But what sort of games will be in the NFT Market place? How will GameStop make any money on NFTs? Come take a dive with the Jellyfish on what is likely to come!
So in conversing with folks, it seems some Apes would benefit from what a 'live' game looks like. Before going any further, I do not endorse Axie, think that you should purchase it, or do anything at all with it. Rather, my intent is to walk through the mechanics of the game and economics this game.
AGAIN, DO NOT BUY THIS, I DO NOT WANT YOU TO BUY THIS, I AM NOT RECOMMENDING ANYTHING ABOUT IT, THIS IS FOR LEARNING/EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY!!!!
Ronin is a 'sidechain', I expect we will see many of these interacting with the GameStop NFT Marketplace.
Sidechains are separate blockchains that run parallel to E t h e r e u m. They have their own miners (often called validators or operators), their own consensus algorithm, and their own bridge to transfer assets to and from the main chain (in this case, E t h e r e u m).
Users deposit by locking their assets in a mainnet smart contract. To withdraw back to E t h e r e u m, users initiate an exit on the Ronin sidechain, then provide a proof of the exit once it is included in the side chain's history.
Sidechains are great at general computation, and all EVM contracts can be ported directly to run on the sidechain, enabling E T H-like interoperability between contracts on each sidechain, as well as application-level logic. This makes them a common choice for NFT scaling, as applications can migrate with low overheads and development time.
However, I am generally wary of sidechains as they usually relax E t h e r e u m 's security and decentralization in exchange for some level of scale. New users should be mindful not to assume that E T H assets, while in a sidechain, are just as secure as they are on mainnet: they are only as secure as the consensus algorithm of the sidechain--you have to really trust them!
For sidechains with a limited number of operators (not really decentralized then is it though?) and a vulnerable consensus algorithm (i.e. a lot of them), this could result in the complete theft or ransom of all user assets stored in the sidechain.
I suspect we are going to see a page very similar with these functions spelled out for the GameStop coin.
All of this said, Axie Infinity is a Pokรฉmon-inspired universe where anyone can earn tokens through skilled gameplay and contributions to the ecosystem. Players can battle, collect, raise, and build a land-based kingdom for their pets.
All art assets and Axie genetic data can be easily accessed by 3rd parties, allowing community developers to build their own tools and experiences in the Axie Infinity universe.
While still in early access, Axie is ranked the #1 E t h e r e u m game by daily, weekly, and monthly active users. It has generated over 13,000 E t h e r e u m in revenue (16M+ USD) so far.
While Axie tries to be a fun game, it's also taken on characteristics of a social network and jobs platform due to the strong community and play to earn opportunities that have come from its early success.
The key difference between Axie and a traditional game is that Blockchain economic design is used to reward players for their contributions to the ecosystem.
This new model of gaming has been dubbed "play to earn". Axie has attracted thousands of players from developing countries in the pursuit of a new income stream during the Covid pandemic.
Players can earn by:
- Competing in PVP battles to win leaderboard prizes.
- Breeding Axies and selling them on the marketplace.
- Collecting and speculating on rare Axies such as Mystics and Origins.
- Farming for the love potions that are needed to breed Axies. These can be sold on exchanges such as Uniswap and Binance.
- Starting in 2021 players can earn a governance token, AXS, which represents a real slice of the game universe as it has governance rights and fee-sharing built into it. Since players can earn this token by playing, a Ready Player one-type quest emerges where players can actually earn part of the universe. However, these quests are not winner takes all and reward each player based on their effort and skill.
Audit of token: https://cdn.axieinfinity.com/landing-page/AXS_Audit_Report.pdf
Wait so this NFT stuff is making money? YES!
last 24 hours
last 7 days
last 30 days
In June Specifically:
Their volume sales volume almost 3x NBA Top Shot
Monthly volume on their marketplace skyrocketed 334% to over 128 million dollars (57,000 E t h e r e u m).
They crossed 250,000 daily active players and 200,000 Discord members. Weโre on track to become the largest Discord server in the world, passing Fortnite, in about 18 weeks.
https://axie.substack.com/p/june-development-update-05f
https://axie.substack.com/p/june-development-update-05f
Ronin is the technology they have used to try and scale their solution.
This monthโs progress:
- There is a Ronin Whitepaper in the works. It will describe our vision, the underlying technology, as well as the RON token and its function in the ecosystem.
- We surpassed 100 M USD deposited on Ronin!
So, there we have it, a high-level overview of a game I think we are likely to see in GameStop's marketplace.
For those still doubting the move to crypto and the metaverse, I hope these numbers give you hope:
-350k active daily players
-highest 7-day protocol revenue of any dApp (Gaming is winning in this space!!!!)
Growth is largely being fueled by 'Play-to-Earn' where in-game tokens can be sold/monetized.
The precision of a slot machine (smart contract) + developer and gamer's imagination = some really cool shit is going to go down!
