Axie Infinity has just released their Lunar New Year update, one that has received mixed reception from the player base. The key idea behind Axie Infinity’s Lunar New Year 2022 update is letting go of Axies in hopes of receiving gifts or rewards that can be used in the land gameplay.
Lands in Axie Infinity allow for more passive rewards as they spawn resources that can be collected by land owners. The land gameplay also plans to include real time PVE battles, Axie management, and other gameplay experiences. However, none of these are in effect at the time of this writing, and right now only a small fraction of the player base stands to benefit from the land-based rewards since there are only a selected few that own or even have access to lands.
To the crypto-savvy, this new update is what is known as a burning mechanic — a process that effectively removes tokens, in this case Axies, from the available supply, which decreases the number in circulation and theoretically increases the value of tokens that remain.
With the Lunacia Update, Axie Infinity players, or even managers can let go or burn off some of their Axies, in exchange for land-based rewards such as utility cosmetics. Axies that are let go are effectively burned, or “returned to Lunacia”, and can never be used again.
How does this affect the ecosystem?
Looking further into the update, everyone, not just land-owners can receive the land-based rewards. This could mean two things for event participants: first, participating in the event could help them prepare for the upcoming land update, and second, the potential sell value of the rewards that players can earn may increase.
Marketplace listings of Mystic tier items, which are the highest rarity items that can be received from the event can reach up to 2.5 ETH or roughly USD $5,800 based on recent conversions, possibly even higher. To compare, an average PVP/PVE ready Axie’s price is around 0.15 ETH or about USD $35 on average, which means that the potential rewards are definitely higher.
Letting go of Axies into Lunacia also means that they are going to be removed from circulation and allow breeders into the next breeding wave to replace the ones that have been let go. This has the potential to stimulate the economy, encourage more SLP burn and circulation as well as help balance or even raise the demand.
In turn, this could potentially raise the value and boost earnings for players such as scholars. For managers this is also a chance to free up inventory and update their lineups to fit the current changes and approach to the Axie metagame by acquiring new Axies. As Axie Infinity undergoes major updates for each PVP season, certain Axies and Axie lineups may suffer from nerfs or benefits from buffs. Acquisition of new Axies will help players and managers adapt to these seasonal changes, especially if they’re aiming to not only improve earnings by raising MMR but also to be part of the leaderboards and gain additional rewards.
Bountiful new harvest: Axie Origin Coins
Another level of reward that is included in Axie Infinity’s Lunar New Year Update is the Legendary Raffle. The rewards from the raffle include more high rarity land items and AOCs, or Axie Origin Coins.
AOC is what became of the original 427 Origin Axies that Sky Mavis has stashed away for use in Axie Infinity’s rewards programs and AOC holders will be able to convert them into Origin Axies.
Origin Axies are highly rare as they are part of the first-ever Axie public sale and their value can easily go up into hundreds of thousands, if not millions of US dollars. Their value is only determined by their rarity though, as they do not have any utility in-game and are purely collectible or enjoyed for their aesthetics.
While it is easy to boil down the Lunar New Year update as an event geared solely towards land owners, the benefits gained from its intended goal could be felt by everyone if done correctly.
Axie Infinity’s biggest challenge right now is the oversupply of, and lack of demand for, the SLP token. This is not going to solve it overnight but introducing burning mechanisms that don’t just burn assets for the sake of it, but also incorporate rewards, is definitely a step in the right direction.