Ethereum-based NFT Game Axie Infinity Goes Viral – Records All-Time High
Axie Infinity fans and/or investors are having the time of their lives. Axie Infinity’s AXS token rallied 45% overnight, recording an all-time high price of $18.34.
Axie Infinity is a Pokémon inspired open-world game on Windows, Mac, iOS and Android, where players raise, train and battle adorable little tokenized monsters called ‘Axies’.
The game became a hit toward the end of June, and now boasts more than 250,000 daily active players. The most expensive Axie ever sold was 300 ETH, or about $633,000 in today’s prices.
Axie Infinity’s success is incredible given the high entry barrier to play the game. The first step to being an Axie trainer is to procure three Axie NFTs, which is not that easy given that the cheapest critter on the Axie marketplace currently costs 0.1014 ETH, or about $214.
The AXS coin was launched through a sale on Binance in November last year. AXS stands for ‘Axie Infinity Shards’; the game rewards players with governance rights for their in-game questing and AXS HODLing.
AXS is an ERC-20 token, which means it’s a fungible Ethereum token, no different than MANA or SAND coins from gaming competitors Decentraland and The Sandbox. These ERC-20 tokens are different from the actual Axies, which are non-fungible tokens. Every one of the currently more than 1 million Axie NFTs are one-of-a-kind.
Today’s spike follows an extremely volatile week for game tokens. Yesterday, the top three blockchain gaming tokens AXS, MANA and SAND were all crashing after enjoying a seven day rally.
Upcoming open-world platform The Sandbox’s SAND token is worth $0.52 at the time of writing, having grown in price by 33.24% overnight, while Decentraland’s MANA token enjoyed an 18% surge to hit a new price of $0.75.
Blockchain gaming is a niche market with various economic and technological barriers to entry, but this week’s surging interest could indicate a bright future.
Axie Infinity has seen a major success in emerging markets, such as Philippines, where gaming teams, such as Alphaxie, even go so far as to offer scholarships to novice players to join their team.
