Axie infinity seems to have replaced the air of pessimism around the project with its recent in-game economic overhaul. The Axie Infinity revamp, which began in early January, included the removal of its daily ‘Quest’ and ‘Adventure Mode’ rewards.
The Axie infinity revamp saw the price of their two in-game tokens, AXS and SLP, soar over 50% in the last 5 days. From a low of under $45 and $0.009 respectively, to over $70 and $0.014 at the time of writing.
Problems with the Axie economy
The principal reason for Axie Infinity’s recent problems stems from the fact that 4 times the amount of SLP were being created each day through rewards, than there were SLP being burnt via Axie breeding.
To rebalance the economic impact on the game, they have made changes to SLP issuing and introduced new burning mechanisms.
SLP Rewards slashed
The daily adventure rewards received, make up around 40% of SLP created every day. A further 44% is created during PvP. This is unsustainable so the team, after considerable input from the community have taken drastic action.
Players will no longer receive their 50 SLP daily adventure awards, which equates with 130 million less SLP tokens every day.
Next, the team eliminated the Daily Quest mode. They state that this was a great way to reward players ‘but it’s now become a mass emission mechanism for SLP’. By withdrawing these rewards 50 million fewer SLP will be issued daily.
This may seem drastic action but according to Axie, “we risk total and permanent economic collapse” unless these reforms are enacted.
These 2 reforms alone will not be enough, however. There are still 2 times the amount of SLP being created than there are being Burned. They intend addressing this with a reworking of the PVP rewards system.
PVP rewards increase
Last season Axie gave out prizes of about 3000 AXS tokens to its top 1000 players on their leader board. These rewards are a drop in the sea when compared to what rewards garnered from staking (1.5m) each month alone.
So, this season is going to see a remodeling, with the leaderboard expanded to the top 300,000 players. Furthermore, a total prize allocation of 117,676 AXS, which equates to $6 million in prizes.
According to the team, the Axie Infinity revamp “will supercharge the competitive Axie scene and create more demand for quality Axie teams in the ecosystem.”
Long-term economics
Axie are all so exploring other avenues through which to burn more SLP, including customized and cosmetic skins, upgrades, breeding events and more.
Additionally, they will introduce more economic sinks through which to burn even more SLP. These include tokenized power-ups for your Axies.
These changes to the game, alone, are not a magic fix, concludes the team, “but they are a needed step as we build towards a fully-functioning and sustainable economy.”
