心是相当大的。但他们继续前行，经历了为期一年的搭建工作，今年5 月初， Axie Infinity 迁移到了Ronin 。
迁移之后，Axie 宇宙中的一切都发生在Ronin 侧链上，并在需要时桥接到以太坊。当前，主要是SLP 代币和AXS 代币桥接至以太坊；而Axie 中的ERC-721 资产(包括Axie NFTs、Land NFTs 和Items NFTs) 尚不能通过该桥梁进行转移，对此Jiho 表示，当前Axie Infinity 的用户尚未要求这项功能。这些资产在Axie 宇宙中要比在其他地方更有价值，且在很大程度上多亏了Ronin，Axie 宇宙中的活动要比web3 中的任何其他地方都要多。
从数据角度解读Axie：无限收益
我们今天谈论的是游戏，所以让我们来玩一个游戏：在下图中找出哪里是Axie 发布Ronin 的时间。
如图所示，自从5 月份解决了以太坊带来的拥堵问题，Axie 就迎来了爆炸性增长，对此你可以从上面的图表中看出来。如果保持这个收入增长速度，Axie 的收入将会：
但即使是这张图表也不能很好地解释它的来龙去脉。
对于任何一家公司来说，这几乎都是前所未有的规模增长。《Roblox》是一家市值430 亿美元的上市公司，在其运营的第17 个年头里，它在今年4 月份收益1.44 亿美元。
它是游戏领域有史以来表现最好的游戏之一，考虑到Axie 打破了在过去十年中占据主导地位的「Free-to-Play」(免费游戏) 模式，Axie 的表现更加令人印象深刻。
仅从4.25% 的分成中，Axis 就有望在本月创造超过1.5 亿美元的收益。仅在上周二，它的总交易量就达到了3,200 万美元，这与「Free-to-Play」游戏的最佳营收非常接近。
- 当你将它与其他基于区块链的应用以及整个区块链进行比较时，你会发现它真的很疯狂。
让我们以收入为基础，将Axie 与所有其他dApps 和区块链进行比较，见下图：
图源：Token Terminal
如上图所示，过去7 天，Axie 产生了3900 万美元的收入，而比特币的收入为450 万美元。过去的7 天里，除了以太坊之外，Axis Infinity 创造的总收入超过了任何dApps 或区块链。有趣的是，如果你扣除过去一周Axis 支付给以太坊的约220 万美元的Gas 费用，Axis 将重新占据了领先地位。
图源：Token Terminal
在过去30 天里，Token Terminal 的数据显示(见上图)，Axis 的协议收入是仅次于它的竞争对手PancakeSwap_(币安智能链上领先的DEX)_的7 倍多。Axie 也击败了像Compound、Aave、SushiSwap 和MakerDAO 这样的DeFi 巨头。更疯狂的是， Axis 在过去30 天里创造了8,150 万美元的协议收入，超过了上图中列出的其他dApps 或区块链。
图源：Token Terminal
作为一款可爱的游戏，这种表现还不错。但就总交易量而言，它相比于其他NFT 市场的表现如何？人们购买的Axies 的价值不可能会比在OpenSea 或CryptoPunks 这些NFT 市场上购买的所有NFTs 的价值更高，对吧?
