The opening of a new Builder Program and release mechanism in the leading play-to-earn game Axie Infinity is driving more users to its Ronin sidechain this week. The new initiative allows community members to contribute to the development of the games ecosystem. As a result, ??activity on the decentralized exchange Katana and the play-to-earn game Axie Infinity has shot up in the last 24 hours.
Axie Infinity has attracted almost 20% more user wallets since the announcement, pushing that figure past 130,000. While Katana, the native decentralized exchange of Ronin, which facilitates token swaps for players’ user activity leaped almost 40%.
Katana processed over 82,000 transactions within the last 24 hours and only permits swaps between the native tokens of the Axie platform, SLP, and AXS. With USDC and WETH available as methods to cash out or HODL for players. Looking at the data, Ronin Wrapped Ether (WETH) accounts for over $31 million in trading volume, while the AXS token 24-hour volume stands at just over $17 million.
The top traded pairs are AXS-WETH and SLP-WETH as players continue to earn and utilize SLP within the game and hold AXS to participate in governance and future decisions.
However, this is not the only announcement from Sky Mavis this week. The studio also announced the launch of a much anticipated in-game feature whereby players now have the opportunity to release their Axies to live independently in Lunacia. On a technical level, that means gamers will destroy their own Axies. In return, they will receive exclusive gifts. For the moment, these gifts will come in the form of exclusive Land items, cosmetic items that players can place on their virtual land.
In expectation of the release mechanism, it’s possible players are scooping up more lower-priced Axie’s on the marketplace to release them and gain land items, which may become more valuable as the game develops further.
Axie Evolution
While Axie Infinity is the clear market leader in the play-to-earn sector, many suitors are on its heels. Evolution is key to survival and essential while maintaining a lead in a space packed with new entrants. Currently, gaming drives the blockchain industry closer to mass adoption, as roughly half of all wallets connected to a blockchain interact with gaming dapps.
Adding the ability to build Axie themed mini-games atop the original platform is a way to drive significant user activity and grow the platform without increasing the core team. In turn, they bring more value to the AXS governance token and push Axie Infinity further into the metaverse. In addition, the campaign requires developers to use AXS or SLP in their game design, creating demand for both tokens.
The above does not constitute investment advice. The information given here is purely for informational purposes only. Please exercise due diligence and do your research. The writer holds ETH, BTC, AGIX, HEX, LINK, GRT, CRO, OMI, IMMUTABLE X, ENS, GALA, AVASTR, GMEE, CUBE, RADAR, FLOW, FTM, BNB, SPS, WRLD, ATOM, and ADA.
