🧘‍♂️It Has Begun

And shows no sign of slowing down

Dear Meditators

In part 1 of our Axie Infinity series, we provided an introduction to Axie Infinity and the 3 methods of playing to earn (PvE, PvP and Quests). If you missed it, you can check it out here. Today, we turn our attention to: 

1. Axie Breeding 

2. How to start playing without ANY initial funds (Sponsorships). These opportunities are made possible through dedicated members of the community such as our partner @brycent_

? As usual, we also share the hottest crypto market news and inisghts. 

For 6 free wealth building newsletters a week, consider joining the Market Meditations community ?

⏰ In A Rush? 

Here’s 5 things you need to know about the crypto markets today:

• ?Ethereum’s Hotly Anticipated ‘London’ Hard Fork Is Now Live

• ?Coinbase is acquiring crypto data aggregator Zabo

• ??Senators propose exclusion of miners, software developers in infrastructure bill’s crypto ‘broker’ definition

• ?FTX Strikes Deal With Yield Guild Games to Sponsor Axie Infinity Players

• ?Aave price hits two-month high on Wall Street’s DeFi adoption hopes

Our Market Meditations are longer format educational segments. Each letter features a Market Meditation which will deep dive and analyse a relevant crypto event, theme or tool. 

? Axie Infinity: Part 2

Breeding

One method of making money while playing Axie Infinity is by having Baby Axies! Breeding has its costs, but it can be highly profitable, considering that the floor (lowest) price of an Axie as you’re reading this, is around $370 USD. But that’s simply where the price begins. Axies that are either rare, have special abilities, or both, can rack up to costing hundreds of thousands, however, each Axie can be bred up to 7 times.

• To make one axie, you’re going to need a mom and a dad for it, AKA, 2 Axies.

• The offspring, Axie, will come out in the form of an egg (which is also sellable on the marketplace) and it will take 5 days for it to become an adult Axie that can be used for the same functions as the rest: breeding, fighting and/or selling.

• As for the breeding costs, it requires 4 AXS plus a scaling SLP cost as per the screenshot, though note that the SLP cost will be based on the breed count of both parents ?

To give you an example, to breed one Axie with the current prices of AXS and SLP, assuming both of his parents have a breed count of zero, it would cost:

4 AXS + 300 SLP = 4 x 42 + (150+150) x 0.20 = 168 + 60 = 228

At this point it’s a good time to mention that breeding an Axie can become very complex, so much so that some players focus full-time on breeding, not playing any battles at all. The complexity comes from the following factors: 

• The statistics and features of a new Axie depend on their parents’. 

• This means that breeders pay attention to the genetics of two Axies before breeding them, to get the best result possible and based on calculations, breed Axies that are more expensive and usually better than others.

• As for the genetics, they come in two sections, the body parts that we mentioned at the beginning of part 1 and the recessive genes.

• These two can determine the outcome of a breeding process with mathematical odds ?

Axie Body Parts (Dominant Genes) and Recessive Genes

• However, the only way to see the recessive genes of an Axie as of now, is by downloading a chrome extension made by Phreak, a user of the Axie Community.

• Additionally, there’s a breeding simulator, once again made by the strong Axie community, which helps you see possible outcomes of a breeding session with a mathematical probability.

• Some of the full-time breeders use these tools and more, such as a purity calculator to figure out how to make Axies that can be sold for the highest price possible.

• A good example of that would be Whoopdeedo, a full-time breeder who uses Axies of a purity above 95% when breeding, as he mentions in a short interview here.

What If I can’t afford buying Axies?

As promised at the beginning of part 1, it’s possible to play the game and earn SLP even if you’re missing the amount required to buy your first 3 Axies! This is made possible through scholarships. Similar to real life, where people are able to get scholarships for several reasons such as studying, having their costs covered etc. people can get scholarships inside the game as well. How it works:

1. Scholarship Giver has more Axies than he knows what to do with

2. Person A wants to play, but lacks the funds

3. Scholarship Giver lends an Axie account to Person A

4. Person A plays on the borrowed account, gathers SLP

5. Scholarship Giver takes approximately 30% of the SLP for providing the account

6. Person A takes 70% of what he gathered and eventually makes enough to get his own Axie team

This is how scholarships work in theory, however, because there’s such a high demand of people in need of Axie accounts, it’s hard to get one. The majority of people send spam messages asking for one, but since so many people do that, this tactic is inefficient.

The optimal way to go about it is joining a Scholarship Giver’s community, genuinely engaging with other people there, making friends and connections, which will eventually lead to acquiring a scholarship, an approach that raises your chances of getting one and at the very least, you can be a part of the community while learning about Axie and crypto.

Our partner @brycent_, who we mentioned at the start of the letter, also has his own scholarship program with over 7,000 members, which offers one of the highest percentage amounts  given to scholars, you can check it out here.

If you’d like to find more scholarships, Coingecko offers an extensive list of them here.

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? Luxury Fashion NFTs

Which luxury fashion brand has partnered with Mythical Games to release its first non-fungible token?

1. Burberry

2. Dolce & Gabbana

3. Gucci

? Over $1.2 Billion In Crypto Confiscated

If you recall, a couple weeks ago we talked about mining rigs being seized and destroyed in Malaysia. Today, we move to a report that covers crypto seized by the IRS in the United States. While the crypto system carries more anonymity, we should still note that it can be seized if we commit wrongdoings! The U.S. government has been seizing crypto for tax evasions, false tax returns, money laundering and cybercrimes. The amounts that have been seized are astounding:

1. In 2019 they seized $700,000 in crypto. 

2. In 2020 they seized $137 million in crypto. 

3. So far in 2021, they have seized $1.2 billion in crypto. 

What does the U.S. government do with the money? 

• They auction off crypto at market value in order to not “flood the market with a tremendous amount, which then could have an effect on the pricing component.” 

• Money goes to either of the following: 

  • Treasury Forfeiture Fund 

  • Department of Justice Assets Forfeiture Fund 

• Congress and different agencies can put in requests for this money for initiatives proposed, to fund operations, and to fund projects. 

Should we be concerned with these seizures? While crypto does offer a degree of anonymity, it is important to remember that it can be traced. While DeFi is much harder to trace, one should remember that if they wish to convert into USD or any other world currency, they must get it on a centralized exchange. When this happens your level of anonymity goes down ten-fold. 

1. Burberry 

That’s right it was Burberry! If you guessed Dolce & Gabbana you were close, they have partnered with an NFT marketplace UNXD and plan to release NFT wearables. But it was Burberry who has partnered with Mythical Games, specifically their game Blankos Block Party to release their items. Blankos Block Party is an NFT game featuring digital vinyl toys that can be earned and traded during gameplay. 

Burberry’s collection will be called “B Series” and will have many limited edition products starting from their release date of August 11th. We’ve spoken in depth about the current NFT hype here at Market Meditations, and with yet another luxury brand releasing a collection it doesn’t seem like this will die down very soon.

??‍♂️✍️ Stories in this newsletter were written by Gerasimos P, Misael Calleja, Nick T., Max P., Kimia K., Ellen B. and Koroush AK. Graphics were produced by Gerasimos P.

Not financial or tax advice. The content in this newsletter is for informational purposes only. Nothing in this email is intended to serve as financial advice. We are not financial advisors. Every investment and trading move involves risk. Do your own research when making a decision. See our important security disclaimers here. 

Disclosure. Some of the links we’ve included are affiliate, they give you rewards and discounts and earn us a commission. Additionally, the Market Meditator writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here.