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Popular non-fungible token (NFT) gaming platform Axie Infinity continues to see increased adoption from users, following exponential growth in the number of wallet addresses.
Axie Sees Surge in Address Holders
According to data provided by IntoTheBlock on Tuesday (September 28, 2021), Axie Infinity Shards (AXS) ownership is on the rise, with 17,480 address holders. This figure represents a new all-time high (ATH) and a 420% increase year-to-date (YTD). Meanwhile, this growth is indicative of the rising popularity of Axie Infinity and play-to-earn non-fungible token (NFT) gaming.
Back in July, CryptoPotato reported that the value of the AXS token skyrocketed nearly 400% within one month, leading to a market capitalization of over the $1 billion mark. Later in August, AXS was among the assets listed on the major cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Pro, which also gave it an immediate boost.
Axis Infinity, developed by Sky Mavis and released in 2018, arguably popularised the play-to-earn trend and has recorded a number of impressive milestones in recent times. Data from DappRadar revealed that the project recorded over $2 billion in NFT sales volume, solidifying Axie’s place as the most valuable NFT collection, thereby surpassing major names such as CryptoPunks, Art Blocks, and NBA Top Shot.
The data also showed that more than 600,000 users traded Axis Infinity NFTs, resulting in 4,887,645 transactions. The project currently boasts over 1.5 million daily active users.
According to Jeff Zirlin, co-founder of Axie Infinity, half of the platform’s users got to interact with cryptocurrency and blockchain for the first time through Axie, while 25% of them did not own a bank account.
The Growth of NFT Gaming
The NFT industry is becoming popular with celebrities, major sports leagues, and companies buying digital art in whatever form, or selling them. However, blockchain-based games are seeing a special kind of attention.
A report by DeFiPrime stated that the NFT Gaming market has a total market valuation of nearly $180 billion as of August 2021, with the value estimated to rise to $196 billion. An excerpt from the report reads:
“NFT games may have the potential to become the standard for the gaming market if it sees enough attention and popularity. Already they have made major changes to games and made it much more fun for players. From there, it could be a very major change to the way people play games and could be as major as Doom was to the market or 3D was for environments.”