图源：DappRadar
但是，如上图所示，在过去的24 小时、7 天和30 天里，Axis Infinity 的交易量超过了任何其他NFT 市场，包括OpenSea、Foundation 和Rarible 等开放市场，以及CryptoPunks、NBA TopShot 和SoRare 等特定NFT 资产市场。按历史总交易量计算，Axie 现在排第三，且令人惊讶的是， Axie 仅凭借其过去30 天的交易量就足以让它登上了历史第三的位置！
尽管大多数活动发生在Ronin 侧链上，但过去24 小时的数据显示， Axis 仍然是以太坊上的Gas 消耗量排第三的应用。见下图：
图源：EtherScan
最后，我们来谈谈代币本身。Axie 游戏的治理代币AXS于2020 年11 月初发布，自那以来已经增长了10,964 %，市值达到11 亿美元。见下图：
根据Delphi Digital 数据，尽管AXS 增长迅速，但其市盈率仍仅为7.7 倍(Delphi 是Axie 的投资者，该公司是最好的web3 研究公司之一，帮助设计了AXS 代币，因此他们对于该游戏的理解也是首屈一指的)。相比之下，《Roblox》仍未实现盈利，《侠盗猎车手》(Grand Theft Auto) 的开发商TakeTwo 的市盈率为33.5 倍。如果Axie 能维持目前的水平，这些水平将看起来相当便宜。
但这不仅仅是钱的问题。Axis 调查了玩家玩《Axis Infinity》的主要动机，48% 的人表示他们是为了经济收益而玩游戏，从而形成了在该平台上谋生的坚实基础，但37% 的人表示他们的主要动机是该社区。该社区主要存在于Axie 54.9 万成员的Discord 服务器中。它是世界上为数不多的拥有超过50 万用户的Discord 服务器之一。直到最近，Discord 还未支持超过50 万人的社区。相比之下，《堡垒之夜》的Discord 社区成员约为80 万。
数据可能造假，但用户对该社区和产品的喜爱无法造假。
在过去的一周里，Axie 的交易量如此之大，以至于它的服务器都出现了故障。该公司在其Discord 上发布消息称:
将游戏与区块链数据挂钩是一项新创造；这是之前没有人在如此多玩家面前做过的事。直到前几周，一切都很顺利，但当我们的日活跃玩家超过50 万时，服务器就开始崩溃了。
这是一个很大的问题。许多Axie 用户不能玩游戏。在经历收入持续增长的情况之后，由于服务器故障，Axie 的收入数字似乎在昨天停滞了几个小时。然而，人们仍然试图进入该游戏。他们无法停止玩《Axie Infinity》。当一切恢复正常，他们就会迅速而猛烈地回来。
最令人惊讶的是社区对其服务器奔溃的反应，他们中的许多人依靠Axie 谋生，但由于服务器故障暂时被拒之门外。Jiho 告诉我，他最担心的是，随着规模的扩大，社区是否能保持「亲密、文明和友爱」。但这次服务器故障似乎证明了一切都很好，这是很重要的，因为社区之爱是Axie Infinity 战略的关键部分。
乐高积木世界中的垂直整合
如果我们可以通过引入新人来建立一个由数百万受过区块链教育的用户组成的社区，那么我们就可以建立一个吞噬其他产品的庞然大物。
–Axie 联合创始人Jiho
还记得我在文章开头引用的那句话吗？Axies 可爱天真的形象掩盖了这是一款战略游戏的事实。该游戏背后的初创公司Sky Mavis 的整体战略也是如此，前所未有地结合了垂直整合和去中心化。
我们知道，web3 的部分优点在于，你可以将现有的协议、智能合约、区块链、L2s 和dApps 像乐高积木那样整合在一起。这就是所谓的可组合性( composability)。这意味着公司可以更快地行动，用更少的资源开发出越来越复杂和令人兴奋的产品。
Sky Mavis 团队对于Axie Infinity 的策略并非如此。
