Axie Infinity developer Sky Mavis’ utility currency Smooth Love Potion (SLP) plummeted to $0.004 on May 12, as the developer struggles with ensuring sustainability of the game’s ecosystems, player activities, and the profitability for players in tier three countries such as Vietnam and the Philippines, where the majority of Axie players – rather than investors – are based.
Game developer Lars ‘Totally Texas’ Doucet highlighted on Twitter, SLP when “rounding to the closest cent gives you $0.00”.
Tellingly, AXS governance token, Doucet noted that Sky Mavis’ more “salient” currency, is also down by 85 per cent since November, and that the daily earnings for most Axie Infinity players had fallen below the Philippines’ minimum wage line after the boom in value during July and August 2021.
Potions plunge
A Smooth Love Potion is used to breed Axie Infinity’s in-game creatures – which are in turn sold as their own NFTs – and is earned through PvP, quests, and more.
Sky Mavis closed its Series A this time last year for $7.5 million and had reached a $3 billion valuation by October. In November 2021, up to 70 per cent of players were based in the Philippines and the majority were scholars, meaning players loaned digital creatures by sponsors.
Axie Infinity remains perhaps the most high-profile success in the blockchain games space, but Sky Mavis had $625 million in cryptocurrency stolen from its Ronin network. Nonetheless, Sky Mavis raised $150 million in its latest funding round to reimburse both the stolen assets and spool up to the launch of Axie Infinity Origins.
