I recently came across an article of a 31-year-old in the Philipines who gave up his job selling rice feed to poultry farmers for a job playing a blockchain-based game on his smartphone.
According to this interview, the 31-year-old only plays an hour a day and is now earning about $2,000 per month — about double what he was earning selling rice.
This is a feel-good story of a young man who was struggling to make ends meet while trying to take care of his 82-year old grandmother. He turned to the blockchain-based game Axie Infinity where players can earn tokens and then cash those tokens out into local currency.
According to the article, this young man is just one of the many individuals in Southern Asia that have turned to blockchain gaming to earn their living.
What is ‘Axie Infinity’?
Axie Infinity is a battle video game that allows participants to collect, breed, raise and battle creatures known as “axies”. These creatures (axies) are digitized NFT’s and players can buy, sell and trade them. As of June 2021, over $42 million in these NFT sales took place.
In the last year, over a million users have flocked to Axie. Many of them with the intent of making money from it. While the entry cost for this game is rather steep, starting at around $500, there are many stories online of individuals making a living from it, especially helpful during times of lockdown.
The massive influx in users has also had another effect — contributing to the price explosion this token has seen in the last nine months.
Axie’s Price has Exploded in Recent Months
In the just the last 3 months, Axie Infinity increased in price by 1,750%.
Even more remarkable, in just over 9 months, this token has gone from an all-time low of $0.12 to an all-time high of over $83. This is an increase of +60,000% in just over nine months.
Why has Axie Exploded in Price? It’s my opinion the massive increase in players, as well as the extraordinary increase in the market price, is due to one main reason — players are able to make a living from it and word is getting out.
The Phillippines is a region with the fastest-growing number of players and with few barriers to entry, many people are eagerly getting into it.
While the earnings players are making on Play-to-Earn games may not seem like a lot of money, to those living in low-wage countries like the Philippines, Colombia and Venezuela. However, these games can offer a livable wage.
What happens when the youth and underemployed of entire nations start playing these types of games?
The Play-to-Earn Revolution
Play-to-Earn games offer individuals from low-wage countries, the underemployed and youth an opportunity to have fun and make money too. For many, like the protagonist in this story, it’s an alternative to traditional work.
What happens when entire nations of youth Earn-To-Play?
I believe the success we are seeing with Axie is largely due to the massive increase in players from low-wage countries who are attracted to the game for its earning potential.
What happens when the youth of the Philippines, Venezuela, Colombia and the many other low-wage countries join in?
I suspect the success we are seeing with Axie is just the beginning of what will become a worldwide Play-to-Earn Revolution.