Ronin million-character research report Before Axie Infinity, after Pixels, why does this game sidechain always produce popular works?

Exploring Ronin's Rise to Fame A Comparative Research Report on the Success of Game Sidechains, from Axie Infinity to Pixels

Project Overview

Ronin is an Ethereum sidechain built by Axie Infinity developer Sky Mavis. It supports EVM-compatible smart contracts and protocols, allowing developers to build high-performance, feature-rich blockchain projects. Ronin is specifically tailored as a long-term scaling solution for Axie Infinity, which means it has been optimized for viral growth and provides global access to the blockchain gaming revolution. These aspects make Ronin highly suitable for collectibles, art, and of course, gaming.

Author

JUMPENG, senior research analyst at Shiliantou Research. Holds a master’s degree in finance from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, with 7 years of industry experience. Specializes in areas such as Layer1, DeFi, NFT, Layer2, Gamefi, with research on over 2000 projects and over 500 in-depth research reports.

1. Research Highlights

1.1. Core Investment Logic

Supported by well-known game Axie Infinity, with a large user base: As a pioneer in the blockchain gaming field, Ronin’s biggest competitive advantage lies in the popular chain game Axie Infinity behind it, which currently has millions of active players. This provides Ronin with a solid user base, as the greatest value of a public chain lies in the applications and user scale it carries. Axie’s success has attracted a large number of existing users to Ronin, providing it with stable trading volume and establishing a leading position in the blockchain gaming race. Compared to other competitors, Ronin has a mature flagship application like Axie Infinity, with its user base and business value far surpassing other blockchain games. This has allowed Ronin to accumulate valuable operational experience and created network effects that other competitors find difficult to replicate. As Ronin continues to enrich its ecosystem content and attract more high-quality game integrations, Axie Infinity’s user base and traffic advantage will be further amplified. Ronin has the potential to become the preferred infrastructure for blockchain game developers and dominate the chain game race. Axie Infinity’s success has laid a solid foundation for Ronin.

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Large ecosystem scale, technological advantages, and rich management experience: After the recent cooperation with Pixels, Ronin has exceeded 100,000 daily active users, demonstrating its ability to convert a large flow of traffic. This will support Ronin in absorbing more games in the future, with a sufficient user pool available for conversion. Despite the glorious record set by Axie, the market still believes in Sky Mavis’ capabilities, and many leading games have joined Ronin, expanding their own ecosystem based on Ronin, which is a significant foundation for Ronin’s future development and affirms its leading advantages in technology and service quality. At the same time, Ronin’s chain technology is significantly advantageous, leading to improved user experience. Ronin adopts DPOS technology, with TPS reaching thousands and extremely low gas fees, far exceeding its peers in efficiency. This will attract more games to choose Ronin and provide players with a smooth experience. As technology continues to be optimized and upgraded, its technological advantages will become more apparent. Looking at the team, Sky Mavis has accumulated rich experience in chain game research and development and operational management through the success of “Axie.” Despite the hit to their reputation caused by asset theft, it has also provided valuable experience to the team. If Ronin can achieve further brilliance, it will undoubtedly add a touch of legend.

1.2. Valuation

In terms of valuation comparison between Ronin and other gaming public chains: Immutable X (IMX): Current market capitalization is approximately $1.5 billion. WAX: WAX is a blockchain for digital collectibles and other assets. Current market capitalization is approximately $230 million. Ronin: Ronin currently has a market capitalization of approximately $217 million, lower than IMX and WAX. The valuation comparison is mainly based on the following aspects:

A. Ecosystem size and user base: IMX has a much larger user base than Ronin through famous games such as Gods Unchained. WAX, as a well-established project, also has a larger user base than Ronin, which will affect its market value.

B. Number of applications: IMX and WAX have more in-chain gaming applications than Ronin, demonstrating stronger ecosystem attraction. Ronin needs to continue strengthening in this aspect.

C. Technological advantages: IMX adopts zkRollup technology for lower interaction costs and obvious technological advantages. However, Ronin has focused optimization for gaming and still has long-term potential.

D. Project reputation: IMX and WAX have not suffered from major security incidents, which leads to higher community trust. Ronin needs time to repair market confidence in this regard.

E. Future growth potential: All three face opportunities brought by the flourishing period of Web3, but IMX and WAX have established foundations while Ronin needs to quickly catch up and bridge the gap.

F. Funding: IMX has obtained more resources to support its development, while Ronin’s source is the Axie closed-loop system, and its funding is relatively inadequate.

Overall, although the asset theft incident once led to the abandonment and even decline of Ronin, they have not given up on their goals. With problem fixes and ecosystem construction, its valuation is expected to further increase and continue to surpass its public chain competitors. Ronin’s strong network effect is the key to its catch-up.

