On Thursday, Sky Mavis, the creator of the monster-battle game, Axie Infinity, released its much-anticipated RON governance token. The token is based on its Ethereum (ETH) sidechain Ronin Network. Its purpose includes paying for transactions on Ronin, staking and participating in community proposals.
According to its developers, Ronin has over 250,000 unique daily active addresses. When ranked by the number of weekly active users, Katana, Ronin’s decentralized exchange (DEX), is the No. 2 largest DEX. In addition, the blockchain surpassed $5 billion in deposited value, with 15% of all nonfungible token (NFT) transactions occurring on the network in 2021. In total, there have been over 2 million Ronin wallet downloads. It is also claimed to be environmentally friendly, with one Bitcoin allegedly using an equivalent amount of energy to close to 700 million Ronin transactions.
But hopes for a smooth launch were offset by complaints from a number of Axie Infinity players. In Axie Infinity, users are rewarded with an asset called Smooth Love Potion (SLP) for completing tasks. Top users can earn about 1,400 SLPs per day playing Axie Infinity, or 680 SLPs if they join a guild. As a result of the crypto bear market, SLP has dropped from $0.36 in May down to $0.01 in recent weeks. Many players took to Twitter to voice their frustration at Axie Infinity turning their focus into developing RON instead of doing more to prop up the value of SLP.
Nevertheless, players may get some respite as 70 million out of an initial circulating supply of 185 million will be given to various community members (including players) for their contributions. At the time of publication, each RON is currently worth 3.30 Tether (USDT) on OKX.