Axie Infinity is one of the most popular NFT projects. Since the 2021 NFT boom and has generated a large volume of trade. However, the project has been struggling lately due to a failing. NFT game economy and a $622 million hack on its Ronin network bridge.
Despite the project’s many issues, Axie Infinity might be on the verge of returning.
Over the past week, Axie Infinity’s NFT sales have jumped nearly 198%, according to CryptoSlam. While the $1.38 million NFTs is a small fraction of what the project achieved last summer when it consistently topped $100 million in weekly sales, the week-over-week jump was noticeable.
“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 downloads for the new Origin version of Axie Infinity, which implements a new combat system and visual enhancements, among other improvements, have increased. Additionally, 90% of Axie landowners have used their NFTs to earn AXS token rewards.
AXS is now trading at $14 per coin. According to CoinMarketCap, down 91% from its all-time high price of nearly $165 in November. Also 22% in the last month alone.
Meanwhile, the SLP token is valued at nearly $0.004. Down 99% from the July 2021 peak of $0.40 and down nearly 20% over the past month. Last March, the bridge connecting Ronin to the Ethereum mainnet was hacked. Also exploited for $622 million in ETH and USDC stablecoins.
Sky Mavis reopened the bridge late last month. Providing users with complete refunds for any lost crypto assets. Even though the value of ETH had dropped significantly. The developer has also raised $150 million to push for repayment and is working with law enforcement to recover the funds stolen in the hack.
Sky Mavis recently published a blog post in which Sky Mavis game product lead Philip La wrote that media reports of the game’s token and NFT price crashes provide “misleading narratives” about the game. He also referenced the transition from the previous play-to-earn version of Axie Infinity to the new “play-and-earn” functionality offered by the Origin version.
“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.”
Although Origin is online with a soft launch format, it does not yet offer token rewards. However, Sky Mavis plans to expand the game to the mobile platform as it doesn’t require NFT to play with its free starter monsters.
It remains to be seen if Axie Infinity’s recent sales growth will become a recurring pattern. But Sky Mavis is currently building with a turnaround in mind.
