Some thoughts on the new updates…
The moment that we have all been waiting for is finally here, we have Ronin…well, almost. If you do not know what Ronin is, check out my overview here. The one sentence summary is that Ronin is Axie Infinity’s custom built sidechain that will allow for fast and cheap transactions. This is essential for Axie’s success and it is incredible to see that we have this momentous occasion upon us.
My initial thoughts on the Ronin wallet is that it is seamless. The downloading and setting up was very simple and user friendly. It is a breath of fresh air in the blockchain industry when an onboarding process is clean. Too often we fall into the trap of great blockchain concept, but terrible UI/UX. A good idea that is not usable is not worth anything.
Further, migrating land and items over to Ronin from Loom was just the click of a button — it automatically imported over. I can’t understate how important is. The blockchain gaming audience is not the same as the blockchain audience, they are different user groups. Obviously there will be some overlap, but a game that is trying to go mainstream has to be simple for those that are not here for the tech. They want to play the game, not have to dissect code or follow 10 step instructions in order to play. The one click transfer solves this.
Users get 100 free transactions per day. There was a little asterisk next to this, as the team can change this as they see fit. But for now, having the ability to buy/sell/trade land with 100 free transactions is freeing. When this is available for Axies, the barrier to enter will be much, much lower, as users will not have to pay ~$50 in gas fees to list or sell. While we had free transactions with land/items before, it is encouraging to be able to experience Ronin first hand and imagine a future with our Axies on Ronin. Bullish.
New Additions: DappRadar joins the validator team. This team is stacked. More and more top companies/projects in the industry keep getting added as validators and it only adds to the momentum that Axie is building.
Axies creative incentive structure. I was thinking about Balaji’s “tasking” idea, which is how the blockchain allows for companies to incentivize tasks with some kind of reward. You can find the whole talk where he mentions it here. Axie is cleverly doing this with the Ronin migration. They need all users to move their land and items over to Ronin, the task. For doing this task, users get a special Ronin NFT, the incentive. This would not be much of an incentive if the reward was not valuable, but it is. Having the Ronin NFT signifies that you were there in this momentous time in Axie history. In 5 years from now, the NFT will be a status symbol, a collection of the Axie OGs. Also, it has a beautiful design. You want this NFT as part of your collection to show off on your land plot.
A symbiotic relationship. It just goes to show the benefit of the blockchain and how thorough this team is. By combining the structure of the blockchain with an appealing NFT, you can incentivize user groups to complete mutually beneficial tasks.
With all that is going on in the NFT space, there is so much content to keep up with. I will keep doing my job to bring the best of it to you!
YCB 