Will Axie Infinity’s new season help AXS’ declining fortunes?

Posted: September 23, 2023

• Axie Infinity has announced its Origins Season 6, set to launch in a few weeks.
• While AXS value continued to decline, network-wide accumulation persists.

Popular play-to-earn (P2E) blockchain game Axie Infinity [AXS] has announced a series of updates to be deployed on the protocol when its “Origins Season 6” goes live in a few weeks. 

𝗢𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗶𝗻𝘀 𝗦𝟲 𝗶𝘀 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗮 𝘁𝗮𝘀𝘁𝘆 𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘂 𝗼𝗳 𝘂𝗽𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀 ⚔️

– New Starters
– Card/Rune/Charm balancing and additions
– Game pacing updates

To read the full details read the blog post linked at the end of this thread.

Let’s dive in👇 pic.twitter.com/SO6Djqfqel

— Axie Infinity (@AxieInfinity) September 22, 2023

Realistic or not, here’s AXS’ market cap in BTC’s terms

Some updates targeted at improving the overall gameplay include new card mechanics, balancing changes to cards, runes, charms, and pacing within the game.

According to the blog post containing the announcement, the new card mechanics will add new strategies and complexity, while the balancing changes will aim to make the game more competitive. 

As for pacing, the changes deployed will make the game more enjoyable for players of all skill levels.

Axie’s quick race to the bottom

Axie Infinity is notorious for its flurry of updates, which have been pushed out since the year began. However, these have yet to do much to retain active users on the gaming platform, as data from activeplayer.io revealed a steady decline in the monthly count of active gamers on the P2E game.

Data from activeplayer.io showed that the average count of monthly players on the P2E platform has dropped from a peak of 2.70 million players in February 2022 to less than 500,000 players in August 2023.

In the last 30 days, 348,117 users have visited Axie Infinity, bringing the year-to-date (YTD) monthly player count decline to 19%. 

The decline in the number of active users for Axie is mirrored by a decrease in the monthly sales volume recorded for its Axies NFTs. According to data from CryptoSlam, the total monthly sales of these digital collectibles have plummeted by over 50% since January. 

Source: CryptoSlam

For context, in January, the amount of Axies NFTs sold totaled $3.52 million. By the end of August, this had fallen to $1.74 million. So far this month, the Axies NFTs worth $1.22 million have been sold. 

Accumulation persists, but at what cost?

At press time, the game’s governance token AXS exchanged hands at $4.45. Due to a steady drop in interest in Axie Infinity, its token has shed 25% of its value since the year began.

However, despite the price decline, players and investors across the entire gaming ecosystem continue to accumulate the altcoin, according to its Mean Coin Age metric. This Santiment metric tracks the average age of all coins/tokens on the blockchain. 

How much are 1, 10, or 100 AXS worth today?

When an asset’s Mean Coin Age rallies, it suggests a network-wide accumulation and less movement between addresses. Information from the data provider showed that AXS’ Mean Coin Age has climbed by 51% in the last year.

This surge has occurred in spite of the token’s plummeting MVRV ratio, suggesting that many of these investors held their AXS below their cost basis at press time. 

Source: Santiment