1.3. Project Risks

The project risks of Ronin mainly lie in its high dependence, the still-developing ecosystem, security issues, risks related to decentralization, and the intense competition among public chains testing its technological position. See section 5.2 of the report for specific details of the SWOT analysis.

2. Project Overview

2.1. Project Introduction

Ronin is an EVM-compatible chain designed for gaming. It achieves a smooth and seamless gaming experience for users by establishing side chains, especially providing important support for the well-known NFT game, Axie Infinity. Ronin was established with the intention of solving the high fees, low speed, and rough user experience problems faced by the Ethereum network, which have caused inconvenience to NFT game projects. In comparison, Ronin provides low-cost and fast transactions, as well as a rich ecosystem of developer and user tools. Ronin was launched by Sky Mavis, the initiator of the Axie Infinity project. Axie has generated revenues exceeding $1.33 billion to date, demonstrating the strength of Ronin’s ability to accommodate millions of daily active users and process over $4 billion worth of NFT transactions. Ronin optimizes transaction immediacy and negligible gas fees, enabling smooth transactions within the ecosystem of millions, which places it in a leading position in the Web3 gaming field. At the same time, the native token RON plays a role in transactions, governance, and utility within the platform.

Source: Ronin Official Website

2.2. Team Overview

2.2.1. Overall Situation

Ronin is led by Sky Mavis, a game studio based in Vietnam founded by Trung Nguyen and Jeffrey Zirlin in 2018. Sky Mavis has successfully developed and operated the well-known blockchain game, Axie Infinity, and has extensive experience in blockchain and game development. The Ronin project is specifically designed as an application scenario chain based on the Axie ecosystem. The Ronin team is highly international, with the main technical development team located in Sky Mavis’ multiple research and development centers. In addition to the founders of Sky Mavis, the management team includes experts from renowned industry companies such as Ubisoft and Binance. The team is large, with over 100 employees from Sky Mavis alone, distributed across Vietnam, the United States, the Philippines, and other locations for research and development. Overall, with the rich experience and resources of Sky Mavis, Ronin has formed a comprehensive and well-structured research, development, and operation team.

2.2.2. Core Members

Trung Nguye: Co-founder and CEO of Sky Mavis. A Vietnamese programmer, he graduated from the National University of Singapore with a Ph.D. in Computer Science. Trung Nguyen has been fascinated by games and programming since childhood and previously established a game company in Singapore in 2012. In 2018, he co-founded Sky Mavis with Jeffrey Zirlin. Trung Nguyen is responsible for overall direction and major technical decision-making at Sky Mavis. After the successful launch of Axie Infinity, he guided Sky Mavis to focus on building a complete blockchain game ecosystem. On a non-technical level, Trung Nguyen excels in product thinking and business model validation. Through extensive research, he determined the direction of gameplay for Axie and helped the game gain rapid user acceptance. During the inception of the Ronin project, it was Trung Nguyen who proposed the idea of establishing a professional underlying support system. He personally supervises Ronin’s technical planning and solves various challenges. With his deep knowledge of coding and extensive project management experience, Trung Nguyen has played a key role as a decision-maker and technical leader at Sky Mavis.

Jeffrey Zirlin: Co-founder and Chief Product Officer of Sky Mavis. He graduated from MIT with a degree in Computer Science and Human-Computer Interaction. In his early career, he worked on the Google Play development team, responsible for game product operations. Later on, he developed an interest in blockchain and decided to join Trung Nguyen in establishing Sky Mavis. At Sky Mavis, Jeffrey Zirlin leads product design and operations, ensuring the project’s qualitative success. Many optimization measures for Axie products come from his thinking. Beyond work, Jeffrey Zirlin actively participates in blockchain community building. He delivers speeches at various summits to share Sky Mavis’ experience and supports collaboration with other projects. After the completion of the Ronin chain project, Jeffrey Zirlin leads Sky Mavis’ collaboration with other game studios to attract more DApps to the Ronin ecosystem. He excels in product thinking and community operations, continuously improving and optimizing Axie products to ensure the game’s continuous growth. With his exceptional skills in designing popular products and outstanding project promotion, Jeffrey Zirlin plays a significant role in guiding the flourishing development of the Ronin chain ecosystem at Sky Mavis.

2.3. Financing Situation

On November 8, 2019, Sky Mavis announced that it had raised $1.465 million in a new round of financing, with Animoca Brands leading the investment and Hashed, LianGuang Blockchain Fund, ConsenSys, and 500 Startups participating.

On October 5, 2021, Sky Mavis completed a Series B financing of nearly $3 billion with a valuation of $150 million, with a16z leading the investment and LianGuairadigm participating.

