Axie Infinity Sets Record-Breaking $4 Billion In NFT Sales

Axie Infinity, the Ethereum-based video game, continues to amaze its fandom over the last year. Despite some hiccups, the play-to-earn game is relentless. In fact, it just made quite a bit of a noise this week after the Sky Mavis project snagged nearly $4 billion in all-time NFT revenues. The in-game currency of the P2E pet training universe, AXS, has appreciated by 2,544% against the US dollar during the last 12 months. On the other side, Smooth Love Potion (SLP) has had a less lucky year, with its value decreasing by 70% year to date. Metrics show that there are currently 53,502 AXS token holders and 45,276 Axie owners out of 166,870 Axies. Axie Infinity: Price Analysis According to 24-hour Axie NFT sales numbers, the project has received $2.2 million in transactions from 17,731 buyers. While Axie is third all-time in terms of sales, it is fourth in terms of 24-hour sales and fifth in terms of the previous seven days. Last month, Axie placed eighth out of 10 projects in terms of 30-day NFT sales. According to the most recent market figures, the average selling price of Axie Infinity as of Monday, Feb. 21, 2022, is $55.53, up 7.1% from the previous day’s low of $50.30 to a high of $56.14. AXS total market cap at $3.17 billion in the daily chart | Source: TradingView.com Additionally, on Nov. 6, 2021, Axie Infinity reached an all-time high of $164.90. In comparison, it reached an all-time low of $0.123718 on Nov. 6, 2020. Despite the fact that cumulative Axie Infinity NFT sales have surpassed the $4 billion mark, sales fell 40.58 percent last week. Axie Infinity has processed $19,815,670 in orders via the Ronin blockchain in the most recent weekly data. Related Article | Axie Infinity Smooth Love Potion (SLP) Explodes With 300% Gain This February Metaverse Real Estate Prices Up Last week, Axie NFTs had a total of 267,906 transactions, including 91,940 buyers. Meanwhile, the value of metaverse properties has surged in tandem with rising interest in blockchain-based virtual world projects such as Decentraland, The Sandbox, Illuvium and Axie Infinity. Land in the Metaverse, as well as flats, penthouses, and mansions, have been selling for between $4 and $7 million. The Webbland Project, which advertises itself as an interconnected pixel metaverse, has generated $3.6 million in revenues over the last seven days, an increase of 126.24% over the previous week. Webbland is similar to The Sandbox and Decentraland in that it allows users to own land, equip it with NFTs, complete quests, and explore. Webbland has surpassed Farmers World to claim the 33rd rank in terms of seven-day sales in the recent week, falling just short of Sheet Fighter. Related Article | Binamon NFT Game, on the Way to be the Next Axie Infinity on Binance Smart Chain Featured image from CoinGecko, chart from TradingView.com

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The People’s Bank Of China’s Report On Blockchain Tech And Their Upcoming CBDC

