Digital Economies, Gaming, and IP Legos

Immediately upon entering the Web3 rabbit hole, one realizes that it’s hard to talk about crypto without also talking about gaming — specifically a highly financialized form of “gamification” revolving around microtransactions and “play-to-earn” (P2E) incentive design, whereby players win real tokens with real financial value for specific behaviors... See more

Of course, not everyone has the financial foundation to become a “time millionaire” or to start earning their living in the metaverse. Digital economies are nascent and not yet robust enough to support billions of digital workers. These same trends are powering the creator economy, remote work, freelancing; they are broader than Axie and its counte... See more

Evolutionary Principles of Gaming 3.0To start with, one needs to embrace the concept that web3 games are an evolution on top of the success of web 2 games, and not a revolution that can disregard all past principles. This is the basic principle we believe will be shared between all successful web3 games.We believe that the core of web3 games is abo... See more

Most games won’t cross the adoption chasm from the early market (crypto enthusiasts) to mainstream market (traditional gamers or low-SES players). Nonetheless, games like Axie are paving the way for others to cross over to a large population of people who want to earn by playing games.

The most famous example is Axie Infinity. In order to play, prospective gamers have to buy or rent an Axie from an existing player. The game economy works because new players buy Axies from old players in hopes of reselling those Axies to newer players who join after them. 

This week, I want to dive deeper into the economics of Axie. This is important because 1) Axie is probably the most important on-ramp to crypto in the world right now, and 2) because as more workers find work in the metaverse, we often overlook how complex these economies are. Digital economies may be disguised within games—in Axie’s case, within a... See more

This Game may be realized through Web3, which empowers ownership of education, and the Metaverse, which encourages deep engagement with it. A childhood of growing up online has prepared youth for these platforms.