A handful of altcoins are seeing a “major surge” in address activity, according to the crypto analytics firm Santiment. The firm notes that Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Smooth Love Potion (SLP), Mask Network (MASK) and Civic Pass (CVC) have all hit three-month highs in terms of daily active address counts. Bitcoin Cash, a Bitcoin (BTC) hard fork […]
The post ‘Keep an Eye’ on Bitcoin Cash (BCH), These Three Altcoins as One Key Metric Hits a Three-Month High: Santiment appeared first on The Daily Hodl.
Money is now cycling to a handful of low-cap altcoins after large-caps saw a price bounce across the first three weeks of January, according to Santiment. Crypto analytics firm Santiment notes that Ribbon Finance (RBN), Smooth Love Potion (SLP) and Marlin (POND) all are seeing a rise in address activity. “With large caps like Solana, […]
The post Several Low-Cap Altcoins Are Quietly Witnessing Major Inflows After Impressive Returns on Larger Crypto Assets: Santiment appeared first on The Daily Hodl.
Contrary to the obvious explanation, this massive whale wallet is not owned by Axie Infinity or the company behind it, Sky Mavis.
For nearly a year now, a mysterious Axie Infinity wallet has been quietly amassing billions of Smooth Love Potion (SLP), the in-game cryptocurrency powering one of the industry’s most popular play-to-earn (P2E) crypto games.
Today, the anonymous whale wallet now holds a little over 22 billion SLP — more than 50% the total circulating supply of the token.
The problem? No one knows who it belongs to and what their intentions are.
The wallet in question was brought to Cointelegraph’s attention by Axie Infinity player and tech co-founder Michael Benko, who first caught wind of this mysterious wallet on Aug. 25.
Benko told Cointelegraph he became concerned about the wallet given the amount of SLP it had gathered in a relatively short amount of time, which could potentially wreak havoc on the game’s ecosystem.
“The significance of a wallet holding so much SLP, if it's an individual person, gives that person a huge amount of control over an economy, especially in an economy where it’s so hard to mint a token.”
Launched in 2021, Axie Infinity is a blockchain-based game in which players purchase NFTs of cartoon creatures which they breed and fight against other players in turn-based gameplay.
SLP is earned by players for completing daily quests, battling other players in the “Arena” mode or playing against AI in the “Adventure” mode. The SLP can be used for breeding Axies, crafting in-game runes and charms (power-ups), and can be sold on exchanges.
Benko noted that as per the latest season update, an average Axie Infinity player can generate between 10 to 70 SLP per day, depending on how good they are at the game.
“So it is a concern, if someone's sitting there with 22 billion SLP [...] they could really keep the price flat or keep the price down when it actually should, by natural market conditions, be going up.”
The cryptocurrency is currently priced at $0.004, down 99% from an all time high of $0.40 on Jul. 13, 2021, according to Coingecko.
Theories explaining the existence of the wallet have only led to dead-ends so far.
Benko initially theorized that the wallet was “some system Axie Infinity had to automatically distribute SLP to players who earned it.”
However, Sky Mavis co-founder and COO Aleksander Larson told Cointelegraph that neither Sky Mavis nor Axie Infinity hold any of the game’s cryptocurrency, stating:
“All tokens in existence have been created by players.”
Yield Guild Games co-founder Gabby Dizon — one of the major DAOs for players of Axie — said YGG didn’t own the wallet and suggested it could be a wallet used by an exchange to hold liquidity.
Related: Axie Infinity looking to ‘double-down’ on Korean market: KBW
“Don't think this is ours as we typically use all of our minted SLP for breeding,” said Dizon, adding that “the most likely explanation is that an exchange is holding it for their liquidity.”
Benko however noted that while many SLP transactions saw Binance as a sender or recipient for many transactions, upon looking at the transactions, he doesn’t believe that it is a wallet owned by the crypto exchange.
“Binance seems to have an official wallet [already] and this doesn't seem to be that wallet.”
Cointelegraph reached out to Binance for comment but has not received a response at the time of writing.
If you have any theories on who is behind the wallet contact felixng at cointelegraph.com
After recording more than $4 billion in all-time sales, Axie Infinity announced the game’s classic mode will no longer allow users to obtain smooth love potion (SLP), as SLP rewards have been added to the new Origin ranked gameplay mode. The team also introduced non-fungible token (NFT) runes and charms that can be minted on […]
Interestingly, an AXS technical setup also predicts a 2,500% price rally despite the token facing major headwinds ahead.
Axie Infinity (AXS) has dropped by roughly 90% after peaking out at $172 in November 2021.
AXS's sharp correction has made it one of the worst performing digital assets among the top-ranking cryptocurrencies. Moreover, it could undergo further declines in the coming months, according to a mix of technical and fundamental catalysts listed below.
To recap, AXS serves as a settlement token within the Axie Infinity's gaming ecosystem, allowing players to purchase native nonfungible tokens (NFT), a flurry of digital pets called "Axies."
It also acts as a work token that players can spend to breed new Axies.
New users that enter the Axie Infinity ecosystem need Axies to pit them in a battle against other Axies. When they win, the platform rewards them with another native token, called Smooth Love Potion (SLP) while winning larger tournaments grants them AXS.
As a result, old Axie Infinity players rely on new ones to maintain demand for Axies.
