Thread by @jamesjho_

1/ Spent 10 hours this weekend playing @AxieInfinity thanks to @packyM's work

Fascinating to see crypto / NFTs continue to move mainstream as part of everyday consumer experiences.

Huge implications for games, crypto, tech broadly & more 👇

notboring.co/p/infinity-rev…

2/ Assets in Axie Infinity are all tokenized / freely tradable.

Axies (pets), Land, Items are NFTs.

In-game currencies (AXS, SLP) are ERC-20 tokens.

Although the UI is buggy, laggy & somewhat confusing - it works.

I bought & sold multiple Axies (to get better move sets...) 😂

3/ All this has a few implications, notably:

A) Ownership of assets no longer tied to game developers

B) Games become "play to earn"

C) Early community members (gamers & creators) participate in the financial upside

4/ Structurally we're decoupling:

A) game development, game play, rules
B) custody, ownership and transacting virtual goods

**Note this is not strictly true for Axie Infinity bcuz they built their own wallet & sidechain 😛

But likely true for most others that follow.

5/ As the game has grown in popularity, floor prices for Axies have risen:

~$80 (May 2021)
~$400 (today)

This has been great for the early community who invested time / $$ in the game 🔥🔥

Their NFTs / tokens are now more valuable.

But also creates other challenges...

6/ I had to spend $1000+ just to get started with 3 axies.

Got the cheapest ones bcuz I didn't know any better / how to pick.

But after 5 hours - I got stuck.

Needed axies with better move sets to progress...which obviously cost even more 😭

7/ I know there are guilds w/ scholarships to solve this cold start problem...

but I'm just a casual player.

Not unlike the challenge w/ capitalism & free market economies - how do you bridge the gap b/t the have and have nots ??

And create a system that works for both.

8/ More fascinating to me is how blockchain is permeating into use cases outside of the financial world.

We used to focus on crypto, Bitcoin, DeFi extending into payments, store of value, exchanges, lending.

Now seeing crypto as just a part of mainstream consumer apps.

9/ In many ways - reminds me of early days of the internet.

Everyone focused on the digitization of content, media, information (remember AOL and Yahoo?)

But turns out most of $$ was not 1-for-1 porting of content from physical to digital.

10/ Hard to predict the next decade in crypto.

But undeniable that it's here to stay, innovates at breathtaking pace, and is finding real use cases.

It's no longer "speculative" or a "gimmick"...

Instead one of the biggest tech shifts of our times
- like cloud, mobile, PCs.