Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) are all the rage in the crypto-sphere in 2021 so far. They started off quietly in the first few months, but then they gained a momentum not seen before. They’ve been around for quite a while, so why the sudden interest? That’s not an easy question to answer as it comprised of several levels.

It all started with BitCoin and its revolutionary blockchain technology. What made the blockchain so interesting and game changing was its ability to authenticate digital data sources. Suddenly it became possible to have digital items linked to a source and can’t be altered or falsified.

This is what makes crypto-currencies so unique in the virtual world. And the blockchain tech that makes it all possible isn’t just limited to virtual currencies. It eventually paved the way for NFTs. These pieces of data are mainly processed and verified on the Ethereum blockchain.

This has provided and excellent base for this virtual section to take off from. Now, you might not know what NFTs are – besides knowing it is about digital files that is. As they are digital files, they can take quite a few forms. They can be digital pictures or digital tracks of songs that have never been released. You would be surprised at how many people have taken to NFTs to increase their brand awareness. The only reason that people have gone to such lengths for their work is because their source of origin is secure.

Now, this is no different on the gaming scene. Many tech platforms have realized that they can incorporate NFTs into games. It makes the world of sense, right? People in the gaming community have for many years had virtual worlds which they actively participate in. They have participated in the idea of having a digital collection of game items that they have collected. And many of these digital items were extremely difficult to come by.

And up until the merge of game NFTs, the digital items didn’t hold any real-world value if they ever left the game. This is where platforms like Axie Infinity come into the picture.

What Does Axie Infinity Have to Offer the Gaming Community

Axie Infinity has the bridged a gap that was once thought to be impossible. They opened up a way of getting in-game items able to be converted to a physical currency. Please do understand that it is not a direct way of cashing tokens in-game straight to your bank account. There is slightly more effort required for that.

Axie Infinity runs on the ETH blockchain with some help from the Ronin infrastructure. And while this is not the reason that Axie is set apart from other NFT coins, it had a unique approach to the virtual world at the right time. You could definitely say that they seized the opportunity at the right time with both hands.

In the last 15 years, it has become more than commonplace to pay for in-game items. Normally what happens in these types of games like Call of Duty and Fortnite, is that players would spend money on purchasing skins, better weapons or treasure crates. This then enabled players to stand out among the crowd. It mainly gave them an edge over other people and allowed them to win more games.

What never happened was then when players did well in a game or achieved some difficult tasks, they would then be rewarded with a token that could be cashed out. The developers of Axie Infinity saw a gap in the market of how NFT coins could do this.

Axie offers players the chance to obtain AXS (the Axie token) by playing their game. We will discuss how the Axie game works a little later. So now, regular game players have the opportunity to make their leisure time profitable for themselves. Many players today are probably very familiar with the frustration of having been told by their parents that playing games was an absolute waste of valuable time. Well now they have a chance to prove them wrong. But we might add that their parents were correct, time is valuable.  

How it Has Changed the Gaming Industry?

To be quite frank with you, it has flipped it on its head completely. And not only with games in general, but with NFT coins overall. The growth that Axie has seen is astronomical. Since its launch, the AXS has increased over 27,000%. Yes, you read that correctly.

But going back to the gaming aspect of Axie quickly. There hasn’t been a more popular game where players earn tokens that can be converted to ETH and then whatever currency a player chooses. It really sounds very simple and a little too easy. You would automatically think that there is a catch to Axie.

And there is a slight factor that can’t be overlooked. But let’s be brutally honest here. There are very little instances in life where you can get paid for not doing much. This principle applies to Axie as well. To be able to start the game, you have to purchase three Axies (playable characters in the game). To do so, you need to purchase AXS. This is normally done with ETH to encourage people to use crypto and thus blockchain technology. We think it’s a nice touch.

But to get back to the point, you cannot just play the game and hope to earn money without the initial deposit. And to that point, anyone who is thinking of playing Axie, should not see it as a once-off payment, but rather an investment. Because that is what it really is. The more effort and time that you put into the game, the bigger your return can be.

Most game players are not unfamiliar with the idea of paying for items in a game. So, this shouldn’t be a deterrent more most players. And this concept applies to people who use their mobile phones to play games and use in-app purchases. So Axie has two advantages going for them already – player habits and investment.

Axie Infinity: And the Metaverse

Ah the metaverse. This has obviously come into the spotlight more recently thanks to the Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Almost everyone knows about the Facebook group reaming and rebranding itself to Meta. Mark himself in the information release started discussing the reason for the name change was for them to become a leader in the metaverse.

So, what is the metaverse exactly? It sounds like something that comes from the Avengers universe. But it is actually something that a lot of people have been taking part of for many years already. This is especially true for gamers. The metaverse is comprised of many virtual worlds that can and can not be interconnected with each other. This might sound contradictory, but what it implies is that those virtual worlds that can’t be linked to another, can maybe do so one day – not that is impossible to do so.

The best way to visualize one part of the metaverse is to look at Axie. It is an online game where players mint NFTs (breed and create virtual characters). What makes Axie a part of the metaverse is its blockchain technology. It allows the tokens used in the game to be used outside the game, but in a different virtual world – ETH. So, this means that virtual world that would normally be closed off, like Fortnite, is now able to take part in another financial and digital world.

 We cannot emphasize enough how much of a revolution that this is. It may seem so obvious to you reading this, and you’re not wrong. What makes it so interesting is that it has taken this long to apply the blockchain to more than just a currency.

