Axie Infinity has been one of the most significant NFT projects since the NFT booms, raking in a significant trading volume. However, the project has been struggling recently due to a failing play-to-earn economy and a $622 million hack on its Ronin network bridge.
Despite the number of problems facing the project, Axie Infinity may be set for a comeback.
In the past week, Axie Infinity NFT sales rose nearly 198%, according to CryptoSlam. Although the $1.38 million worth of NFTs is a small fraction of what the project made last summer when it consistently topped $100 million in weekly sales, the week-over-week jump was still notable.
“22,000 Axies sold in the last 24 hours. Was at 7,000 a few weeks ago,” tweeted Jeff Zirlin, co-founder of Axie Infinity developer Sky Mavis. “Origin growing quickly with the new Alpha Season. 4,600 downloads yesterday. Bridge is up. Land (90% staked) is emitting AXS. Nature is healing.”
Zirlin’s tweet indicated that the downloads of the new Origin version of Axie Infinity, which implements a new battle system and visual upgrades, among other enhancements, were on the rise. Additionally, 90% of Axie land owners also staked their NFTs to earn AXS token rewards.
Currently, AXS is priced at $14 per token, according to CoinMarketCap, which is down 91% from the peak price of nearly $165 in November, and 22% over the past month alone.
Meanwhile, the SLP token is valued at almost $0.004, a 99% fall from the July 2021 peak of $0.40, down nearly 20% over the past month.
Last March, the bridge connecting Ronin to the Ethereum mainnet was hacked and exploited for $622 million worth of ETH and USDC stablecoin.
Sky Mavis reopened the bridge late last month and refunded users whose crypto assets were stolen in whole despite ETH value falling significantly. The developer also raised $150 million to help fuel the refund and is currently collaborating with law enforcement to recover the stolen funds from the hack.
Sky Mavis recently published a blog post wherein Sky Mavis Game Product Philip La wrote that media reports about the game’s declining token and NFT prices are giving “misleading narratives” about the game. He also referred to the transition from the previous play-to-earn version of Axie Infinity to the new “play-and-earn” feature the Origin version offers.
“The game still exists with major improvements rolling out regularly, and we will continue to come out with more games that apply all of the learnings we’ve had over time,” La wrote. “The narrative that we are in an existential state and running out of time is false.”
While Origin is online with a soft launch format, it doesn’t offer token rewards yet. However, sky Mavis plans to expand the game into the mobile platform since it doesn’t require NFTs to play with its free-to-play starter monsters.
It remains to be seen if Axie Infinity’s short-term sales growth will lead to an ongoing trend, but Sky Mavis is currently building with a turnaround in mind.
