Highlights

● Axie Infinity is a decentralized gaming universe centered on Axies, virtual pets that players may acquire and use to combat, breed, collect, grow, and construct kingdoms. The game is based on Ethereum which has a system to enable players to control their virtual assets and rewards via the Ronin sidechain.

● Axie Infinity is being developed by Sky Mavis which is a technology-focused game studio founded in early 2018. The team consists of 40 full-time employees and has its headquarters in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

● Sky Mavis released two games in the Axie Universe: Axie Infinity Classic (v2) and Axie Infinity Origins (v3). As part of Phase 3, SLP is being moved from Axie Infinity Classic (v2) to Axie Infinity Origin (v3). The team did this to balance the SLP economy as the game introduced the SLP rewards system with Origin.

● Axie Infinity is a turn-based card game where you and your Axies battle against fierce foes and other players. Unlike in Version 2 (Axie Infinity Classic) where you choose cards simultaneously at the beginning of the round, in Version 3 (Origins), Opponents will now take turns using their cards and Axies will now execute their moves immediately as cards are played. The goal is to eliminate all enemies your team of 3 Axies is facing. The more Stamina and the higher Ronin level the player has, the more the player can earn rewards based on the reward chart.

● Axie Infinity broke the world record for ETH raised by a blockchain game in one day (1,200 ETH).

● With the support of Ronin, the company has grown into a behemoth in the blockchain gaming space, being valued at $3 Billion and a peak of 2.7 Million daily active users in October 2021.

● Axie Infinity partnered with Samsung, Klaytn-the blockchain project of Kakao, MakerDAO, Loom Network, HTC, and other strong projects.

● In November 2019, Sky Mavis, the parent company of Axie Infinity, closed a fundraising round of $1,465,000. The round was led by Animoca Brands with participation from Hashed, Pangea Blockchain Fund, ConsenSys, and 500 Startups. The round was led by Animoca Brands with participation from Hashed, Pangea Blockchain Fund, ConsenSys, and 500 Startups.

● In November 2020, Axie Infinity has raised $864,000 through a strategic sale of the governance token, AXS, led by Delphi Digital. Other investors included Arca, Three Arrows Capital, DeFiance Capital, DeFi Capital, Sparq Ventures, Animoca Brands, Hashed, Dialectic, as well as Alexander John Amsel, Alex Svanevik (Nansen), and Bashylok Oleksander. 20% of the private sale tokens will be unlocked during the AXS public sale. The rest of the private sale tokens will be unlocked quarterly over the next 2 years.

● In May 2021, Sky Mavis secured funding of $7.5M through Sky Mavis Series A investors. This fund is raised to scale Axie Infinity and NFT gaming to billions of users.

● In October 2021, Sky Mavis raised $152 M USD to create economic freedom for gamers. The funds will fuel the growth and development of Axie Infinity and Ronin, for scaling solutions for digital nations.

● In April 2022, Sky Mavis announced a 150 million USD funding round led by Binance with participation from Animoca Brands, a16z, Dialectic, and Paradigm. The round combined with Sky Mavis balance sheet funds used to ensure that all users affected by the Ronin Validator Hack will be reimbursed.

●Axie Infinity has been out for a few years, but there are still some updates in the works for 2022. The official roadmap states that Axie's endgame is to create a single application for players to interact with the whole ecosystem and features, including a social network, PvP, metaverse land gameplay and more.

●At the time of writing, Axie Infinity has 929K followers on Twitter, 695.9K members on Discord, 56.4K members on Telegram, and 52.9K subscribers on YouTube.

● In September 2022, Axie Infinity held a physical gathering named AxieCon for four days in Barcelona, Spain. AxieCon will be a time to gather as a community to discuss Axie’s mission, vision, priorities, and product roadmap while meeting the past, present, and future allies in the community

Overview

Axie Infinity is a decentralized gaming universe centered on Axies, virtual pets that players may acquire and use to combat, breed, collect, grow, and construct kingdoms. The game is based on Ethereum which has a system to enable players to control their virtual assets and rewards via the Ronin sidechain, which helps reduce transaction costs and latency. The universe has a player-owned economy where players can truly own, buy, sell, and trade resources they earn in the game through skilled gameplay and contributions to the ecosystem. According to Axie Infinity documents, the game has generated over $3 billion of revenue and is one of the top crypto games.

