With crypto-backed play-to-earn games on a steady decline since the beginning of the year, many believe that these projects are doomed to fail.
A prime example of a play-to-earn gaming project suffering gamers’ apathy is Axie Infinity. Following the 2021 boom, one that saw the project registering record highs, the year so far has been marked by a decline in the growth of the Axie Infinity world.
A sustained decline in ecosystem metrics
According to Axie Growth Data, the gaming project has recorded significant decline on many growth metrics this year. This can primarily be attributed to the crypto-winter, one that has plagued the general market and the failure of the project to sustain gamers’ interest.
As of 1 August, daily active users on the platform stood at 260,246 gamers. This was a far cry from its all-time high of 2,718,810 active users recorded on 15 November 2021.
On 10 May, having registered a 14.27% decline in active users that week, Axie Infinity Co-founder Jeffrey Zirlin remarked that the gaming platform had “been here before and know what to do.”
We've been here before and know what to do.
The fear is normal. pic.twitter.com/eXPk2mS1H3
— The Jiho.eth ?? (@Jihoz_Axie) May 10, 2022
This, however, has not been the case as attempts to restore gamers’ interest have been met by sustained failure. For example, further to the release of Axie Infinity V2 on 23 May, active players on the network quickly dropped by 21% in the 14 days that followed.
In addition to the gradual decline in active gamers on the platform, the amount realized in sales volume on the network dropped significantly too. As of 1 August, this stood at $7,438,174. This represented an over 10,000% decrease from its all-time high sales volume of $1,030,753,400. The latter figure was recorded in August last year.
Also, landholders on Axie Infinity have dropped gradually since the beginning of the year. With only 623 landholders as of 1 August, a 77% decline has been logged since January.
AXS has seen better days
Over the past year, token transfers on the network, unique senders by time, and unique receivers by time on Axie Infinity, have all declined.
$AXS Onchain Recap in 1 year! pic.twitter.com/eRE5p3EUvo
— Ronin Daily (@daily_ronin) August 2, 2022
A year ago, AXS was valued at $42.66. Trading at $18.22 at press time, the gaming token has declined by half in the last 365 days.
Ranked 41st by market cap at the time of writing, its market capitalization fell from $2.59 billion to $1.51 billion.
Source: Santiment
Interestingly, despite the aforementioned drop in price, whales holding between 10,000 to 10,000,000 AXS tokens gradually increased their holdings.
At press time, this stood at 84.57 million – A 10% uptick from the 76.32 million AXS tokens this category of whales held a year ago.
Source: Santiment
Furthermore, AXS’s 365-day MVRV seemed to be down significantly by -55.38%. This suggested that many investors have failed to see any profit over the past year.
Source: Santiment.