在Axie 社区中，将Axie 与特斯拉/SpaceX 进行类比似乎很常见。在与我的交谈中，Jiho 也进行了类似的比较，他表示，当你在构建一些非常复杂的东西时，你需要在内部构建所有东西。特斯拉自己生产电池、软件和零部件；从火箭引擎到电子元件，SpaceX 的整个供应链都是从零开始建立起来的。 Sky Mavis 也在自己建造一切。
这始于知识产权(IP)，也即Axies 自身。Sky Mavis 创造了Origin Axies和其他吉祥物，并且仍在其自己的钱包里存储着它们。
接下来是Sky Mavis自己开发并绘制的游戏。
接下来，Axie 在2018 年初建立了自己的NFT 交易市场，尽管OpenSea 已经在2017 年12 月推出。正如前面所提到的，Axie 的NFT 市场在过去30 天里的交易量比OpenSea 要大，尽管Axie 的NFT 市场只包括其自己的Axie NFTs。
Axie 也在打造自己的世界Lunacia ，并于2019 年开始拍卖「土地」，并同年晚些时候将Axie 和土地市场合并。在不久的将来，该公司计划发布基于土地的游戏玩法，开辟吸引社区的新途径，更重要的是，为玩家提供新的赚钱途径，详情可参见
Sky Mavis 还推出了自己的游戏内货币SLP ，可通过ETH 兑换法币，并在11 月推出了自己的治理代币AXS 。
正如我们所讨论的，Sky Mavis 不满于以太坊的拥堵和Gas 费用，也不满足于其他人的L2 解决方案，于是建立并合并了自己的侧链Ronin 和相关的Ronin 钱包，用户需要安装Ronin 钱包才能玩游戏。
Axie 的胃口真大。这就是到目前为止该团队的成果。接下来是什么呢？
我们想想为何垂直整合是有意义的，尤其是当前有足够好的模块化组件的情况下。如果垂直整合能够降低Axie 的成本并创建更好的用户体验，那么它将是更可取的。目前，玩家在Axie 宇宙之外花费交易费的主要是当他们需要在Uniswap 这样的DEX (去中心化交易所) 上将SLP 兑换成ETH，进而换成法币。
因此， Axie 垂直整合的下一步是构建自己的DEX。
目前，该计划是为了让玩家更容易地将Axie 相关的代币兑换成现实世界中可消费的货币，这对「Play-to-Earn」模式来说至关重要。正如该游戏玩家Noah Ralston 所说，这本身就可以省去很多麻烦：
这也让Axie 协议更有动力将更多的东西代币化(比如经验值、Ronin 侧链本身)，这些都可以在Ronin DEX 上交易。 Jiho 告诉我，他认为它可以成为有史以来用户数量最多的DEX 。
到目前为止，加密货币面临的最大挑战之一是如何解决大规模采用和用例的问题。如果Axie 能够在加密货币领域积累最大的用户群，帮助用户谋生，并让他们开心地参与进来，就能产生燎原之势。这就是他们现在进行垂直整合的原因– 他们拥有用户，他们希望抓住优势，改善用户体验。
Axie 不只是在创造游戏，它正在构建web3 聚合器，并反向整合尽可能多地拥有价值链。
此外，通过创造一些有趣的东西并吸引了大量的眼球，Axie 正在吸引不寻求回报的资本！这在加密领域是非常罕见的。这降低了它的资本成本，并以一种DeFi 协议无法做到的方式创造了收入。举几个例子:
购买Axies 作为宠物的人。全世界有20 亿宠物主人，其中99.99999% 的人买宠物的时候知道他们会损失很多钱。Axie 已经吸引了很多人，他们只是把Axie 当作宠物来购买，没有期望回报。
只是喜欢这款游戏的人。15% 的Axie 玩家认为其游戏玩法是他们这款游戏的主要动机，而不是由于经济收益或社区。
电子竞技比赛。Axie 很适合电子竞技比赛，并且随着最近的活动，它在Twitch (直播网站) 上的收视率也在上升。这些比赛将为生态系统带来赞助资金，以获取更多关注。
