On March 23, 2022, attackers stole 173,600 ETH and 25.5 million USDCs from the Axie Infinity sidechain Ronin Network, worth more than $600 million.
Afterwards, Axi Infinity disclosed the vulnerability through the official Discord and Twitter accounts, as well as the Ronin Network. The incident became the largest hacking incident in DeFi history, at one point surpassing last year's PolyNetwork theft. Axie Infinity and Sky Mavis, a Ronin chain development company, said the Ronin bridge was not attacked because of a vulnerability in the smart contract. Instead, it has to do with social engineering and human error, and the company will take full responsibility for the Ronin attack.
The amount stolen in the previous PolyNetwork hack has been fully refunded, and it is unclear whether the Ronin Network theft will be as lucky as PolyNetwork.
But recently, Sky Mavis, an Axie Infinity development company, completed its latest $150 million funding round, led by Binance.
The incident does not seem to have made other investment institutions lose confidence in Sky Mavis, so why is Sky Mavis able to frequently obtain capital care?
As a phenomenal product, Axie Infinity is currently in a leading position in the GameFi field.
Among them, the "Play to Earn" model is precisely the core value of GameFi, which enables users to accept GameFi by integrating the concepts of DeFi and NFT to achieve wealth monetization through games.
In addition, GameFi comes with the attributes of the virtual scene, which can become an important entry point into the metaverse, which is one of the reasons why investors are optimistic about GameFi, so how does Sky Mavis, which can be favored by capital, do it?
Who is Sky Mavis?
Axie Infinity, a trading card game based on blockchain technology and fighting by collecting pets, caught a lot of attention last year with a documentary called "Playing and Earning – NFT Games in the Philippines."
The documentary tells the story of the Philippines, where unemployment is as high as 25.8% in the epidemic, when a resident discovers Axie Infinity, a blockchain game that can "play to Earn", and earns his own living expenses in the game. As the news broke, people from all over the town, even the 75-year-old, joined the game to earn money on maintaining the family.' As a result, the game called Axie Infinity began to explode across the internet. According to Token Terminal, Axie Infinity generated $334 million in just 30 days, surpassing Glory's July 231 million revenue. Axie Infinity has become the darling of the digital asset mid-chain tour track, so what kind of company is sky Mavis, the development company behind it?
Founded in early 2018 as a technology-focused game studio, Sky Mavis has built the virtual world of the future and the infrastructure that makes it possible, so Sky Mavis can also be seen as an infrastructure builder.
Headquartered in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, Sky Mavis has a team of 40 full-time employees.
Trung Thanh Nguyen, CEO of Sky Mavis, co-founded e-commerce startup Lozi.vn at the age of 19, which is still in operation today, and trung represented Vietnam in the ACM-ICPC (International Collegiate Programming Competition) World Finals.
It can also be seen from the side that the Sky Mavis team has excellent technical support and rich operational experience, and they are full of great enthusiasm for NFTs, blockchain games and digital property rights.
So Axie Infinity's explosion and success are actually no accident.
Axie Infinity is the flagship of development company Sky Mavis and has grown it into the #1 game on Ethereum with daily, weekly, and monthly active players.
In addition to blockchain gaming, Sky Mavis also focuses on the following aspects:
Marketplace: A trustless marketplace for unique digital assets
Hub: Enables the product to reach the infrastructure of millions of players worldwide
RoninWallet: is axe infinity's official sidechain wallet that can hold digital items and currency
Ronin: The Ethereum-related sidechain, made specifically for Axe Infinity, kicked off an explosion of blockchain games and collectibles
Today, thousands of people are improving their lives in the real world with P2E mode games in the virtual world, and Axie Infinity is undoubtedly the most iconic platform.
The Sky Mavis team made it clear in a white paper that "you can think of Axie Infinity as a country with a real economy," and now this gathering place like the "oasis" in Ready Player One is changing the lives of millions of people.
Axie Infinity, a hit
Sky Mavis has gained favor with capital thanks to its star product, Axie Infinity, so what exactly is Axie Infinity, and what magic is getting so much attention?