Apparently, the People’s Bank Of China is considering using blockchain technology to power the Digital Yuan CBDC. The coin, also known as Digital renminbi or digital RMB, has been in beta-testing for a while now. However, Di Gang, deputy director of the Digital Currency Institute of the People’s Bank of China, recently presented an extensive report on blockchain technology. It was at “the 18th annual global meeting of the International Finance Forum (IFF) on Dec. 5,” and Chinese journalist Colin Wu translated the main points for us to analyze.  Related Reading | How Samsung Will Help The Bank Of Korea With CBDC Development Before we do that, let’s consider this. Their CBDC is a completely centralized affair. Why would the People’s Bank Of China use a blockchain? In other words, why would China need a blockchain for its CBDC if its aim is not decentralization or censorship resistance? A centralized database is orders of magnitude more efficient than a blockchain. And it doesn’t need mining to validate transactions, nor PoW or PoS to reach consensus. Let’s dive into the report and see if we can find answers to these questions. What Does The People’s Bank Of China Think About Blockchain Tech? The report begins with stats and a survey’s results: “According to Di Gang, 2021, the results of blockchain research conducted by relevant consulting organizations for ten countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Singapore, Germany, China and Japan, show that 81% of the institutions surveyed believe that blockchain technology is widely scalable and is being adopted by the mainstream, with the percentage of financial institutions agreeing with it being as high as 84%, and all the global financial institutions surveyed have made blockchain an an imperative strategic priority.”  Notice that they talk about belief and about making blockchain a priority, but not about actual usage among traditional financial institutions. The report does go on to say that “A research institute in September 2021, research on the use of blockchain by the global TOP 100 listed institutions shows that 81 institutions are using blockchain technology,” but no source is given. Where are those projects? Are they still in development? Then, Di Gang claims:  “Blockchain landing achievements are increasing and playing more and more value advantages; on the other hand, blockchain technology has realized landing in cross-border payment, supply chain finance, agricultural finance, trade finance, inclusive finance, social city, “three rural areas”, people’s livelihood, etc.” Are these crypto-projects, government-related, or traditional finance projects? The report doesn’t specify, so we can’t know their characteristics. Then, Di Gang says “Some large international financial institutions are also actively expanding blockchain application scenarios, including trade finance, information sharing, foreign exchange trading, equity trading, etc.” Why do those institutions need a blockchain to do all that? Does The Digital RMB Or Digital Yuan Need a Blockchain? Apparently, it does. And the Numerical Research Institute is already working on an implementation: “First, a unified distributed ledger was built in the digital RMB system based on blockchain technology. The central bank acts as a trusted institution to upload the transaction data onto the chain to guarantee the authenticity and reliability of the data, and the operating institutions can conduct cross-institutional reconciliation, collective maintenance of the ledger, multi-point backup, etc.” The Institute wants to build a “blockchain platform for trade finance, with the goal of penetratable information, transferable trust and shareable credit, and to complete the construction of a blockchain-based trade finance ecosystem.” Relationship betwwen the US Dollar and the Chinese Yuan via FXCM | Source: USD/CNH on TradingView.com Technical Challenges In Blockchain Technology The People’s Bank Of China identified the following difficulties with blockchain technology: Problems with performance and scalability. Not Enough privacy protection. “Innovation from the theoretical level is still needed, as well as from engineering technology,” Di Gang said. It needs to “further strengthen security technology innovation.” “In terms of regulatory auditing, Di Gang believes that there are still many nodes inside the blockchain that are anonymized and dense, which are difficult to supervise by decentralization.” There’s technical friction between blockchain technology and traditional technologies. Someone needs to build an interoperability standard system. So, essentially the same problems every crypto company already identified plus one, “regulatory auditing” which is “difficult to supervise by decentralization.” Is it fair to say that this is what this report is really about?  Related Reading | Central Bank of France Tests Blockchain-Backed CBDC Targeting Debt Market The People’s Bank Of China Will Release Their CBDC For The Winter Olympic Games Apparently, the PBOC’s plan to further test the Digital RMB during the Winter Olympic Games is still a go. Di Gang said: “The digital RMB has been piloted since the end of 2019 and is now being piloted in 10 regions and the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games scenario, and in July this year, the PBoC released the White Paper on the Progress of R&D of China’s Digital RMB, and as an important part of the digital RMB R&D pilot and the Winter Olympic Games preparation, the pilot of the digital RMB Beijing Winter Olympic Games scenario is also is advancing in a steady and orderly manner.” And that’s where China currently stands regarding blockchain technology and their CBDC. Featured Image: glaborde7 on Pixabay | Charts by TradingView

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The Edge and Beyond

Salim Ismail is the author of Exponential Organizations. He’s an XPRIZE Foundation Board member, Founding Executive Director of Singularity University; Chairman of OpenExO & ExO Works, etc He is prolific speaker that has spoken in front of top business leaders of Fortune 500 companies and boards around the world. Speaking highlights include keynotes delivered at [...]

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