Volumes surge 205% in Axie revival as co-founder claims project is ‘healing’

Interest in Axie Infinity appears to be picking up again following the launch of its new NFT land staking feature and ongoing upgrades to the Origin battle game mode.

Play-to-earn (P2E) Metaverse game Axie Infinity appears to be on the mend, with its NFT sales volume pumping 205% over the past seven days.

The project’s co-founder Jeff Zirlin echoed such sentiments via Twitter on July 8, after he stated that the project was “healing” in reference to the strong adoption of NFT land staking, the Ronin bridge being back up, and a notable uptick of game downloads and NFT sales.

22,000 Axies sold in the last 24 hours. Was at 7,000 a few weeks ago.

Origin growing quickly with the new Alpha Season. 4,600 downloads yesterday.

Bridge is up. Land (90% staked) is emitting AXS.

Nature is healing. pic.twitter.com/AdNzi8x4cb
— The Jiho.eth (@Jihoz_Axie) July 7, 2022

According to data from CryptoSlam, Axie infinity generated $1.3 million worth of sales over the past seven days from a total of 23,100 buyers, marking a 205% increase for the week.

One of the contributing factors to the sudden increase appears to be the surging appetite for Axie Infinity land NFTs following the launch of staking support on July 4. The staking feature enables land owners to earn weekly rewards in the game's native AXS token. At the time of writing, roughly 91% of the 16,794 circulating supply has been staked, according to data from the Ronin Chain explorer.

The project also launched the second phase of upgrades to its new game mode this month dubbed “Origin,” which had 600,000 sign-ups as of mid-June. The game is in early access mode ahead of an eventual global launch, and it enables users to collect, trade, and battle each other with their playable Axie monster NFTs. The upgrades were said to have fixed a host of bugs in-game.

The increasing NFT sales volume is likely due to the Ronin bridge relaunching on June 28. The bridge is a sidechain built for Axie Infinity which enables users to transfer assets between the game and the Ethereum mainnet. However, it had been offline since late March following the infamous $600 million hack.

Despite this, the 205% surge in volume over the past week only places Axie Infinity as the 18th highest selling NFT project within that time frame, a far cry from its chart-topping days in late 2021.

The Axie Infinity eco-system has suffered from a long downward trend since it peaked in interest in November. That month saw the project generate a whopping $753.9 million worth of NFT sales, while its native AXS token hit an all-time high (ATH) of $164.90. As of June, its NFT sales for the month totaled just $3.1 million, while AXS is down 91.4% from its ATH to trade at $14.18 at the time of writing.

Axie Infinity NFT sales volume: CryptoSlam

With player retention and gaming longevity being seen as crucial issues for the project, the Axie Infinity team has been exploring ways to expand the ecosystem of late.

In a July 9 blog post, the Axie Infinity team noted that its vision is to create an “entire gaming universe” with comprehensive lore similar to iconic series such as Star Wars, Final Fantasy, or the Lord of the Rings.

As part of the push, the team will be rolling out content focused on building up the story behind the game’s fictitious world, “Lunacia,” in partnership with gaming-focused decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) Strider.

The team also stated that it recently launched three new programs aimed at fostering community growth called the “Lunacian Codes, the Creator Program, and a fellowship collaboration.” The first two focus on rewarding users via referrals and content creation, while the latter provides funding for 200 fellowships as part of a creator academy.

Axie Infinity

An Axie Infinity player from the Philippines claims to have purchased two houses with profits earned through playing the crypto-powered play-to-earn game.

An Axie Infinity player from the Philippines bought two houses with his earnings from the popular crypto-powered play-to-earn game.

Earlier this month, 22-year-old John Aaron Ramos, who plays under the pseudonym “Magnus TV,” took to social media to announce that he had purchased two houses in the Philippines from profits earned playing Axie Infinity.

In the post, Ramos attributes the purchases to the surging price of Axie’s in-game token Smooth Love Potion (SLP), which rallied 940% from $0.035 on April 24 to more than $0.364 on May 2. SLP has since retraced 45% and last changed hands for roughly $0.20.

“I believed in AXIE’s ability to lift us up, I held an SLP, paid attention to the trend of AXIE Community and did some research [...] then I played with the price of SLP to have enough funds to buy two houses and one team.”

Players of Axie Infinity can earn SLP through the games’ PVP battle area, where players battle their Axies — Pokemon-inspired creatures that are bred in the game and represented as nonfungible tokens.

SLP currently ranks as the 428th-largest crypto asset by capitalization with $81 million, driving more than $45 million worth of trade in the past 24 hours.

In addition to SLP, Axie players also have opportunities to earn the game's governance token, AXS. The AXS token has also seen meteoric gains recently, gaining 5,114% from $0.14 to $7.30 in the six months since the token began trading.

Ramos participated in Yield Guild Games’ “Sponsor-A-Scholar” program, which encourages sponsors to donate SLP to Axie players based in countries where the set up-costs associated with playing Axie infinity may prove too prohibitive to many prospective users.

Axie Infinity reportedly became popular in the Philippines towards the end of 2020, as people sought alternative ways to make money after losing their jobs due to the pandemic.

Axie Infinity NFTs