The success of Axie Infinity as an NFT game inspired the development team, Sky Mavis, to bring about big changes. On April 6th, 2022, Axie Infinity: Origin was released. Axie Infinity: Origin is an evolution of Axie's tactical card battler format. It introduces a real-time combat system, 3 free starter Axies, and vertical progression through Rune & Charm crafting.

• Free starter Axies. Allows non-Axie holders to play the game through free Starter Axies.

• Upgraded Axie art makes each Axie more visually distinct and special.

• Sequential turns for a faster, more dynamic experience.

• Energy/cards are reset each turn to encourage aggressive play styles.

• Card changes. Sky Mavis kept most cards in line with their original spirit.

• Eye & Ear Cards. This is the first time that eyes & ears have ever had cards.

• Runes / Charms as power-ups.

• Critical Hits have been replaced by a Rage mechanic.

Origins Gameplay

Axie Infinity is a turn-based card game where you and your Axies battle against fierce foes and other players. Unlike in Version 2 (Axie Infinity Classic) where you choose cards simultaneously at the beginning of the round, in Version 3 (Origins), Opponents will now take turns using their cards and Axies will now execute their moves immediately as cards are played. The goal is to eliminate all enemies your team of 3 Axies is facing. Each turn, a player must strategically play cards that maximize their chance of victory.

Key Part of Axie Combat

—The Deck

• Each player has a Deck of 18 Cards (1 Card for your 3 Axies’ 18 total body parts).

• On the left of the screen is your Draw Pile, from which your next Cards will be drawn.

• You can tap on the Draw Pile to view the remaining Cards to be drawn. Remember, when you view the Draw Pile, the Cards will be shuffled!

• On the right side of the screen is your Discard Pile. Played Cards are placed into the Discard Pile.

• Once your Draw Pile is empty, the Discard Pile is shuffled into the Draw Pile.

—Cards

• The Cards in your hand determine what abilities you can use in any given Turn.

• Hover over a Card to enlarge it. Tap a Card to play it.

• Cards can do damage, shield or heal one or more of your teammates or generate additional Curse Cards, Tool Cards or Summoned allies.

• At the end of your Turn, all remaining Cards in your hand, excluding Cards with the Retain Tag, are discarded.

—Revenge Card

• When one of your Axies dies, all of its cards in your Hand and in the Draw/Discard Piles will disappear and the same amount of Revenge Cards will be shuffled into the Discard Pile (max: 4).

• Revenge cards are weaker than standard cards, so your deck is disadvantaged.

• Since Revenge Cards have Ethereal and Banish Tags, they will be discarded at the end of your Turn regardless of whether you choose to play them.

—Return

• The Return mechanic gives you the ability to select several cards from your hand and put them on top of the Draw Pile. This guarantees that the selected cards will be drawn on the next Round.

• Return costs 1 Energy per Card selected. If you don't have any Energy, you can't use Return.

• Look for the Return button on the lower left side of the screen, next to the Energy Reservoir.

—Turns

• In Adventure Mode, there is no Turn time limit.

• In Arena Mode, you will have 45 seconds to complete your Turn. After 45 seconds, your Turn will end automatically.

• Turns continue until either you or your opponent are eliminated.

• Bloodmoon starts at turn 17 and inflicts a small amount of damage to all remaining Axies.

—Energy

• Each Turn, you will get 3 Energy. Cards cost between 0 and 2 Energy to play.

• Unused Energy is discarded at the end of each turn.

—Early Rounds

• Since play order is determined randomly at the start of the battle, there is an advantage to the player who goes first. To offset this, there is a scaling system for the amount of Energy gained and Cards drawn in the early rounds:

• Turn 1: 1st player to go gains 1 Energy and draws 3 Cards | 2nd player to go gains 2 Energy and draws 4 Cards

• Turn 2: 1st player to go gains 2 Energy and draws 5 Cards | 2nd player to go gains 3 Energy and draws 5 Cards

• Onwards: From this point on both players gain 3 Energy and draw 5 Cards for the remainder of the battle.

