Axie Esports Announce Second Round of Grants

75 tournaments set to benefit from a 7500AXS grant

Axie Esports, part of the Sky Mavis operator which runs the popular cryptocurrency game Axie Infinity, has invited applications for a second round of grants to fund community esports tournaments.

This award will sponsor at least 75 events between January 25 and June 30 of this year and will be distributed among regions according to the size of the various player population. Following a review of the success of the first grant, Axie has announced some changes for this round of funding, which will allow a single organizer to submit a total of three events.

The stipulations include a requirement for organizers to ensure that at least 20% of all participants reach the event through open qualifiers, and to make sure that there is sufficient information made available publicly, including details of how to qualify and full rulesets. They will also have to commit to providing a high-definition live stream of every match.

Axie Infinity is a trading and combat game in which players may gather, breed, grow, battle, and trade digital creatures known as ‘Axies.’ To begin playing, new players must acquire at least three axes.

The game uses a “pay to earn” system. This makes it possible for players to gain tokens that can be exchanged through the Binance cryptocurrency market as a form of Ethereum-based coin. NFTs may also be used to swap in-game assets and every two weeks, the game enables users to cash out their tokens. The game also makes it possible for players to acquire virtual land (in the form of NFTs).

Sky Mavis raised $152 million in funding in December 2021 and the game is expected to expand beyond its Philippines base throughout 2022, boosted by the success of the FTX GalAxie Cup, held in November last year.

While the game is a new departure for the esports world, bringing together gaming and crypto, but is part of an overall trend for the integration of crypto into esports. Fans and players alike are becoming increasingly interested in the possibilities presented by crypto technology and there are numerous examples of synergy between the two.

A good example is the success of Thunderpick. Thunderpick – a crypto only esports betting site has become increasingly popular with esports fans who want to bet on their favorite teams and tournaments and this success has included sponsoring a number of esports tournaments.

Over half of esports fans globally are aged between 21 and 35, and this demographic is also the most likely to take up and embrace cryptocurrency, so the potential for crypto to become increasingly prevalent throughout the esports world is obvious. And, with the success of Axie Infinity, we can expect to see more pay-to-earn style crypto and NFT games coming online over the next few months.