![]() Analysts talk about “overpopulation of Axies” driving up inflation in unironic terms. ![]() The company has cracked down on people using multiple accounts, capped the number of tokens that can be obtained in non-fight mode, and generally made it harder to earn tokens. And like a privatized central banker, Sky Mavis has been gradually crafting a monetary policy that seems aimed at ensuring there is no oversupply of tokens. Owning an Axie means owning an NFT SLPs and Axie Infinity’s other currency, AXS, are ERC20, a type of Ethereum token. A new video game power fantasy absorbed Catdicax: being a manager.īetter still, these assets do not just exist as digits on an MMORPG server they are kept in a cryptocurrency wallet controlled by the player. Those gamers could take a cut of her earnings as part of a program of Axie lending-in Axie-speak, a scholarship. Catdicax started outsourcing the video game grind to people she met online, mostly based in the Philippines. And after Axie Infinity exploded in popularity in late 2020, she realized that a lot of aspiring players who couldn’t afford their own Axies would leap at the opportunity to earn money off hers. The tokens earned by vanquishing opponents in Axie-fights-called Smooth Love Potion, or SLP-can be traded for cryptocurrency on online exchanges, and then for legal tender.Ĭatdicax describes herself as having been “poor whole life.”(Catdicax goes by her screen name, declining to disclose her real name out of fear that she could be “targeted” because of her money and worries about sexist trolling.) Now she watched the value of her digital pets grow from a few dollars to as much as $500 per Axie. Like holographic Charizards on steroids, rarer Axies sell for eye-watering figures: In 2020, someone shelled out $130,000 in cryptocurrency to secure the ownership of a portly, winged angel Axie. The game isn’t about the game, though it’s about the economy. Represented by NFTs, players’ Axies battle to win cryptocurrency tokens, which can in turn be used to breed new critters. Then in 2019 Catdicax chanced upon Axie Infinity, a blockchain-based video game where players collect and level up collectible Pokémon-like virtual pets, called Axies. It felt like a waste of labor, a fruitless grind, to work so hard for Runescape’s digital axes or cloaks. And it paid off: After 10 years of playing, she had amassed a menagerie of high-end relics.Įventually, though, Catdicax became restless. ![]() For Catdicax, a Finnish woman now in her 30s, the online fantasy role-playing game Runescape was a place where she could obtain more and more in-game items through hard work and time. Video games are about power fantasies, the conventional wisdom goes: Fight enough dragons to reach level 99, sell enough wolf skins to buy a gaudy gold cape, and become rich or strong or accomplished in the world of the game-even if you aren’t in real life.
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