Scores of people in the Philippines and Vietnam have quit their jobs and make a better living playing Axie for hours every day. They earn Smooth Love Potion (SLP), a token earned through Axie gameplay that can be exchanged for fiat, which in turn can be used to pay for food, shelter, medical bills, and all of the other things needed to survive.

The Axie Universe has a self-contained economy. Players can buy and sell digital goods. For example, players can buy and sell Axie (the Pokemon-esque creatures). This economy is built around two cryptocurrencies: AXS and SLP.

For all the talk about how crypto is changing the world, the vast majority of token-based projects are short term games that structurally devolve into glorified pyramid schemes. Inflated expectations lead to the classic boom-bust cycle where speculative intent runs ahead of reality, and eventually, it all falls down.