Otherwise, they could risk old players selling their SLP and AXS earnings in marketplaces (for example, crypto exchanges), thus adding downside pressure to their rates.
But when the valuations of Axie Infinity's native tokens drop, it also makes the game less appealing to new players, who would still need to pay for Axies to be able to earn lower-valued SLP and AXS units.
The Axie Infinity ecosystem has gone through the stages, as mentioned above, in 2022, with its player count dropping to 8,950 in June from 63,240 in January—an almost 85% decline, according to data provided by Dapp Radar. Interestingly, that coincides with AXS's 80% price drop in the same period.
Simultaneously, Axie Infinity's in-platform volume, measured after assessing its Ronin chain data, has dropped from $300 million in September 2021 to a mere $2.12 million in June 2022.
At the same time, the project's top executives have quietly changed their "play-to-earn" mission statement to "play-and-earn," with its new head of product, Philip La, admitting in his August 2021 post that "Axie Infinity first needs to be a game."
Axie’s problem is that it's always been a speculative tool wrapped in rhetoric about fun and community. The developers want it to go back to being just a game, when most players never saw it as a game in the first place. When the earning stops, the playing stops. 12/12
— Joshua Brustein (@joshuabrustein) June 10, 2022
Fresh inflation data has further dampened upside sentiments across the top-ranking cryptocurrencies, which, in one way or another, boosts AXS's bearish outlook.
Notably, the U.S. consumer price index (CPI) rose by an annual pace of 8.6% in May versus 8.3% in the previous month, heightening investors' fears that the Federal Reserve will be forced to hike interest rates aggressively in the coming months, which would push riskier assets lower across the board.
AXS dropped 7.5% after the report came out on June 10, and fell by another 7% on June 11 to reach its three-week low of $16.79. The prospect of lower cash liquidity, led by the Fed's hawkish policies, could result in more losses for the Axie Infinity token.
The slew of negative fundamentals has sent AXS's price below a key support level, which may lead to extended downside moves in the coming weeks.
AXS plunged below $18-$19 support range this week, which was instrumental in capping its downside attempts since the beginning of May. Also, testing the range as support had followed up with a circa 800% bull run between July 2021 and November 2021, as shown below.
Now, the path of least resistance for AXS looks skewed to the downside with the next downside target at around $9 by September 2022, more than 50% lower than today's price. Notably, the $9-level served as resistance during the April-June 2021 session.
Conversely, a bullish cue comes from AXS's potential "descending broadening wedge" (DBW) pattern on the weekly timeframe, confirmed by the token's fluctuation between two diverging, falling trendlines.
Related: Metaverse tokens up 400% year on year despite altcoin bloodbath
Traditional analysts consider DBW as a bullish reversal pattern, which, as a rule of technical analysis, resolves after the price breaks above the structure's upper trendline and rallies by as much as the pattern's maximum height, as shown in the chart below.
If the pattern is confirmed, AXS would rebound on the path toward $465 within an unspecific timeframe, nearly a 2,500% increase from today's price.
The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.
The world’s largest Ethereum (ETH) whales are loading up on three metaverse altcoins as the crypto markets flash signs of improvement. Outside of stablecoins and ETH, the play-to-earn blockchain gaming platform Gala (GALA) was the top target for the 100 largest Ethereum wallets on Sunday, according to blockchain tracker WhaleStats. The top 100 ETH addresses […]
The post Ethereum Whales Are Loading Up on Three Metaverse Projects and Two Ethereum Altcoins, According to On-Chain Analysis appeared first on The Daily Hodl.
Fresh data shows the world’s biggest Ethereum whales are stocking up on a pair of gaming tokens while the broader crypto markets maintain positive momentum after a sluggish start to the year. The latest numbers from WhaleStats reveal the 1,000 wealthiest non-exchange Ethereum addresses are buying into Decentraland (MANA), a virtual reality world that runs […]
The post Crypto Whales Are Focusing on Two Gaming Altcoins As Bitcoin and Ethereum Move to the Upside appeared first on The Daily Hodl.
One play-to-earn (P2E) altcoin is seeing major gains after news spread that its future supply would be cut drastically. In a new blog post, hit blockchain-based game Axie Infinity (AXS) announced a major rule change for its 20th season where players will no longer earn Smooth Love Potion (SLP) for completing “daily quests” in an […]
The post Metaverse Token From Axie Infinity (AXS) Ecosystem Suddenly Erupts 150% in Less Than a Week appeared first on The Daily Hodl.
Crypto analytics firm Santiment says that the native token of a popular Ethereum-based gaming project is starting to look bullish after a multi-month downtrend. Santiment says that Smooth Love Potion (SLP), which is earned by participating in the Axie Infinity (AXS) game, could soon be bottoming out after falling by over 97% from its all-time […]
The post This Ethereum-Based Gaming Altcoin Is Flashing Bullish Signals After Hitting a New All-Time Low: Santiment appeared first on The Daily Hodl.
On Friday, the game token utilized within the Axie Infinity gaming realm has once again captured another all-time price high at $32.17 per unit. The game token has outperformed a great majority of crypto assets by commanding more than 844% in gains during the last month. Axie Infinity Outperforms Crypto Competitors The cryptocurrency community is […]