提供外源资本的赞助商。正如Facebook 和谷歌等其他聚合网站所清楚的那样，当你拥有大量用户时，你就拥有了一台印钞机。Aave 等赞助商已经在向该系统注入外源性资金，随着Axie 的日活跃用户攀升至数百万，赞助机会也将层出不穷。因为收入进入了由玩家控制的社区金库中，这种赞助关系可以是增值的而非榨取的。
但更疯狂的是， Axie 在垂直整合的同时正在实现去中心化，而不是将资金和权力掌握在Sky Mavis 40 人的小型核心团队手中。
Axie 宇宙的去中心化
Axie 正在通过一些方式实现去中心化。
首先，今年晚些时候，「AXS 生态系统将启动。」Axie 在2020 年11 月公开出售了AXS 治理代币，向公众出售了11% 的AXS 代币，此外包括私募出售、顾问股、Sky Mavis 团队以及一只生态系统基金，当时AXS 总发行量(2.7 亿枚) 的22.2% 开始流通。随着更多的AXS 代币在未来65 个月的时间内被解锁，Sky Mavis 将慢慢失去投票权，直到2023 年底失去其绝对投票优势。
图源:Axie Infinity 白皮书
到目前为止，该游戏的「 Play-to-Earn 」 主要是赚取SLP 代币，但在未来几个月，玩家也将能够通过游戏玩法赚取AXS 代币。与此同时，AXS 的持有者将能够质押(stake) 他们的AXS 获得更多的质押回报，并投票决定该游戏的未来发展方向。在白皮书中，该团队列出了一些社区应该能够投票的事项：
Axie Infinity 是否应该使用由Sky Mavis 创建的市场？
社区金库应如何用于奖励AXS 持有者和更广泛的Axie 社区?
社区金库的资金是否应该连接其他收益耕作/staking 服务(比如Yearn.finance 或Rari.Capital)？
作为实现去中心化的第二部分， Sky Mavis 将开放一个SDK，让其他开发者构建新的东西。Jiho 称其为「Internet Monster Protocol，人们可以获取该IP 并创建东西。」该团队设想着能够在Axie 宇宙中的许多_由用户生成的游戏_中使用Axies。
当前，该社区的一些成员已经开始创建Axie 内容，尽管只是为了好玩，不期待任何回报，如下图所示：
还有：
在接下来的两年内，如果一切按照计划进行，Axie 玩家将主导社区的方向，主要是通过对社区金库资金的使用进行投票，并将能够自己扩建Axie 宇宙，同时赚取代币。他们甚至可能决定取消Axie 的垂直整合，或者创建新的、更好的市场、侧链、钱包和交易所。
如果他们成功了，Axie 将拥有更好的利润空间和更好的激励机制。Axie 可能会成为「元宇宙」中一个更重要的部分，成为人们构建去中心化的线上世界的指路明灯，让工作和娱乐的界线变得模糊。
无限可能性
在什么情况下，虚拟世界会与现实世界相交并影响现实世界？
今天，现在，成千上万的人在虚拟世界里玩电子游戏谋生。他们是虚拟经济的参与者，用自己的战利品来改善自己在现实世界的命运。菲律宾、越南、巴西等地的孩子们申请Axie 奖学金，就像他们申请大学或工作一样，希望能让自己的发展轨迹向上。
在虚拟领域，Axie Infinity 将以可预见的方式扩展和利用其IP (知识产权)：
内容。在接下来的几年里，我们几乎不可能不会看到Axie 相关的电影或Netflix 节目。电影中使用的Axies 的NFT 所有权是否会为其所有者产生版税流？Mystic Axies 的所有者是否可以直接与工作室协商，或者在网上创建自己的角色，就像人们在考虑使用Bored Apes_(以猿类为主题的NFT 头像)和CryptoPunks (加密朋克NFT 头像)那样？ (注：Mystic Axies 是指具有至少一个神秘部位的Axies，它们的供应量有限，这使得它们很有价值。)_
宇宙扩张和UGC(用户生产内容)。Axie 团队已经表示他们无法创造足够的内容和体验来满足不断增长的用户需求，他们希望向玩家寻求帮助。Axie Infinity 是否会成为一个类似《Roblox》这样允许其他开发者进行开发的平台，给创造者更多赚钱的工具？
