Explaining Axie Infinity and its mercurial rise

Servillo and Verginia Enriquez, 75 and 65, live in a rural Filipino town that was ravaged by Covid-19. They now earn a mere 150 pesos (US$3) daily from their sari-sari or convenience store, which was hit hard by the pandemic.

In order to survive, the elderly couple – known as Lolo Silverio and Lola Vergie in their community – turned to Axie Infinity, a blockchain-based, play-to-earn online game.

The Enriquezes join a growing number of Filipinos who are relying on Axie Infinity to make ends meet. In the wake of stringent Covid-19 lockdown measures that have decimated the Philippine economy, Axie Infinity players can earn up to 6,000 pesos (US$120) a day – far beyond their usual earning capacity.

While this presents many low-wage workers an escape from their lives of poverty, it also means that Axie Infinity has to safeguard the very livelihood of its players – a huge responsibility that not many games, if any, have undertaken.

What’s in a game?

Developed by Vietnam-based startup Sky Mavis, Axie Infinity is a Pokémon-inspired online blockchain game. Players use their axies – the digital monsters that they own – to either go on solo quests in the game’s adventure mode or opt for the arena mode if they want to challenge other contenders. In both cases, players will have to do battle via their axies.

Each fight pits three Axies that a player owns against random quest monsters in adventure mode, or against the three Axies that another human player will send out in the arena. Every axie has unique strengths and attributes that players can tap to try to win the battle.

Axies are non-fungible tokens (NFTs), so none of them are the same. Axie Infinity fights are like chess matches: One has to be strategic in order to have a shot at victory. If players do win, they earn small love potion (SLP) tokens as a reward.

To start playing the game, new players need to own at least three axies, which is the minimum requirement for going to battle. These digital monsters are available on the Axie Marketplace, a site where players can list their extra axies (beyond the minimal three) for sale.

These additional axies are made through “breeding”: Players pay a fee in SLP tokens to facilitate mating between two of their existing monsters. After that, they will receive an egg that grows into an adult axie after five days. The new monster can then be sold off on the Axie Markeplace.

How do you make money?

Why is the game so popular?