And the connection between Axie and the rest of the metaverse is more profound. People who cash in on the AXS tokens and convert it to ETH can take part in other NFT platforms now. These include the likes of OpenSea to purchase Bored Apes Yacht Club artwork. Or players could take that crypto and invest it in a portfolio of sorts.

There is now a way in which gaming can contribute the decentralizing of finance in the world without having to leave their seats. And the beauty of it is that they can do it playing a game for fun.

The AXS Token and How’s It Is Used

So, now to get to what the Axie game is and how the AXS token is used. As we said before, to be able to play the game, it is a requirement by the developers to purchase 3 NFTs. These are specific NFTs and are known as Axies. Axies are the playable characters in the game that players will use to fight other Axies in PvP (player versus player) matches.

The game is very similar in style and look to Pokemon Go and other similar games. It is a game of monsters fighting monsters and players vying to increase the level of their Axies. This then allows for them to create more Axies and make their Axies more valuable.

One very important thing about NFT coins and crypto in general, is that there is a limited number of tokens minted. The main reason for that is so that the coin will have value and not just be produced in infinite amounts. It would make no sense to do that with physical money. Imagine if the banks just started printing money, it would make it look worthless. Look at 1920’s Germany and 2000’s Zimbabwe for a good reference.

So, the same goes for AXS. And AXS is used as the in game monetary system for everything Axie related. AXS is even used for gas fees. Gas fees are the crypto used to process and verify the data on the blockchain.

Players can trade Axies with each other or just sell them outright. It has created a small digital economy with its own ecosystem. And because AXS is fundamentally the same as a crypto-coin (a crypto-coin with more than one purpose), it can also be invested in like ETH and BitCoin. This is all thanks to it blockchain technology.

Its not a very complex idea that has been implemented by the Axie developers. But is incredibly smart as they have been able to see what was coming and prepare for it. They took the opportunity.

The Axie Infinity Market History

Now that you understand the entire background of Axie and how it relates to the metaverse, we can get into the more technical details. Axie has been able to grow its daily user base to just over 1.8 million people, it is just mind numbing.

In January this year, the market cap of AXS was around the value of $28 million USD, in just 3 months, that value increased over 7 times to just shy of $ 249 million USD. This is the scale of the potential that gaming NFTs has.

In October last month, AXS hit an ultimate record as rode the NFT hype to reach a value of $145 USD. This increased to market cap to well over $ 9 billion USD. That is a value of 290 times its cap in January. The growth that Axies has experienced it has led it to become the largest NFT coin out there. Being almost 20 larger than the next coin. A completely different picture to how it started the year with.

The Potential Reached By Selling Axies

We will quickly look at the Top 10 most Expensive Axies Sold.

1. Angel

Token ID #1046

Sold for: $131,970 USD

2. 265

Token ID #265

Sold for: $97,597.10 USD

3. Greg

Token ID #2655

Sold for: $96,116.80 USD

4. Sergey

Token ID #2380

Sold for: $82,514.60 USD

5. 1330

Token ID #1330

Sold for: $62,414.45 USD

6. 188

Token ID #188

Sold for: $48,580.55 USD

7. 1268

Token ID #1268

Sold for: $48,041.75 USD

8. 1548

Token ID #1548

Sold for: $43,476.64 USD

9. 5505

Token ID #5505

Sold for: $42,666.75 USD

10. 2262

Token ID #2262

Sold for: $41,924.32 USD

This should put into perspective just how high a price people were willing to spend on a game character. These types of prices are virtually unheard of. Yes, we all know that gaming companies make millions of dollars through their in-app purchases. But this is different. This is what players paid other players. Let that sink in. This wasn’t the gaming platform that made that much money.

Instead of the company using micro-transactions to earn money from the game. Axie Infinity take 4.25% of all transactions that occur on their platform. It’s exactly like a bank. They charge a fee for using their platform. And to be honest, in this instance, the players don’t mind or even care that much. And that is because they are earning a vast majority of the profits. If you think about it, 4.25% of the total profit amounts to very little. You would probably be very hard pressed to find another arrangement that would work just as well.

Is Axie Infinity a Good Investment?

Let us have a look at the price chart for AXS over the last few months.

You can clearly see how the NFT hype was a great driver for the sudden increase in the price that AXS achieved. The average price of AXS was in the range of around $58 USD at the end of September and it is now currently sitting at $143.47. This is over the course of a few months.

Now a lot of people would look at this chart and just decide to invest in it for the sake of they hype. If that’s what you would like to do, we don’t just recommend jumping in for the sake of popularity. Rather try and see the value in what Axie Infinity has done with their platform.

Yes, you can make a quick profit by investing for the short term. It’s not that it’s a bad thing because its too risky (all investments carry risk). Its just that you could lose out on the potential long run that Axie could achieve. There is a reason they have 1.8 million regular players. That number is bound to grow as people are very quick on the take with something like this. Whether its for the hype of just the enjoyment of earning while playing. Axie Infinity is going places.

They have set the precedent of what other NFT gaming companies should aim for. One could think of them as the BitCoin of NFT games. It’s not that they’re the only ones doing it, its just that they were the first and best at it.

So, if you processed all the information above about Axie, you probably want to know if it’s worth investing in. We’ve provided you with a mountain of details about what it is and where it could go. The answer is yes. Why? Because if you see the value in what this game has achieved so far, you can see what it is going to do – and you’ll want to be a part of it.