—Status Effects

• There are a variety of different Status Effects that can impact Axies during battle.

• Buffs are positive status effects.

• Debuffs are negative status effects.

• Neutral status effects.

—Targeting

• Assuming there are no other active game mechanics, such as Taunt or other targeting effects, attacks will target the frontmost opponent by default.

• Some Cards allow you to select the target - this can either be an ally to heal or an enemy to attack.

• Some Cards will attack random targets, which may or may not bypass the frontmost opponent. Other Cards will specifically target the second-frontmost Axie or the furthest Axie in certain circumstances. Subsequent attacks do not continue to target the Axie who was attacked with the initial Card.

• The Taunt effect will cause all incoming enemy attacks to target this Axie. This can be used both defensively (to protect others) or offensively (to focus attacks on a strategic target).

There are two game modes available for players in Axie Infinity Origins:

—Adventure Mode

Adventure is the PVE Mode in Origin where you battle waves of monsters/Chimeras, level up your Axies, and collect rewards. The Adventure mode comprises different chapters that have 7 big stages and 12 small stages.

Axies will sometimes collect valuable rewards on their adventures and it will be placed in the Foraging Box. Resources like EXP and Moon Shards can be gained from this box and the higher stars you have the better rewards that you’ll get in your Foraging Box. If you earn enough stars in the Adventure Mode then you can collect Milestone Rewards that are very valuable but can only be claimed once.

Each Ranked match will cost 1 Stamina but you can also play a rank match without it but you won’t be gaining any SLP. The number of stamina that you will have is determined by the total of starter and NFT Axies that you have. Stamina is capped at 60 as well. The computation for how much Stamina you will have in the game is as follows:

Stamina = 0.5 x Number of Starter Axies + 3 x Number of Personal Axies

Currently, there are 3 modes in Arena in Origin.

• Practice Mode

This mode will not affect your ranking and you can play unlimited practice matches every day. 1 EXP is earned for every win you get in a match.

Play order will be determined randomly before the start of the battle. Each player will have 45 seconds to finish their turn. After 45 seconds, the turn will end automatically. If a player has been inactive for 2 turns, they will have 10 seconds to become active again, or else they will be forced to lose the match.

• Ranked Mode

Ranked games have the same battle system as Practice Mode plus the ranking system. Ranks are divided into 8 Ranks and each is divided into 4 tiers. Successfully going beyond this rank will put you in the Challenger Sphere.

To climb up the rank leaderboards, you obviously need to win games and collect Victory Stars.

o In Ranks Egg, Chick and Hare, You get +20 Stars for winning, +0 when it’s a draw, and -10 when you lose.

o In Ranks Boar, Wolf, Bear, Tiger, and Dragon, You get +10 Stars for winning, +0 when it’s a draw, and -10 when you lose.

o In Rank Challenger, win and loss amounts are calculated by an ELO formula based on the difference in Victory Stars between the two players.

A player is demoted 1 Tier if they lose their next match after reaching 0 Victory Stars. For example: if an Egg III player with 0 Victory Stars loses their next battle, then they will be demoted to Egg IV with 30 Victory Stars.

You can also get Bonus Victory Stars in two ways:

o By reaching a winning streak of 3 or more victories. You receive +10 Victory Star per winning streak win. This bonus only applies to Rank Bear and below.

o By finishing a previous season at a higher rank. Based on your Rank in the previous season, you will receive a bonus for each win. This bonus is reduced by 10 each time you're promoted to a new Rank.

Ranked Modes last for over 2 months and take place over different seasons. It also has a one-month break in-between seasons. Ranks are reset to Egg IV at the start of a new season and their victory stars will be reduced to 0.

You can have 2 types of rewards for each Season and they are as follows;

First-time Rewards – You can get these rewards every time you are promoted to a new Rank or Tier

End-of-Season Rewards – Received at the end of each season.