What is Axie Infinity?
Axie Infinity is a pet breeding and battle strategy game on the Ethereum blockchain, the gameplay is somewhat similar to the Pokémon series of games, players can raise pets and let pets fight to win in-game rewards.
Unlike Pokémon, however, Axie Infinity uses blockchain technology to bring NFTs into the game, making in-game pets a unique digital asset that belongs to the player. Since newcomer players must own 3 NFT pets before they can fight, this means that players can sell their NFT pets to newcomer players or other players for income.
Not only that, but when it comes to pet rearing, Axie Infinity borrows from the first game on the blockchain, CryptoKitties.
Two pets can reproduce and generate new pets, and different pets have different combat attributes, which creates a demand for stronger pets, which also motivates players to buy and sell pets, and will also bring a lot of income to players.
At the same time, players can compete to get blockchain-based Crypto rewards and exchange them for real-life assets to earn income.
This way of making money while playing is called Play To Earn (P2E for short), and this is a new game mode created by Axie Infinity.
History of Axie Infinity
So, how did Axie Infinity get to where it is today, we combed through the events in detail.
In December 2017, the concept and idea phase, development began.
In March 2018, the internal Axe-NFT market was launched.
In May 2018, the breeding game was released.
On June 7, 2018, Axie Infinity used Loom Network's SDK to deliver a seamless and immersive decentralized gaming experience.
On January 21, 2019, Axie Infinity launched land sales and launched the land game.
On November 7, 2019, Axie Infinity developer Sky Mavis announced that it had raised $1.465 million in a funding round led by Animoca Brands, with participants including Hashed, Pangea Blockchain Fund, ConsenSys and 500 Startups.
In October 2020, Axie Infinity launched the platform token AXS.
On November 9, 2020, NFT game Axie Infinity raised $860,000 through the strategic sale of its governance token AXS, a round led by Delphi Digital.
On February 1, 2021, Axie Infinity announced the official launch of the Ethereum sidechain Ronin mainnet, which will first carry out the migration of land and related items in the game.
On May 11, 2021, Axie Infinity developer Sky Mavis announced the completion of a $7.5 million Series A round led by Liberty Capital and with the participation of Collab+Currency, Block Tower Capital, Animoca Brands, Hashed, 500 Startups and billionaire Mark Cuban.
On October 5, 2021, Axie Infinity developer Sky Mavis completed a $152 million Series B financing, led by A16z, with Paradigm, Accel and others participating.
On November 4, 2021, Axie Infinity officially launched the decentralized exchange "Katana" built on the Ronin sidechain, and launched the token RON to pay for gas fees, while providing on-chain hosting services for AxeInfinity and future game products.
In February 2022, Axie announced an update to Origin, a new version that makes a huge change to the game system: all accounts will get three free pets; the v2 system will be fully migrated to the origin version; new game mechanics; and adventure mode will no longer reward SLP.
On March 29, 2022, Axie Infinity's Ethereum sidechain Ronin was hacked, with about $600 million of Crypto being stolen.
On April 6, 2022, Axie Infinity development company Sky Mavis raised $150 million, led by Binance and with the participation of Animoca Brands, a16z, Dialectic, Paradigm and Accel. The round of funding will be used to compensate users' funds affected by the Ronin attack, and the funds of the Ronin Bridge have been restored.
Through the above more lengthy combing, we find that Axie Infinity's current achievements are not sudden, but accumulated efforts, and even a long period of no one care.
Because of this, they have grown into another pioneer in the blockchain industry and shaped a new track.
Why is Sky Mavis favored by capital?
After being born in early 2018, Axie Infinity has finally become one of the most popular blockchain games after more than a year of polishing and developing.
And in November 2019, more than $1.1 million worth of game assets have been sold, and the volume of transactions between players has exceeded $1.8 million, which will naturally attract the attention of capital.
At this point in time, it is the stage of the debate between the hundreds of blockchain games, which has to mention Animoca Brands, a listed company in the game industry.
