GameFi Tokenomics 101: Dual-token blockchain games

In a previous article, we launched three tokenomic fashions for single-token blockchain video games and their respective professionals and cons. 

On this article, we’ll go over dual-token tasks, an innovation that got here after single-token video games, which is the preferred mannequin at this time.   

The twin-token mannequin emerged within the first half of 2020 when Axie Infinity launched SLP (Easy Love Potion) to scale back promoting strain on AXS, the unique recreation token of Axie Infinity.

Since then, virtually all main titles have had a dual-token economic system. 

To know how dual-token video games work and why this mannequin exists, we must always have a look at how Axie rolled out SLP.

Earlier than introducing SLP, Axie was a single-token GameFi, the place gamers enter USD and obtain the sport token, AXS. With great consumer progress and cash from many PE funds supporting the market, Axie efficiently ran on only one token for over a 12 months. 

Nonetheless, it was not tough for Axie to appreciate how crucial new customers have been for the tasks. As soon as new cash stopped coming in, a demise spiral would start.

To alleviate promoting strain on AXS, Axie launched SLP in 2020. Whereas AXS was used for governance and staking rewards, gamers would use in-game utility token SLP for breeding new Axies and incomes extra SLP. The event staff elevated the ratio of $AXS- $SLP required for breeding and elevated the quantity of $SLP wanted for replica.

At first, the brand new mannequin labored as deliberate. In accordance with Footprint Analytics, AXS’s price roared proper after SLP was dropped at the sport, whereas SLP’s token value stood under $0.1 for a number of months. SLP had seen an uptrend drawn by newcomers for the reason that GameFi summer time. 
Nonetheless, this development didn’t final lengthy, and SLP quickly fell right into a demise spiral. The Axie staff responded by altering the neighborhood governance construction to develop into extra decentralized. Additionally they eliminated SLP as the sport’s PVE (Participant vs. Atmosphere) yielded earnings on Feb. 9 to scale back SLPs mint and provide. With these adjustments, SLP’s value elevated.

The twin-token mannequin has solidified whereby one token is principally used for governance—proudly owning extra of this enables the holder to have extra voting energy in neighborhood votes concerning the challenge—and one other is used for in-game features, i.e., the utility token. In most video games at this time, gamers earn a lot of the yield within the normally lesser valued utility coin and a bit within the governance coin as a premium, e.g., in the event that they personal precious NFTs. 

Moreover Axie, a number of different in style GameFi tasks, resembling BinaryX and Starsharks, additionally use the dual-token mannequin. 

Two totally different classes of twin tokens GameFi

A lot of the newly launched dual-token GameFi tasks undertake the mannequin of the “enter recreation token and output recreation token” mannequin. 

For instance, BinaryX gamers use governance tokens to begin the sport and yield utility tokens as returns, whereas Starsharks gamers begin and yield utility tokens within the recreation.

We all know from the earlier article that the fee and returns are extremely correlated to this mannequin’s token value. It’s a lot simpler to regulate the tokenomic fashions with out centralized adjustment with the twin tokens than the USD value-based mannequin. The USD-based mannequin requires an oracle to specify the variety of corresponding tokens, which complicates the dual-token mannequin.

On this article, we offer an analytical strategy to dividing totally different classes of twin tokens GameFi:  After the sale of Genesis NFT, what strategy does the challenge proprietor use to extend the variety of NFTs out there to fulfill the demand for NFTs from new gamers?

To start with, a lot of the GameFi tasks will promote Genesis NFT on the official platform or accomplice platforms resembling  Binance NFT or Opensea to build up preliminary gamers. They then have a number of mechanisms to mint additional NFTs whereas fuelling token consumption. These embrace:

• Breeding Mannequin: On this mannequin, the second era NFTs and subsequent NFTs come from the breeding of Genesis NFTs, with no extra blind bins offered. This mechanism requires burning/spending tokens to mint the brand new NFTs, which permits the sport to affect the promoting strain on the tokens relying on the worth of minting. 
• Blind Field Mannequin: In contrast with the breeding mannequin, the blind field is easy. The staff units the variety of NFTs within the recreation, and when the market is nice, or consumption goes up, gamers promote extra. This buoys the worth of the tokens as a result of they want them to purchase the NFTs.

Nonetheless, all formidable, long-view tasks will declare that a lot of the cash from blind field gross sales, whether or not in USDT or utility tokens, goes straight to the neighborhood treasury or burnt. Starsharks is so in style as a result of it introduced to burn 90% of the utility tokens from blind field gross sales.