Axie Infinity revenue surpasses top DeFi protocols! Play-to-earn games trending in Southeast Asia, is it the prime time for pro gamers?

Axie Infinity, an NFT game known as the "Pokémon of the crypto world," generated $7.6 million in revenue over the past week, surpassing other top DeFi protocols by a large margin despite the significant market correction. This year, a player from the Philippines claimed to have purchased two houses through this game, making it arguably the closest game in the blockchain space to the movie "Ready Player One."

Monthly Revenue Nears $20 Million

Axie Infinity co-founder Jeff Zirlin quoted Token Terminal data on Twitter stating that in the past week, Axie Infinity's revenue reached $7.6 million, surpassing the total revenue of the second to fifth protocols:

• Metamask: $2.1 million
• Pancakeswap: $1.9 million
• Synthetix: $1.3 million
• MakerDAO: $1.2 million
• Curve: $807,000

Jeff Zirlin mentioned that the revenue mainly comes from "breeding fees" and a 4.25% transaction fee from the NFT marketplace. He emphasized that Axie's product is still in its early stages, with many significant updates planned in the next nine months.

Looking at a monthly basis, Axie Infinity still ranks first with a revenue of $18.1 million, followed by Pancakeswap at $13.7 million.

Crypto Pokemon NFTs

Axie Infinity, referred to as Axie, is issued on Ethereum by the Vietnamese game developer SkyMavis. Similar to CryptoKitties, Axie players can breed and trade virtual pets within the game.

Unlike CryptoKitties, Axie incorporates a popular three-versus-three PvP (Player versus Player) battle mechanism. Players can earn game reward tokens called SLP (Smooth Love Potion) through battles, adventures, and completing daily tasks.

SLP can be sold on Binance and Uniswap for profit, or used for breeding pets to obtain potentially more valuable pet NFTs. How does the official team and the market maintain the price of SLP?

Playing Games to Buy Houses?

Players need two Axie pets and the corresponding SLP tokens for each breeding session. Reddit users mention that achieving 150 SLP per day is basic, but reaching 200 or more depends on the win rate in 3v3 battles. Therefore, players need higher-level Axies to increase their win rate, which drives the demand for SLP.

Currently, the price of SLP is around $0.15. If one reaches the minimum of 150 SLP per day, they can earn approximately $675 per month, which is several times the salary of some people in certain Southeast Asian countries.

Earlier this year, the Commercial Times reported that the minimum daily wage in Manila, the Philippines, is 512 pesos, equivalent to about 291 New Taiwan Dollars, with a monthly salary of less than 9,000 NTD.

As a result, Axie is gradually gaining popularity in the Philippines, with more people seemingly joining after the outbreak of the pandemic last year.

In May of this year, a young Filipino named John Aaron Ramos even stated on Facebook that he bought two houses by playing Axie.

Realizing the Dream of Professional Gamers?

Setting aside the authenticity of the house purchase mentioned above, Axie not only outperforms mainstream protocols in revenue but also showed significant growth when the NFT market trading volume plummeted in May.

Additionally, Mark Cuban, owner of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks, who has recently taken an interest in the NFT space, participated in Axie's $7.5 million Series A funding round. Other investors include Reddit co-founder Alex Ohanian, DeFi Alliance, and GoinGecko Ventures.

However, the sustainability of Axie's token economy model remains to be seen. The SLP to ETH exchange rate has already increased by over 1,200% this year. Games focused on making money usually struggle to maintain as users will eventually cash out and lock in profits. The game needs a continuous influx of new players to maintain SLP's price. If profits decline gradually, players aiming to make money may cash out, leading to a price spiral downward.