How to Earn Money in Axie Infinity (and How Much)
Axie Infinity is the #1 most popular blockchain-based game where players can earn money by playing.
In fact, many players in some countries are using the game as their main source of income especially during the pandemic.
But, does it sound too good to be true? How can you earn money by playing a video game anyway? And if you really did, how much can you actually earn?
In this guide, we will try to answer these questions as honestly and as simply as we can so that everyone can understand!
Overview of Blockchain Games
To truly understand the earning potential of Axie Infinity and other blockchain-based games, one needs to first understand about the core values of blockchain technology and why they were made in the first place.
Blockchain is a technological revolution whose main pillars are transparency and decentralization. Bitcoin, one of the earliest applications of blockchain, was made so that the flow of money will no longer be centralized within banks and financial institutions, but to us, the average person.
Similarly, this is also the vision of Sky Mavis, the team behind Axie Infinity. Here is a quote from their white paper:
“We believe in a future where work and play become one. We believe in empowering our players and giving them economic opportunities.“
In Axie Infinity, players are incentivized for contributing to the economy of the game. Gone are the days of big triple A game companies and publishers monopolizing the video game industry and racking up millions of dollars from players. Today, we are now in the “play to earn” era—a dream we all probably had during our childhood.
4 Ways to Earn Money in Axie Infinity
Here are several ways to earn money by playing Axie Infinity:
- Farming Smooth Love Potions and selling them to the market
- Breeding and selling Axies
- Starting a scholarship
- Investing on Lunacia Land
Take note though that this list is not exhaustive. Remember, the game is still in its Alpha mode—it is only just getting started!
(Related Guide: Ultimate Beginner’s Guide on How to Play Axie Infinity)
As the developers of the game add more features, we will get even more ways to earn, and players will have more utility for tokens rewarded by playing the game.
Anyway, let’s talk about these methods in more detail!
How to Earn in Axie Infinity with Smooth Love Potions (SLP)
(Full Guide: How to Earn SLP in Axie Infinity)
The easiest and most common method to earn money in Axie Infinity is by farming an in-game item called Smooth Love Potion or SLP.
You can obtain SLPs just by playing the game. Then, you can sell these to the marketplace depending on the current market price of SLP.
SLPs are an important resource in the game with high demand because they are consumed whenever players want to breed new Axies.
Here are three ways on how to earn Smooth Love Potions in Axie Infinity:
- Battle monsters in Adventure Mode
- Battle other players in the PVP Arena
- Clear daily quests such as simply logging in once a day
As more features will be added to the game, we will also get more ways to earn SLPs. Eventually, there will also be new uses for this item which can increase its value!
How much can I earn by farming and selling SLP?
At the time of writing, the market price of Smooth Love Potion is around $0.24. You can always check the current price of SLP on sites like CoinGecko or CoinMarketCap.
Right now, players can earn on average 100–200 SLP per day. This means you can potentially earn up to $48 in a single day of playing Axie Infinity at the current price.
Check out this section for a quick guide on the different ways players can obtain Smooth Love Potions in the game.
What causes the price of Smooth Love Potion to go up or down?
As with other cryptocurrencies, expect the price of SLP to fluctuate a lot, especially since the game is gaining a lot of traction recently.
In general, it will also heavily depend on the supply and demand of SLP. Are more SLP being consumed than generated, or vice versa? These are huge factors that drive the SLP price up or down.
It should seem obvious that the goal is to try and only sell your SLPs when you think the price is at its peak.
In April 2021, the price went to as low as $0.03, but in May 2021 it got to as high as $0.36.
How to Earn Money by Breeding Axies
Another main feature of the game is that players can breed Axies to give birth to a new one.
(Related Guide: How to Breed Axies: Breeding Guide)
The newborn Axie will have a brand new set of stats, body parts, and abilities (or cards). And for each body part, the Axie possesses 3 genes. This makes every offspring Axie a unique one.
And if lucky, the breeder can get a powerful Axie with a well-balanced set of stats. This is what makes breeding Axies very interesting and addictive.
(Related Guide: Best Starter Team for Beginners)
To breed Axies, players will need to consume SLPs. The higher the breed level, the more SLP is needed. This is the main factor that keeps SLPs scarce and therefore higher in price, incentivizing players who work hard to grind them.
So, what do you do with the newly bred Axie then? Well, you can use it to battle alongside your team, you can use it to breed more Axies, you can sell it on the marketplace, or you can use them scholarships.
How to Earn Money with Axie Infinity Scholarships
In Axie Infinity, you only battle with a team of three (3) Axies.
Once you get more Axies either from breeding or from buying more Axies from the market, you can give these to other people (that you trust) and let them play using your team so they can farm up SLPs for you.
This is called a “scholarship” and it is very common among the Axie community.
It is almost always a win-win scenario for both the manager (the person who gives out the free Axies) and the scholar. Scholarships usually have an agreement of 50-50, 60-40, or 70-30, where the manager takes a cut of the SLPs farmed by the scholar.
Consider it as passive income, or like running a franchise for a business!
How to Earn Money with Axie Infinity Land
This is the “digital land NFT” aspect of Axie Infinity.
In summary, Lunacia (the Axie world) will be divided in to tokenized plots of land which will act as homes and bases for Axies.
This feature is still new though and more features are being developed for it at the time of writing.
Eventually, players who own land may obtain AXS tokens and potentially other resources on their land plots by engaging in PvE battles and boss fights.
And last but not the least, like other digital real estate crypto games, land plots can be freely traded on the market: players can invest on land, wait until it appreciates in value, and then later sell it for a huge profit.