The Ronin Chain, originally known for the popular play-to-earn game Axie Infinity, has experienced a resurgence of activity over the past year. Despite a prolonged bear market, declining user interest in Axie Infinity, falling prices, and a significant hack where over $600 million was stolen, the project developers found a way to attract users back to the once-popular chain.
Originally, Ronin Chain exclusively supported Axie Infinity. At its 2021 peak, the game boasted 2.7 million daily active users, a volume Ronin Chain could comfortably handle. However, the onset of the bear market led to a decline in the game’s popularity as gamers earned less, AXS prices dropped, and users left the network.
In response, Sky Mavis, the team behind both Ronin Chain and Axie Infinity, decided to diversify by incorporating games developed by third parties. This strategic pivot proved crucial for the chain’s future.
Ronin offered game developers capabilities that other gaming chains lacked, such as high transaction throughput, which was proven by its support for the once most popular game in the crypto space. Additionally, onboarded games received advisory support from Sky Mavis, attracting developers eager for their expertise in building and managing popular blockchain games.
This strategy paid off, drawing several games to the platform. Notably, the browser-based social RPG Pixels, previously the most popular Web3 game on the Polygon blockchain in terms of unique active wallets, moved to Ronin. This transition was motivated by the benefits and support offered by Ronin and Sky Mavis.
Luke Barwikowski, CEO of Pixels.online, explained the rationale behind the move:
“Sky Mavis is the only company that has reached scalability in Web3 gaming, so partnering with the team and moving to Ronin made a lot of sense. It was a no-brainer to work with a team that doesn’t work on theories but on hands-on, proven experience. Moving to Ronin and taking advantage of their knowledge just seemed like the next step in our journey.”
This shift has been transformative for both the Ronin Blockchain and Pixels, as both projects have continued to grow in popularity. Since last October, Ronin’s daily active users have surged from approximately 94,000 to 3.1 million, a more than 32x increase.
Additionally, Ronin has captured a significant market share. As of March, it was the most popular chain among active gamers, holding a market share of approximately 35.4%.
The success of the Ronin Chain can largely be attributed to Pixels, which has seen extraordinary activity with over 2.3 million active users in the last 90 days. Other games on the platform, like the third-person RPG Apeiron and the original Axie game, have also shown positive growth, with 151,000 and 164,000 active users, respectively.
Given the success of both Axie and now Pixels on the Ronin chain, it is likely that more quality games will be drawn to this ecosystem, enhancing adoption metrics and contributing to its growth. This is expected to positively impact the price of $RON, the native token of the Ronin Blockchain, which already boasts a market cap of over $1 billion. It has seen its price increase by more than six times since last October.
Whether this growth will continue remains to be seen, but the fundamental factors are certainly in its favor.