After it entered the blockchain industry in 2018, it opened a buy-buy-buy model, focusing on investing and acquiring blockchain game teams, which is the best time for it to capture quality teams, and naturally it will not miss teams like Sky Mavis.
So, on November 7, 2019, Axie Infinity developer Sky Mavis announced that it had raised $1.465 million in a funding round led by Animoca Brands.
The new funding will be used to accelerate the development of the Axie Infinity Universe, build the company's development team, and reach a wider audience through precision marketing.
In addition to Animoca Brands, a capital giant in the blockchain game industry, South Korea's top Crypto capital Hashed and Consensys, a well-known ethereum blockchain software company, have also supported Sky Mavis.
Although Sky Mavis is a small Vietnamese studio, after a difficult year of early development, they have received the industry's top capital support in the first step in the capital market, ushering in the opening, and since then, Axie Infinity's development has entered the fast lane.
In just half a year, Axie Infinity has more than 40,000 daily active users and more than $15 million in monthly NFT trading volume, which has also quickly attracted more capital investment.
On May 11, 2021, Axie Infinity developer Sky Mavis announced the completion of a $7.5 million Series A round of financing led by Libertus Capital, which Sky Mavis said it would use to incubate more high-quality NFT chains.
With a new round of capital injection, Axie Infinity is at full power and ushers in exponential growth.
In less than 5 months, daily active users soared from the previous 40,000 to more than 2 million, with monthly revenue exceeding 100 million, and transactions in the NFT market exceeded $2.2 billion. Naturally, Sky Mavis has welcomed the industry's top capital.
On October 5, 2021, Axie Infinity developer Sky Mavis completed a $152 million Series B funding round (valued at $3 billion), led by a16z, with Participation from Paradigm, Accel, and others to scale up the team and game infrastructure, and build a distribution platform for other blockchain games.
On March 29, 2022, Axie Infinity's Ethereum sidechain Ronin announced that it had been hacked and about $600 million of Crypto had been stolen.
However, the main reason for the theft is mainly caused by social engineering attacks and human error, not due to the mechanism of Axie Infinity itself, so this theft of funds has not dispelled the idea that capital continues to be optimistic about Axie Infinity. On April 6, 2022, Axie Infinity development company Sky Mavis raised $150 million, led by Binance and with the participation of Animoca Brands, a16z, Dialectic, Paradigm and Accel.
The round will be used to compensate users' funds affected by the Ronin attack, and Ronin Bridge's funds have been restored.
Sky Mavis is constantly creating new records in the game industry with Axie Infinity, a creative team will always be the darling of capital, Sky Mavis will explore what boundaries with the help of capital, let's wait and see.
What are Sky Mavis's pioneering initiatives?
A new revolution in the game industry
Sky Mavis not only launched a successful game Axie Infinity, but more importantly, some of its explorations have brought a disruptive innovation to the entire game industry and will lead to great changes in the game industry.
In traditional games, the equipment, props, pets, and coins we get in the game seem to belong to us.
But in fact, these virtual assets belong to the game development company, and the data represented by these virtual assets is also controlled by the company.
Sky Mavis tried to introduce blockchain technology into the game, making the gold coins in the game become Crypto, and the equipment, props, and pets in the game became NFTs.
The data of these digital assets is also stored on the decentralized blockchain, so the player has ownership of these virtual assets.
It may seem like a simple incorporation of blockchain technology into the game, but this approach really changes the nature of the game itself.
On the one hand, Sky Mavis has embraced a concept called "Play To Earn", which is to play and earn.
Players can play blockchain games to obtain valuable digital assets, and these digital assets can be converted into fiat currencies in some regions, allowing players to obtain a considerable income.
Axie Infinity, for example, has helped many people in developing countries such as the Philippines and Venezuela that have been deeply affected by the epidemic and have high unemployment rates.
Axie Infinity has also received more people and financial support.
In July 2021, Axie Infinity had more than 2 million daily active users, and its revenue for the month also exceeded that of Glory of kings, reaching a staggering $300 million. This is a testament to how the concept of Play To Earn will impact traditional online games.
