Axie Infinity’s rich-poor divide

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Hello readers,

It’s me, Terence. As some of you know, I suspended the Editor’s Letter recently.

Many of you miss it, and some of you don’t. It’s all right – I have too many emails flooding my inbox, too.

But I cherish writing these letters. So I thought, why not contribute to the daily newsletter?

It’s a win-win: Rather than squeezing words out of my arse each week, you’ll only hear from me when I have something interesting to say. Sounds good, amirite?

Anyway, I’m proud of a story we published last week about how several Axie Infinity players feel stuck, thanks to a drastic cut in their earnings.

For speculators with cash to spare, Axie Infinity is a casino rather than a game.

(I tried playing it; it’s like Pokemon, except you’re mostly stuck with three of them. Can you imagine what a grindfest that would be? If you want to try different axies, you’d need to buy or trade for them, which may entail forking out substantial money.)

For everyone else, they’re at the absolute mercy of market forces.

Make no mistake about it: Axie Infinity’s utopian vision is admirable. But its creators have said that it’s a long way from reaching that point.

I’m proud that we’re doing stories that pierce the bubble blown by crypto shills. Some of them are no different from cultists. Case in point: an Axie Telegram chat moderator called our writer Derek an “absolute idiot” for asking probing questions. (And trust me, I know a fanatic when I see one – I used to attend a megachurch.)

This is not isolated, Derek’s story shows.

This anecdote reminds me of a non-Axie-related incident in which one of our sources was recently threatened for sharing some honest opinions about certain people in power.

Thankfully, he brushed it off. He appreciates that Tech in Asia exists to provide candid coverage about the tech industry.

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Why has the price of Axie Infinity’s cute monsters sunk so much?

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This startup has some cool investors

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Scoring points with Mother Nature

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