Ronin Spirit will now determine how much SLP you’ll gain per win. It has 4 levels and is based on how many NFT Axies you have in your team.

• Tournament

NFTs

In order to play the game, you'll need a team of 3 Axies. Axies are fantasy creatures that players can battle, collect, and raise. Each Axie has different traits which determine their role in battle.

In Origins, each Axie has 6 Cards that determine which abilities it can use in battle.

Card Tags indicate how Cards behave in battle. Card tags appear below the Card name and above the Card description.

There are also Special Words that can appear anywhere in a Card's description. Special words will appear in yellow:

Each Card has 1 Charm slot. Charms are special wearable items that provide bonus effects to Axie’s abilities. Charms come in 10 different classes, 1 for each Axie Class, plus a Neutral Class. Charms also come in 4 different rarities: Common, Rare, Epic, and Mystic. Each of Axie's 6 Cards can be equipped with 1 Charm of the same Class. For example, you can either install a Reptile Charm or a Neutral Charm into a Reptile Card.

In order to equip a Charm, an Axie must have sufficient Potential Points. Every equipped Charm reduces an Axie's available Potential Points; Potential Points are freed up when Charms are unequipped.

For example, to equip an Aquatic Charm with a Potential Cost of 3, an Axie must have as least 3 free Aquatic Potential Points.

An Axie's Potential Points are calculated based on its body parts, with a bonus given to Axies that have 3 or more body parts of the same Class.

Some Charms are Seasonal, meaning they are only usable in the current Arena Season. After the Season is over, these Charms become Collectibles and cannot be used for gameplay.

Charms come in two varieties: non-NFT and NFT. Non-NFT Charms are in-game items only – they cannot be traded on the Marketplace. Most non-NFT Charms are Neutral Class. On the other hand, NFT Charms can be traded on the Marketplace. NFT Charms also have specific Classes and require additional crafting materials to mint.

You can also give your Axies special passive powers using Runes. Runes are special wearable items that provide passive effects that automatically activate in battle. Runes come in 10 different classes, 1 for each Axie Class, plus a Neutral Class. Runes also come in 4 different rarities: Common, Rare, Epic, and Mystic.

Each Axie has 1 Rune Slot that can be filled with either a Rune of the same Class or a Neutral Rune. For example, a Beast Axie can equip 1 Beast Rune or 1 Neutral Rune.

Some Runes are Seasonal, meaning they are only usable in the current Arena Season. After the Season is over, these Runes become Collectibles and cannot be used for gameplay.

Runes come in two varieties: non-NFT and NFT. Non-NFT Runes are in-game items only – they cannot be traded on the Marketplace. Non-NFT Runes are all Neutral Class. On the other hand, NFT Runes can be traded on the Marketplace. NFT Runes also have specific Classes and require additional crafting materials to mint.

Tokenomic

Axie Infinity uses two tokens: $AXS and $SLP.

$AXS or Axie Infinity Shards are the native governance tokens for the Axie Infinity platform. Introduced in November 2020, they allow each token holder to vote on decisions such as the development of the platform or distribution of funds. Axie Infinity is geared to become a fully decentralized organization that is governed by only players of the game.

The AXS token is also crucial for the Community Treasury. The Community Treasury collects 100% of transaction fees that take place on the platform. By staking AXS tokens and supporting the ecosystem, AXS token holders can earn a share of the transaction fees collected. It incentivizes community support and further grows the Axie Infinity ecosystem.

AXS will be unlocked in a pre-determined schedule which lasts for 65 months from the public sale. The initial circulating supply is set to 59,985,000 AXS - 22.22% of the total supply.

$SLP or Smooth Love Potions are in-game rewards collected by players simply for completing challenges or battles. This makes it the easiest way to earn money through the game. Once enough SLPs are accrued they can be sold for real-world dollar value. SLP is also used for breeding new Axies.