On the other hand, blockchain games like Axie Infinity have also changed the relationship between players and development teams.
In the past online games, if the development team wanted to make money, it would set up some payment mechanisms to attract players to spend, and players could get a better experience by spending money.
But this approach is that the player and the development team are in a state of zero-sum game against each other, and once the game is too kryptonite or less fun, it will cause the balance to be broken, and the loss of players is very rapid.
But with blockchain games with digital assets, the development team can devise an economic model for the game that allows players to earn while playing.
The development team holds these digital assets in advance, and as more and more players and funds enter the game, the digital assets in their hands naturally rise, and the development team can get good revenue.
In blockchain games, the relationship between the development team and the player has changed from the traditional antagonistic zero-sum game to a relationship of co-construction and sharing, and the player and the development team will share the dividends of development from the process of the game's development getting better and better.
It has to be said that Sky Mavis's success at Axie Infinity has indeed brought new concepts to the game industry, validated a new direction of development, and a new revolution will sweep the game industry.
The prototype of an economic model of the metacosm
After Roblox was the first to list the U.S. stock market with the concept of metacosmology last year, it attracted the attention of many parties, and then people like Epic Games, Nvidia, and Facebook also announced the entry into the metacosm.
In particular, Facebook even changed its name to Meta to show its determination to enter the metaverse with all its strength, and the concept of metaverse quickly became popular around the world.
However, the metacosm is composed of many complex technologies, many of which have been developed for many years, and some of them have accumulated.
For example, VR headset devices that can intuitively show the appearance of the metaverse have shined as early as the so-called first year of VR in 2016, and many VR-related games and content have also been launched.
In 2018, Steven Spielberg directed a science fiction film, Ready Player One, which depicts a virtual world called Oasis.
People can wear VR headset equipment and other equipment to enter the oasis to play, and can fight monsters in the oasis to upgrade the mission, so as to obtain valuable gold coins and equipment, props, etc., it can be said that "Ready Player One" depicts what the metaverse should look like.
Looking at the development of various technologies in the existing metaverse, the development of hardware and software has its own advantages.
Although display technologies such as VR/AR present far more visual effects than the previous ones, the immersion they bring is still unsatisfactory.
However, a metaverse like the one depicted in Ready Player One is missing a very important link in reality, that is, a complete and self-consistent economic model like in "Oasis", which allows players to play and earn money while playing in the virtual world.
Sky Mavis's Axie Infinity has achieved unprecedented success, on the one hand, it has verified the feasibility of building such an economic model, allowing players to pay hard work in the virtual world, as if they were living in the virtual world as if they were in the real world.
On the other hand, it also provides successors with a prototype of a set of proven metacosmic economic models.
Nowadays we can see many new blockchain games or applications, all based on Axie Infinity's economic model based on micro-innovation, it can be said that Sky Mavis has filled an important part of the development of the meta-universe industry, since the development of the industry has a new paradigm.
GameFi's precursor
If Sky Mavis's creation of the "P2E" game is the realization of a value model, building an economic model of the metacosm is an ecological self-harmony.
The fusion of blockchain technology, games, protocols and NFTs forms an increasingly powerful model behind Axie Infinity.
We know that in the blockchain game (GameFi) there are often many elements to integrate, the first is the application of the blockchain itself, but this is a grand story theme.
It includes the application of smart contracts, the creation of NFTs, the development of Dapps and the guarantee of transactions, of course, Sky Mavis could have relied on NFT markets like Open Sea, but they chose to build their own DEXs to trade all kinds of NFT (game) props.
The second is the originality of the game itself, we see that all kinds of characters in Axie Infinity games are created by the Sky Mavis team themselves, which is both full of fun and in line with the public aesthetic through the accumulation of the game circle.
So this also attracted a part of the female players to join. However, for now, playability is still lacking in Axie Infinity, and it is also a place where Sky Mavis needs to spend subsequent efforts to build, but this does not prevent it from becoming the leader of GameFi at present.