加密扩张。在已经拥有了数十万，很快将达到数百万的加密新用户后，Axie 是否会为这些加密新手提供越来越多的工具，不仅让他们赚钱，而且管理和增长他们的堆栈？
这听起来有些夸张，但Axie Infinity 仍有可能成为史上最具价值的IP。见证这一切将很有趣，但当Axie Infinity 意识到它在塑造现实世界政策以及帮助世界适应一个人们不再需要靠传统工作来生存的未来时，真正巨大的影响才会到来。
在推出Axie 之前，Jiho 从小就在收集化石和昆虫的环境中长大，后来在耶鲁大学(Yale) 学习军事和经济史，并在那里写了一篇关于亚历山大•汉密尔顿(Alexander Hamilton) 的债务重组计划的论文。Axie 是这两种书呆子激情的交集，也是一个利用他的知识和激情来帮助设计新经济的机会。
当有足够多的Axie 玩家通过游戏谋生时，该团队可以与政府合作，对全民基本收入(Universal Basic Income, UBI) 的影响进行受控实验。在现实世界的混乱环境中很难准确衡量UBI 的影响，但政府可以进行实验，将UBI 提供给特定的Axie 玩家，并衡量他们是否仍然是活跃的玩家、建设者和社区参与者。
编者注：全民基本收入(UBI) 是一种再分配方案，其核心思想很简单：每个公民(或每个成年人) 从政府那里定期领取收入补助金，这笔钱的申领没有任何附加条件，人们可以摆脱对工作的需求，自由地追求自己的梦想。
UBI 的一大挑战是，工作不仅仅关乎金钱，它还关乎意义、归属感和自我价值感。随着越来越多的自动化，需要的人力越来越少，我们将需要新的方式来交付这些东西和支票。在Kurt Vonnegut 于1992 年发布的第一部小说《 Player Piano 》中，他描述了一个未来的世界，自动化取代了大多数工作的需求，作为回应，政府雇佣人们一遍又一遍地挖洞，再把洞填回去。在「元宇宙」中，Axie 可能会帮助开创一个更充实、更有趣的工作时代。
我是不是说得太早了？确实。很多事情可能会出错：
整个加密领域可能会崩溃(我不相信，但有可能发生)。
即使从长远来看加密领域不会崩溃，另一个持续的加密寒冬可能会降低人们通过「Play-to-Earn」获得的资金，阻止Axie 的发展势头，并分裂社区。
Axie 以垂直的方式整合而不是使用现有的一流产品和协议，这意味着搞砸的可能性更大。
去中心化和将权利给予社区，可能会导致不可预知的结果。
其服务器可能会由于负荷而再次崩溃，导致玩家可能会觉得他们不能再依靠Axie 获得收入。
游戏行业是出了名的变幻无常，一个月的热门游戏可能在下个月就成了旧新闻。
但我感觉这里发生了一些特别的事情。「Play-to-Earn」(边玩边赚) 模式能够吸引那些想要谋生的新用户，并以一种更像是长期职业而非一时的游戏潮流的方式留住他们。将Axie Infinity 变成一个由用户拥有和管理的平台，可以通过网络效应和高转换成本创造粘性，这是平台的习惯做法。 「 元宇宙」 需要的不仅仅是娱乐，它需要模糊娱乐和就业之间的界线。Axie 已经证明了这是可能的。
Axie 的崛起正值加密市场横盘、NFT 热潮退去、人们质疑整个web3 是否真的会对现实世界产生任何影响之际，而Axie 的优异表现似乎值得关注。
当我们在10 年或20 年后回顾时，我相信，Axie 生命中的这段时期只是一个大事件的开始，就收益和影响而言，都只是更大的图表上的一个小点。在中等情况下，它将是一个由玩家拥有的、《Pokémon》规模的巨头，是垂直整合的一个典型例子；在最好的情况下，它将是「元宇宙」中的一个新的「国家」，改善了世界各地数百万人的生活。
作为一个可爱的小游戏，这真不赖。
来源链接： www.notboring.co
