Coin columns · Ethereum City (Capital)
AXS: The Token Behind Axie Infinity and the Play-to-Earn Boom
The NFT game from Vietnam’s Sky Mavis, and its AXS token
AXS is the token of the blockchain game Axie Infinity, used for governance (votes on how the game is run), staking and the in-game economy. It became a symbol of the 2021 ‘play-to-earn’ boom, then endured a major hack and a drop in players.
1. A collect-and-battle game from a Vietnamese studio
Axie Infinity was released in 2018 by Sky Mavis, a Vietnam-based studio. Players buy, breed and battle creatures called Axies, which exist as NFTs (one-of-a-kind digital ownership records). Because earnings could be cashed out, the game grew so famous in 2021 that some players, for example in the Philippines, treated it as income.
AXS is the game’s governance and utility token, with a maximum supply of 270 million. Early on, another reward token, SLP (Smooth Love Potion), ran alongside it, while AXS was designed for staking (locking coins to earn rewards) and votes. On the Crypto Nation map, AXS stands in Ethereum City (the capital), because Ethereum is where the coin was first issued.
2. Axies, Ronin and what AXS does
Axie characters and items are NFTs recorded on Ethereum-linked blockchains. To avoid Ethereum’s congestion and high fees, Sky Mavis built a dedicated network, Ronin, where the game runs. Players connect a wallet, trade Axies and send them into battle, earning rewards as tokens.
AXS holders can stake the coin and vote on proposals (AIPs) covering game rules and spending. Voting power is described as depending on staked AXS and an activity score called Axie Score. In August 2025 Sky Mavis said it would move Ronin to an Ethereum layer 2 (an add-on network processing Ethereum’s transactions), and in April 2026 it announced 12 May as the switch date.
3. Where it is used, and what happened
AXS is used for breeding Axies, in-game purchases, staking rewards and governance votes. In the 2021 play-to-earn boom many players joined, but when reward tokens lost value, player numbers fell noticeably. Sky Mavis has since rebuilt the service with new games such as Origins and Homeland.
In March 2022 the bridge linking Ronin and Ethereum was hacked, and over 600 million dollars of crypto left it; Sky Mavis later raised funding and compensated users. In April 2026 a change was reported: classic-game rewards moved from AXS to bAXS, a token backed 1:1 by AXS, with seller fees varying by Axie Score.
4. Things to know
Play-to-earn leans heavily on new players and on reward-token value, so cooling interest can shake the game’s economy, as seen after 2021. AXS depends on the game continuing to attract players, and it remains to be seen whether the reward changes take hold.
Bridges between blockchains are frequent hacking targets, and US authorities pointed to a North Korea-linked hacking group for the 2022 incident. One company effectively leads both the game and Ronin, raising centralization concerns, and game NFTs and tokens can be affected by regulators’ interpretations.
Written from information public up to October 2026. It does not recommend or rate any coin and is not investment advice. If something is wrong, please tell us through the contact page.