In addition, as we mentioned above, Sky Mavis successfully experimented with an endogenous game economy at Axie Infinity, which also made the in-game currency SLP (interchangeable with ETH) complement the game governance token AXS.
This is a feat that many traditional games have not had in the past, and it is also the place where the attempts of blockchain games in the early years failed, after all, most of the GameFi in 2018 was just "spinach" in the guise of games. So, the real thing about Sky Mavis may not be how fun games it has developed, or how interesting the trading market has been created.
Instead, the above originally fragmented things are truly integrated together, like building blocks to create a new world, but also to create a precedent for GameFi, so that everyone suddenly realized, "The original blockchain game can be played like this!" ”
Axie Infinity's progressive innovation
Speaking of the further future, let's share a quote from Animoca Brands' recent renewed investment in Sky Mavis, who wrote, "Axie Infinity is not just a game, nor is it just a community, it is a prototype kingdom with a governance system, a large population and a vibrant economy. ”
Perhaps, in the future, Sky Mavis will lead Axie Infinity to a higher dimension, including a better governance system, which will bring about the enhancement of game decentralization and improve the playability of Axie Infinity games themselves, thus attracting more mainstream players to join.
Of course, they can also follow the growth of Crypto and open up more interesting directions, including horizontal expansion (expanding Crypto's group) and vertical digging (expanding players in the game market).
In addition, the more original characters in Axie Infinity games may usher in ip creation like "boring apes" due to the expansion of the user market, after all, boring apes have rushed out of the NFT itself, why not Axie Infinity? As for the Sky Mavis team itself, we need to be clear that Axie Infinity is just a successful game it's currently developing.
No one knows if they will be able to create more interesting and economical GameFi with experience in the future. Perhaps this is also why after a major hacking incident, there are still capital options to increase the number of reasons.
After all, instead of investing in an emerging team that has not experienced setbacks, it is better to add a team that already has some successful experience, which is the answer from the investor's perspective and the story that the public likes.
As a result, Sky Mavis's pioneering nature not only shapes the present, but also creates a thread of the future, which is inspired by Axie Infinity.
But that doesn't mean Sky Mavis can create the same feat, so will the GameFi spirit or "P2E" gameplay that Sky Mavis advocates be a farther future for the industry?
This will be the final reflection of this article, and it is also a sign that Sky Mavis and Axie Infinity are placed in the long history of history.
Will P2E be the future of the gaming industry?
Jiho, co-founder of Axie Infinity, once said, "If we can build a community of millions of blockchain-educated users by bringing in new people, then we can build a behemoth that devours other products." ”
The implication of this statement is that what Axie Infinity needs is not to create a unique game, but to build a great community.
This goes back to traditional gaming, because the exuberance of a gaming community determines how far it can eventually go.
The key to the "P2E" game is "Play" on the one hand, but on the other hand, it is also in "Earn", without the blessing of "E", the playability of the game will determine the final direction.
So, we have to answer the question of whether "Play" is important or "Earn" is important from the perspective of the game industry itself.
Perhaps, the development of GameFi in the past six months has told us the answer, just "Earn" is not enough to support an Axie Infinity again, only with the premise of Paly, it is possible to create the next Axie Infinity.
Although Sky Mavis has almost created and defined a new market, this field is not a maverick innovation, but the result of integration, so what we are optimistic about in the medium and long term is the gameFi with playability, rather than a blockchain game made up of a few JPG, and ultimately it is in vain.
That's why GameFi invested in an icon Animoca Brands acquired racing game studio Eden Games last week.
You should know that Eden Games has developed well-known racing games such as Need for Speed: Porsche Release, F1 Mobile Racing and so on.
The acquisition aims to leverage Eden Games' expertise to develop the ecosystem of revV Motorsport.
Perhaps the agency has told us the answer, and the integration of GameFi and "P2E" must be the future of the game industry.
But now, we have come to a point where the old and the new alternate, whether it is for emerging players like Axie Infinity or for the majority of traditional game giants, a handshake or a hug between the two is the bright future of the game industry.
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