KEY POINTS

  • "Axie Infinity" Ronin bridge was hacked earlier this year
  • The team behind the P2E game rolls out new features in the game to retain and attract new players
  • AXS, the native token of the game, was trading 5.71% at $13.34

The popular play-to-earn game "Axie Infinity" appears to be healing with its sales picking up following the multi-million-dollar Ronin bridge hack earlier this year. The news comes at the heels of the launch of the land staking feature and the continued rollout of the Origin version of the game.

The Non-Fungible Token (NFT) sales volume of "Axie Infinity" surged by more than 200% over the past few days, which according to one of its founders, Jeff Zirlin, is a sign that the game and the community are starting to heal. The executive noted that downloads of the new Origin version, which introduces a myriad of visual upgrades, a new battle system and several other improvements, are "on the rise" and have seen 4,600 downloads since last Wednesday.

Additionally, he said that the land staking feature, which the team introduced on June 30, saw that 90% of land owners had staked their NFTs to gain rewards in the form of AXS tokens. On top of that, the latest data from Cryptoslam reveals that play-to-earn games have garnered a whopping $1.3 million worth of NFT sales over the past few days from 23,100 buyers, highlighting a massive 205% increase.

In-game assets called 'Axies' are seen in this undated handout image from the blockchain-based game Axie Infinity, which is owned by Sky Mavis. Sky Mavis/Handout via REUTERS
In-game assets called 'Axies' are seen in this undated handout image from the blockchain-based game Axie Infinity, which is owned by Sky Mavis. Sky Mavis/Handout via REUTERS Reuters / Sky Mavis

"Axie Infinity" has undergone major challenges since the last part of 2021. The prices of its tokens Smooth Love Potion (SLP) and AXS crashed despite its play-to-earn nature. The main Ethereum-based game also suffered a major hack on its ronin bridge and lost around $622 million.

Considered the pioneer of new generation games, "Axie Infinity'' fetched funding after the hack. Binance led a $150 million funding round to help the game pick itself up and refund players who lost money from the breach. However, it was not enough to pull players back.

In the first week of July, "Axie Infinity" saw around 368,000 gamers logged into the game, but while it may seem a lot, it is but a small portion of the peak player count in November which reached 2.7 million weekly users.

As of ET on Tuesday, AXS was trading down 5.71% at $13.34 with a 24-hour trading volume of $84,822,644 based on the latest data from CoinMarketCap – a massive plummet from its peak price of $165 in November 2021.

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