The price of AXS — the native governance token of play-to-earn blockchain game Axie Infinity — broke its all-time high over the weekend, hitting US$19.52 according to data from CoinMarketCap, up 275% from its price at the start of the month.
Fast facts
- Axie Infinity is a play-to-earn style game similar to Pokémon, where players train and battle creatures called “Axies.” Each of the more than 1 million Axies currently in the game is a non-fungible token (NFT), which can only be purchased on the Axie Infinity marketplace. The Axie Infinity marketplace migrated to the Ronin sidechain on the Ethereum network at the beginning of May. Since then, the game has seen its user base continue to grow.
- Following this price surge, a token on the AXS ecosystem called SLP — short for Small Love Potion — surged more than 100% on July 1 to a high of US$0.2663 at press time, according to data from TradingView.com. These SLP tokens are used as in game currency to help breed Axies and are essential to play the game.
- As AXS and SLP prices have continued to rise in the past six months, Axie Infinity’s play-to-earn function has made it popular as a source of income for people around the world, including in the Philippines, Venezuela, Cuba, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Axie Infinity’s community in the Philippines is particularly well documented, where some players have been able to earn more money by playing the game than through their previous jobs.
- Axie Infinity’s popularity is rising despite a high barrier to entry for the game, which requires purchasing three Axie NFTs on the games marketplace. This has become even more difficult over this past weekend with the cheapest Axie available going for 0.1594 ETH, or US$343.59. The most expensive Axie ever sold went for 300 ETH in November last year, or US$130,000 at the time, now worth over US$600,000.