Both SLP and AXS are ERC-20 (Ethereum-based) tokens, which enables them to be freely traded and exchanged across the Ethereum blockchain. However, while SLPs have an unlimited supply that constantly fluctuates depending on the number of players, the circulating supply of AXS is capped at 270 million.

Additional Feature

—Breeding

Just like real-world pets, Axies can breed to create more Axies. Breeding an Axie costs SLP and AXS. The amount of SLP depends on how many times the parent Axies have been bred. The AXS portion is variable and subject to adjustment based on economic factors.

• Axies can breed a maximum of 7 times.

• Sibling Axies and parents/offspring Axies cannot breed.

• Breeding costs vary depending on how many times the parent Axies have been bred.

Breeding can be complex, particularly if you are trying to create offspring with a very specific set of body parts. You also have to account for changing AXS and SLP prices, stay on top of the current meta builds and track Axie availabilty on the Marketplace. On top of all of this, you have to deal with random mutations that can sneak into your otherwise perfect lineage. The Community has created a variety of tools that you can use to help plan your breeds:

Breeding Costs Table (https://axie.tech/breeding-costs)

The Breeding Costs Table shows exactly what resources you need to breed virgin Axies. The total costs automatically update to reflect live ETH, AXS and SLP prices.

Breeding Calculator (https://axie.tech/breeding-calculator)

The Breeding Calculator is a more in-depth version of the Breeding Costs table. It allows you to calculate total costs and estimated ROI for complex breeds, accounting for SLP and AXS in your inventory and expected Parent/Offspring sales.

Breeding Simulator (https://axie.tech/breeding-calculator)

Before you breed, use a Breeding Simulator to check the possible genetic makeup of the offspring. Breeding Sims are a great way to select parent Axies with the highest chance of producing offspring that have the desired genes.

—Decentralized Organization

Version 0 - October 2020 / Token generation event

No voting possible

Version 1 First half 2021 / Staking dashboard released

AXS holders can stake their tokens through the staking dashboard and participate in governance votes brought forward by the Sky Mavis team.

These votes will revolve around which teams should receive funding from the ecosystem fund, and how the Community treasury should be distributed.

Version 2 - Early 2022

More on-chain votes about smaller issues.

Potentially changing the way votes are being counted from 1 token 1 vote to Quadratic voting.

Version 3 - September 2023

AXS holders determine which governance framework should be used and how much should be voted on. Some decisions will not be up for debate such as token supply which is iron-clad in smart contracts.

Backers

In November 2019, Sky Mavis, the parent company of Axie Infinity, closed a fundraising round of $1,465,000. The round was led by Animoca Brands with participation from Hashed, Pangea Blockchain Fund, ConsenSys, and 500 Startups.

In November 2020, Axie Infinity has raised $864,000 through a strategic sale of the governance token, AXS, led by Delphi Digital. Other investors included Arca, Three Arrows Capital, DeFiance Capital, DeFi Capital, Sparq Ventures, Animoca Brands, Hashed, Dialectic, as well as Alexander John Amsel, Alex Svanevik (Nansen), and Bashylok Oleksander. 20% of the private sale tokens will be unlocked during the AXS public sale. The rest of the private sale tokens will be unlocked quarterly over the next 2 years.

In May 2021, Sky Mavis secured funding of $7.5M through Sky Mavis Series A investors. This fund is raised to scale Axie Infinity and NFT gaming to billions of users.

In October 2021, Sky Mavis raised $152 M USD to create economic freedom for gamers. The funds will fuel the growth and development of Axie Infinity and Ronin, for scaling solutions for digital nations.

In Q1 2022, the Ronin network has been attacked. It is one of the largest hacks against a crypto protocol this year and Axie Infinity has suffered from an attack after the Ronin network validators were compromised. Less than one month later, Sky Mavis announced a 150 million USD funding round led by Binance with participation from Animoca Brands, a16z, Dialectic, and Paradigm. The round combined with Sky Mavis balance sheet funds, will be used to ensure that all users affected by the Ronin Validator Hack will be reimbursed. The Ronin Network bridge then opened once it has undergone a security upgrade and several audits, which take several weeks. Sky Mavis also implemented rigorous internal security measures to prevent future attacks.

