With the long Splinterlands maintenance today, I had my eyes on Discord for news more often than usually.
Not small was my surprise when I read this line in 1UP's discord, mentioning me:
Congrats for winning an Axie in our Twitter giveaway, @gadrian!
It came with an image too:
After this information sinked in my mind, I was finally able to put together some basic thank you words.
Then I rushed to Twitter. That is a Twitter giveaway I won and yet I hardly use the platform.
I was sure the information was first announced on Twitter, and I needed to react obviously.
There we could find this tweet from NFT Studios, the guys behind 1UP:
Please send us a pm with your Ronin address 1️⃣
I see... So, what's a Ronin address? :) Let's ask Presearch:
This extension allows users to play Axie Infinity and other decentralized applications running on Ronin, an Ethereum sidechain
Good! I learned something new today. I knew Axie no longer runs on Ethereum, but on a sidechain of it, but I didn't know its name was Ronin.
So I installed the Ronin wallet. Answered the guys with my Ronin address and I'm waiting for my gift to drop. :)
I know very little about Axie Infinty, but I know one needs 3 Axies to play it. And that amounted to something like 1200 USD at some point. Probably less now, because I checked the marketplace for Axies and they seem to be between 300 and 400 USD, the ones I checked.
Obviously, because I don't know anything about the game, I'm pretty sure this is a basic Axie. You can probably upgrade it or something through gameplay.
If my Axie is worth that much, that's like winning a GFL in Splinterlands (before their prices soar)! Some people really made a goal of that. You know who you are! I wouldn't mind finding a GFL in those packs either, btw, but hopefully that won't upset Santa because I'm greedy, lol. Now I sound like my nieces, talking about Santa...
Now I'm undecided what to do next.
To play Axie, I need two more Axies, which means mininum 700$ or so.
Right now I have very tight goals and schedules both for Splinterlands and for Hive, otherwise I think I would have diverted some funds from Splinterlands to start on Axie as well.
Selling the Axie for Hive doesn't seem like a smart choice, because transactions are free on Ronin (at first glance), the Ethereum sidechain, but to move funds to or from it, one has to go through Ethereum at its popular gas fees. I'd probably end up halvening the amount received for the Axie.
There is of course the option to sell the Axie to someone who already plays the game and who is on Hive, and who is willing to pay Hive or HBD for it. That would be an interesting idea...
Either that or holding it. And doing the opposite at a later time. Buying 2 more Axies from someone who is on Hive. And I would probably use funds from Splinterlands.
While my number one blockchain game remains Splinterlands, it's not a bad idea to check out other things out there. If for nothing else, for the element of comparison.
So, thank you once again @flauwy and 1UP for opening up this opportunity for me! This is an amazing giveaway!