On April 6, 2022, Sky Mavis raised $150 million in financing, with Binance leading the investment and Animoca Brands, a16z, Dialectic, LianGuairadigm, and Accel participating. The new financing will be used to compensate user funds affected by the Ronin attack. However, according to subsequent reports, Sky Mavis ultimately raised only $11 million in this round of financing, which, according to data from VentureCap Insights tracking Singapore regulatory filings, reduced the company’s valuation from $3 billion to $1.95 billion.

Source: ROOTDATA

2.4. Past Development and Roadmap

2.4.1. Past Development

Date	Event
2021-02-01	Axie Infinity officially launches the Ethereum sidechain Ronin mainnet
2022-01-27	Announced the official launch of Ronin Network governance token RON
2022-03-29	Ronin cross-chain bridge is hacked, resulting in a loss of approximately $620 million
2022-09-09	Announced that Google Cloud has become the eighteenth validator node on the Ronin Network
2023-01-12	Released desktop game aggregation platform Mavis Hub 2, the new version can log in using Ronin Wallet QR code
2023-03-30	Launched RON staking functionality and announced new partnerships to expand new IP
2023-04-05	Announced Ronin Wallet’s new dark mode and NFT transfer functionality.
2023-05-17	Introduced NFT marketplace Mavis Market to support NFT trading on Ronin
2023-09-12	P2E blockchain game Pixels will migrate from the Polygon network to the Ronin network
2023-10-13	Announced the launch of Lucas (v2.6.2) upgrade and Shillin hard fork on the Ronin mainnet
2023-11-02	Korean game production company ACT Games plans to migrate all of its games to the Ronin Network
2023-11-11	Announced that its domain service Ronin Name Service (RNS) will publicly release .ron domain names on November 15

2.4.2. Development Plan and Roadmap

Based on current information, Ronin’s future development roadmap may include the following aspects:

A. Continued expansion of the ecosystem: Ronin will continue to collaborate with more game developers to attract high-quality games to join the Ronin ecosystem. Recently, Ronin has introduced games like Zoids Wild Arena and Pixels, and more games are expected to join in the future.

B. Enhancement of network performance: Ronin plans to optimize performance in the second half of 2023, improving transaction speed and throughput through technical upgrades, which will support a higher number of daily active users.

C. Strengthening network security: Following the security incidents in 2022, Ronin will continue to reinforce network security, implement tighter internal control processes, and enhance oversight of validators and bridges.

D. Hosting a developer conference: Ronin plans to host its own developer conference in 2023, engaging in deeper communication with the global developer community and attracting more developers to contribute to the Ronin ecosystem.

E. Rebuilding brand image: Ronin will continue to focus on rebuilding its brand image, establishing user trust through community activities, media promotions, and other means, thereby enhancing its reputation and influence in the industry.

2.5. Social Media Data

As of November 15, 2023, Ronin has been actively operating on social media platforms, garnering widespread attention. Its main operating channels include Twitter and Discord. Ronin has over 157,000 followers on Twitter, frequently updating and sharing promotional information. The Discord server shared by Ronin and its parent company Sky Mavis for their blockchain game Axie has an even larger scale, with over 600,000 members and up to 35,000 online users engaging in continuous information exchange and interaction. Axie’s Twitter has an even larger follower count, reaching 868,000, making it the most influential platform for Ronin at present. Overall, Ronin conducts precise operations through mainstream social media channels, ensuring timely dissemination of relevant information, maintaining close connections with the community, and leveraging the resources of Axie’s existing user base for accelerated expansion. The specific data for each platform is as follows:

Media Channel	Twitter	Discord	Axie Twitter	Medium
Number of Followers	157,034	608,908	868,339	\
Online/Active	Frequent Updates	35,787	Frequent Updates	\

3. Project Analysis

3.1. Project Background

Ronin is a sidechain developed to address the on-chain limitations faced by the popular NFT game, Axie Infinity. Axie Infinity is an on-chain NFT card game based on Ethereum. As its user base rapidly grows, the congestion on the Ethereum network has resulted in slow transaction speeds and high gas fees, severely impacting user experience. To tackle Ethereum’s network congestion problem, Sky Mavis, the developer of Axie Infinity, decided to autonomously develop a sidechain optimized for gaming – Ronin. Ronin was officially launched in November 2020 and went live on the mainnet in April 2021. Sky Mavis subsequently used Ronin to build the ecosystem for the rising Axie, launching services such as the Katana exchange, liquidity mining, and staking. Ronin’s goal is to provide a fast and low-cost on-chain gaming experience. Compared to Ethereum, Ronin can achieve up to 3,000 transactions per second with transaction costs as low as a few cents, greatly improving the fluidity of the Axie Infinity game.

