How to Earn with Axie Infinity? AXS Review 2022

In the domain of blockchain-based NFT games, Axie Infinity stands out with simple and engaging play mechanics, funny characters, and a huge user base. But most importantly, this game allows you to earn while playing: breed Axie monsters, take part in battles with other users, and get your rewards! Another aspect of the game is land: there are 90,000 parcels that can be bought and traded like in Decentraland and other NFT games.

Let’s review Axie Infinity by looking at its gameplay, the team behind the platform, their roadmap, and the investment opportunities it offers.

What is Axie Infinity?

Axie Infinity is a strategic play-to-earn NFT game based on the Ethereum network. It allows you to own monsters called Axies, breed them, use them to battle with the other users, and sell them for in-game tokens.

There are 2 native tokens: Smooth Love Potion (SLP) and Axie Infinity Shards (AXS). If your monster wins in a battle, you get rewards in the SLP token that you can exchange, sell, or reinvest to breed new Axies. AXS is paid as a reward, and it’s a governance token that allows you to propose updates to the game.

Axies are the monsters that you can upgrade by adding an infinite number of new features. These relate to the appearance of Axies, their fighting skills, and more. The battles are like in Pokémon: teams of 3 members fight with each other until one of them wins.

New Axies are created through breeding. This process is very much like in real life: two Axies pass their genes to children who inherit their features. To breed the monsters, some SLP has to be paid. The larger offspring you want, the more you’d have to pay.

Besides monsters, there’s also land that users can operate with in Axie Infinity. In this regard, the game reminds us of Decentraland and other NFT metaverses. The main area of Axie Infinity is called Lunacia — an open world that consists of 90,000 parcels with different features. You can use them to breed and train Axies, participate in quests, and complete different tasks for AXS tokens.

Local land can be sold on the Axie Infinity marketplace. Recently, such a parcel was sold for $1.5 million, which is considered one of the largest NFT transactions ever made.

The team behind Axie Infinity

In 2018, three enthusiasts got together to found Axie Infinity:

• Trung Nguyen, CEO
• Aleksander Larsen, COO
• Jeffrey Zirlin, Growth Lead

The expertise and interests of the founders perfectly complement each other. Trung Nguyen is a software engineer with experience of launching an e-commerce startup at the age of 19 and raising $10 million for its development. Aleksander Larsen is especially good at game mechanics and interactions with users: he used to make content and manage communities for World of Warcraft and DOTA 2 in Norway. Finally, Jeffrey Zirlin is a historian who graduated from Yale and is keen on monetary policy. He is also one of America’s best WoW players.

2017 was marked by the huge success of one of the first NFT games, CryptoKitties. However, the co-founders of Axie Infinity realized quickly that the game lacks long-term player incentives. So, built a game without such a shortcoming — and compared to CryptoKitties, Axies are much on the news as of 2022. The game is operated by a software company Sky Mavis.

Axie Infinity roadmap

Axie Infinity has a clear roadmap published on the official website. There, you can easily see what has already been achieved, and what goals there are for 2022.

In 2021, the team completed four main milestones. First, Axies migrated to Ronin — a reliable, fast, and cheap Ethereum sidechain that was designed specifically for the game. Later in 2021, developers added a fiat on-ramp to Ronin, AXS staking (as of February 2022, AXS worth $1.10 billion are being staked at an 81% APR), and launched Katana decentralized exchange.

In 2022, Axie Infinity is going to improve its governance, play-to-earn mechanics, and promote a mainstream release of Axie Infinity on iOS/Android. Land gameplay and Lunacia SDK Alpha are also to be launched (the latter is a tool that allows devs to make games using existing Axie Infinity assets and host them on land parcels).

On top of all this, Axie Infinity has an endgame: it aims to build “a single application which players can use to interact with the entire Axie Infinity universe.” This universe comprises a social network, marketplace, progression of Axies (leveling, achievements), breeding game, land gameplay, Lunacia SDK, and more.

Axie Infinity network

Originally, Axie Infinity was based solely on the Ethereum blockchain. It leveraged the ERC-20 token standard for AXS and SLP, while Axie monsters were operating as NFTs (ERC-721). However, it once became clear that the platform can’t cater to all the needs of the game.

This is how Ronin emerged — an Ethereum sidechain that was built by Sky Maris to host Axie Infinity. The game migrated to this layer-2 solution in April 2021. This is a combined Proof of Stake/Proof of Authority blockchain that is quite centralized and is run by the game’s developers.

Earning with Axie Infinity

As already mentioned, Axie Infinity players can earn AXS and SLP by selling their unique Axies and winning battles. For some users, this can even turn into a stable income of a few hundred on even $1,000+ per month. Gamers especially from developing countries like the Philippines, Venezuela, and Thailand actively leverage this opportunity.

To start playing Axie Infinity, you have to buy at least three Axies from a local marketplace. The more unique the monster, the more you’d have to pay — some of them cost hundreds of dollars. There are even Axie “lending” programs where you can borrow characters from existing players and pay them a percentage of your income. This reduces the need for seed money.

Such an economic model makes the network sustainable in the long term. Moreover, SLP tokens are burned to fight inflation, and AXS paid for breeding add to the treasury and are further used for development goals.

Axie Infinity price prediction 2022

The main Axie Infinity token AXS has performed well in 2021, and most of the price predictions are bullish on the asset given the long-term potential of the game.

The Wallet Investor price forecast service considers AXS an “awesome” 1-year investment and expects that its price will rise to $168 from the current $48 by 2023. It also gives a 5-year prediction of $634.

The forecast by CoinsKid is quite more moderate but still bullish: experts give AXS $69 in a one-year period and $115 in 5 years. The LongForecast service expects the token to gradually rise to $95 during 2022.

Where should I buy and trade Axie Infinity (AXS)?

Axie Infinity wallets

Since SLP and AXS are Ethereum-based tokens, you can store them in any of the Web3 wallets such as MetaMask, MyEtherWallet, or Trust Wallet. These fully support all dApp infrastructure and allow you to make the most of Axie Infinity, including marketplace purchases, monster breeding, etc. The wallets are available as web browser extensions and for mobile platforms.

Since Axie Infinity has recently migrated to the Ronin sidechain, you will have to download the Ronin wallet to start playing the game. It’s also available in Chrome as a browser extension.

If you feel like buying monsters and engaging with the Axie universe, head on to the Axie Infinity download page and install the necessary software.

Axie Infinity exchanges

The AXS token is traded on most of the centralized exchanges such as Binance, FTX, and others. To quickly purchase Axie Infinity without registration, visit ChangeNOW. We offer anonymous non-custodial crypto swaps with no hidden fees and with an average exchange time of 5 minutes. On ChangeNOW, you can buy or sell AXS for 300+ other crypto assets.

Summary

Axie Infinity is a blockchain-based game where you can breed NFT-based Axie monsters, upgrade them, and fight with the others for rewards. Selling unique monsters also brings you profit. The earnings are paid out in AXS and SLP tokens. These assets can be used for breeding or making in-game purchases.

Axie Infinity is run by an enthusiastic team and has a clear roadmap. Besides enriching the gameplay, it pays much attention to tech aspects, which in particular resulted in its migration to the Ronin Ethereum sidechain.

The Axie Infinity native token AXS has demonstrated a strong price dynamic in 2021 and has bullish price predictions for 2022. If you feel optimistic about the token’s future, feel free to buy some AXS at competitive fees and without registration on ChangeNOW.

Disclaimer: This article is not an investment recommendation. ChangeNOW doesn’t give financial advice and encourages you to do your own research before buying or selling any cryptocurrency.