Partners

Roadmap

Axie Infinity has been out for a few years, but there are still some updates in the works for 2022, including:

• AXS ecosystem

• Release of Android and iOS app

• Land gameplay

• Lunacia SDK Alpha (metaverse)

The official roadmap states that Axie's endgame is to create a single application for players to interact with the whole ecosystem and features, including a social network, PvP, metaverse land gameplay and more.

Team

Axie Infinity is being developed by Sky Mavis which is a technology-focused game studio founded in early 2018.

The team consists of 40 full-time employees and has its headquarters in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The founding team consists of the following individuals:

Trung Thanh Nguyen - CEO

Trung is involved in all key decisions from product to marketing and leads the company in Vietnam. At the age of 19, Trung co-founded and was CTO of Lozi.vn, an early Vietnamese e-commerce startup that has raised around 10M in funding and is still in operation as of now. He left Lozi once it became a stable business and the team's focus shifted from building to business/operations. Trung also had stints at Trusting Social (25 M recent funding round led by Sequoia) and Anduin Transactions (a Joe Lonsdale company) before founding Axie Infinity. Trung represented Vietnam in the ACM-ICPC World Final 2014 held in Yekaterinburg, Russia.

Aleksander Leonard Larsen - COO

Aleksander is responsible for all things business-related in Axie Infinity. He also serves on the board of directors in the Blockchain Game Alliance and holds the secretary position. He has worked in the Asia Pacific region since early 2018 and has a vast network of Blockchain industry and gaming connections, particularly in Vietnam, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Japan. Before Axie Infinity he worked as a manager in the Norwegian state and spent his free time as a content creator and competitive gamer. He has been ranked as one of the top 200 players in Europe in DotA 2 and has represented the Norwegian national team in Warcraft 3 and DotA.

Tu Doan - Art Director and Game Designer

Tu runs the art team in Vietnam and designed the original Axies. He is responsible for the art direction and many game design concepts. He co-founded and formerly worked as the Head of Design at Lozi.vn.

Andy Ho - CTO

Andy leads the engineering team and is responsible for the technical strategy and engineering operations. He previously worked as a software engineer at Anduin Transactions and interned at Google and Paypal. Andy attended the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) 2010 held in Waterloo, Canada. He graduated from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore and also represented Singapore in the ACM-ICPC World Final 2015 held in Marrakech, Morocco.

Jeffrey Zirlin - Growth Lead

Jeff AKA "Jihoz" is responsible for growth and community development. He also spearheads token design and works closely with the product team. Jeff grew up collecting fossils and insects; he uses this experience when thinking about the collector side of NFTS. Jeff was a member of a top-ranked USA Horde guild in vanilla World of Warcraft; he spent much of his childhood/adolescence in raids. Academically, he studied military and economic history at Yale where he wrote his thesis on the ideological origins of Alexander Hamilton's debt restructuring plan.

Community

At the time of writing, Axie Infinity has 929K followers on Twitter, 695.9K members on Discord, 56.4K members on Telegram, and 52.9K subscribers on YouTube. The team responds quite quickly on Discord to questions and problems raised by the community.

Besides the typical Discord channel discussions around gameplay, announcement, updates, ronin network, guide, support, breeding, feedback, axie economy, marketplace, charm, and runes, there are also fun channels for creator, axiecon, and origins theory. Members from non-English countries are also accepted and given their respective channels for an international chat.

Furthermore, Axie Infinity concentrates on interacting with the community, including hosting AMA, giveaways, and holding many special events such as Content Creation Contest, Axie Tournament, Axie World Championship, Lunacian Summer Art Contest, Axie Creator Program, Icon Design Contest, Axie Developer Livestreaming on YouTube and so on. The team also held a physical gathering named AxieCon for four days in Barcelona, Spain. AxieCon will be a time to gather as a community to discuss Axie’s mission, vision, priorities, and product roadmap while meeting the past, present, and future allies in the community. Attendees will be able to earn $500,000 in AXS rewards through on-site tournaments.

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