If that sounds too good to be true, let me tell you it is not.
There is a startup in Vietnam that is doing this exact same thing and raking in millions of dollars.
This is the story of Axie Infinity, which follows a play-to-earn model.
We know the turmoil we went through in the past 1.5 years. It was worse for people in the lower-income strata of our society.
When we are in such a heartbreaking situation, what would we do?
We look for ways to meet our essentials.
That’s exactly what people in Vietnam did.
The solution they found was to play the Axie Infinity game, get rewarded in cryptocurrency, convert them to fiat currency, use them for their essentials.
The most interesting part here is that it is built on an ethereum-blockchain.
But how does it work?
Any player needs 3 Axies to play the game. Axies are blob-like creatures who fight battles using various strategies to earn 2 types of coins. The entire scenario happens in a virtual world called Lunacia.
The game is somewhat similar to the Pokemon game and it’s not that hard to play. The hard part for a common person is the setup and the conversions to real money.
The player’s strategy revolves around acquiring the coins.
Smooth Love Potions (SLP) are awarded for successful battles and can be cashed out or used in the game to breed new Axies.
Axie Infinity Shards (AXS) can be earned in seasonal tournaments or for selling Axies in the game’s marketplace.
For someone to start playing this game, the initial capital required is a bit high, 200$ for a single Axie. We need 3 of them to start.
To solve this bottleneck, several sponsors have emerged on the market. They give out Axies for people to start the game and take a cut of their earning. It can go anywhere from 30% to even 90%.
Sky Mavis, a Vietnamese studio developed this game. So, how do they make money?
They take a cut when Axies changes hands and charges a commission when new Axie NFTs are bred.
Yes, there can be multiple thoughts on the sustainability of this game.
It is difficult to wrap our heads around this concept of play-to-earn real money.
But, it strikes me the way people have adopted this game considering the huge learning curve for a normal person to understand NFTs, cryptocurrency, crypto wallet, conversions to fiat currency, and the number of steps to do to start, play, and earn.
The developers agree on the learning curve required to set up, play and earn in the game. So, they have provided a step-by-step detailed guide for anyone to start with.
If you think this is a game that’s just been played by few people, let me just show you the stats.
It has 23 million average monthly players. And there’s a long waitlist of people in their discord server waiting for their chance to get an entry to the game.
The major reason for this NFT game to get humongous traction is simply the possibility of converting the rewards in the game to real money.
Also, it has paved a huge way in popularising the whole NFT, crypto industry among the common folks.
And that’s a milestone for any tech to grow stronger, faster.