Crabada: The next Axie Infinity?

Launched in November 2021, Crabada is a play-and-earn idle game on the Avalanche blockchain that lets players own NFT crabs to earn rewards by mining, looting, battling, crafting items, and more.

Since Crabada is an idle game, players only need to set up the game every four hours to send their NFT crabs hunting for treasure. The “looting” game mode allows players to battle crabs owned by other people who may be mining their crabs at the time.

Crabada has had a successful launch. In just three months, the game became the largest deployed on the Avalanche contract chain, according to Covalent. The game also raised US$600,000 in a private round from prominent partners and angel investors, including Avalanche, Avalaunch, SkyVision Capital, Not3Lau Capital, Zee Prime Capital, and more.

While the game has a relatively smaller reach than Axie Infinity, Crabada has high user retention and high revenue potential. The game has consistently clocked around 5,000 to 6,000 weekly active users in the past few months, and players can expect to earn around US$11 to US$33 per hour, depending on their team. Given its strong user growth, Crabada could well become the next Axie Infinity.

To get started, Crabada players need a team of three NFT crabs, which they can buy for around US$8,000 in total. Players who can’t afford to do so can either rent the NFTs through the tavern – a place where experienced players can deploy their idle crabs for rent – or buy a single NFT crab and rent it out until they earn enough money to buy all three.

Crabada’s core team is made up of anonymous developers with years of experience in blockchain applications, according to CoinMarketCap. The core team has also had stints in companies like Binance and Infinity Blockchain Labs.

They’ve also shown themselves to be responsive to players’ needs. “They have executed several things that were not part of the original roadmap. For instance, when bots took over looting, the team introduced the miners’ revenge mechanics to address the bot issue,” explains Juppie, a Crabada player who prefers not to reveal their legal name. Juppie has been playing the game since its launch.

What are some issues with Axie Infinity?

While there’s no doubt that Axie Infinity is one of the most well-known play-to-earn games in the market and has built a strong global community, the game has some key flaws.

It has been on a downward trend, and its players’ daily income has fallen even below the minimum wage in the Philippines.

And despite the game’s efforts to revamp the game’s economics, the fact that more of its in-game currency, smooth love potion (SLP), has been minted than burned remains a critical issue, creating massive inflationary pressure for SLP and affecting the game’s long-term viability.

While Axie Infinity’s developers are addressing this issue, it may take some time to solve. Meanwhile, other games like Crabada, with innovative tokenomics, could potentially be an attractive option for players of play-to-earn games.

Axie Infinity declined to participate in this article.

How Crabada is different from Axie Infinity

‘Idle gameplay’ that allows users to earn without entering the game

GameFi needs sustainable game economics and more fun