Sky Mavis hopes to create a fully functional on-chain gaming ecosystem through Ronin. In addition to Axie Infinity, Ronin has attracted multiple third-party games and plans to introduce more applications such as an NFT marketplace, lending protocols, and a metaverse platform. With the rise of blockchain gaming, Ronin, with its excellent gaming experience and ecosystem development, is expected to become the preferred infrastructure for blockchain game development and contribute to the mainstream adoption of Web3 games.

3.2. Project Principles

Ronin adopts a sidechain architecture that enables bi-directional asset flow with the Ethereum mainnet through bridging. Ronin uses a hybrid consensus mechanism of authority proof and DPoS, with the following principles:

3.2.1. Sidechain Architecture

A sidechain is an independent blockchain system that exists parallel to the mainchain. It achieves asset and information intercommunication with the mainchain through bi-directional anchoring. Sidechains have their own consensus mechanism and can communicate with the mainchain. The goal is to relieve the traffic on the mainchain and enhance overall transaction processing capacity. Users can conduct fast transactions on the sidechain while maintaining asset connectivity with the mainchain. Sidechains are relatively easier to develop and can be optimized for specific use cases. However, asset transfer between the sidechain and mainchain requires anchoring mechanisms and is generally supervised by trusted third parties. In simple terms, a sidechain is like a “detour road” that diverts traffic from the main “highway” of Ethereum when it becomes congested. It allows for more efficient processing by shifting general computations to an independent subchain.

As a sidechain of Ethereum, Ronin has its own block generation mechanism, consensus algorithm, and can achieve asset intercommunication with the Ethereum mainnet through bridging. This sidechain architecture allows Ronin to focus on optimizing for gaming scenarios while maintaining a connection to the Ethereum ecosystem. Through the Ronin bridge, users can transfer assets such as ETH and ERC20 tokens from the Ethereum mainnet to Ronin and vice versa. This interactive design enables users to freely move assets between the two chains.

3.2.2. Hybrid Consensus Mechanism

Ronin uses a hybrid consensus mechanism of PoA (Proof of Authority) and DPoS (Delegated Proof of Stake). The production of blocks in the network is handled by authoritative validators appointed by Sky Mavis. These validators are trusted and reliable to ensure the security of the Ronin network. The DPoS mechanism, on the other hand, is open to users and allows holders of sufficient RON tokens to become validators. RON holders can stake their tokens and vote for the validators they are interested in, earning partial block rewards. This design enhances the decentralization of Ronin.

1) Proof of Authority (PoA)

Ronin initially adopted the PoA consensus mechanism, which selected a group of professional and reputable validators to verify and package transactions to maintain network operation. These validators were chosen by Sky Mavis and the community for their expertise and reputability. Validators package transactions into new blocks and add them to the blockchain. The addition or removal of validators requires the approval of the majority of the current validators, incentivizing them to operate the network honestly.

A. Compared to other consensus mechanisms like PoW (Proof of Work), PoA has the advantage of being energy-efficient as it doesn’t require a significant amount of computational power to verify transactions. Additionally, PoA allows for faster transaction speeds and lower transaction fees compared to PoW since new blocks can be formed with the approval of only a small number of validators, enhancing the gaming experience.

B. However, PoA has also been criticized because it relies on a small group of validators to maintain network operation. If these validators encounter issues, it can be difficult to quickly detect and correct them, posing a potential single point of failure risk.

Overall, the PoA mechanism brings efficiency and performance optimizations, but its decentralization level needs to be further strengthened.

2) Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS)

To further enhance the decentralization of Ronin, DPoS was added on top of the existing PoA mechanism to choose validators. In the DPoS model, token holders can delegate their voting power to candidate validators. The more delegation a validator receives, the higher their chances of being selected. Candidates can become validators by staking a certain amount of RON tokens.

A. The selected validators are responsible for confirming transactions, packaging them into new blocks, and the rewards generated are distributed according to the contribution of the delegated tokens. This significantly lowers the barrier of entry and achieves transparency in the role of validators. Additionally, Ronin implements a punishment mechanism where validators who fail to produce blocks or engage in fraudulent behavior will face penalties, effectively deterring inappropriate actions.

B. Compared to solely relying on PoA, Ronin with the DPoS model achieves a higher level of decentralization while maintaining efficient transaction processing capabilities through the design of public elections and punishment mechanisms.

The combination of these two mechanisms allows Ronin to have both high security and decentralization. At the same time, the hybrid consensus mechanism enables Ronin to achieve high-speed transactions of up to 3,000 per second. This technical design perfectly aligns with Ronin’s use case as a gaming infrastructure, providing efficient, secure, and convenient on-chain gaming experiences.

3.2.3. Bridges

Bridges play an important role in the Ronin network, connecting Ronin with other EVM chains to enable seamless asset transfers.

Specifically, the Ronin bridge is maintained and operated by multiple bridge operator nodes. Every validation node must run both a validator node and a bridge operator node simultaneously in order to be eligible for rewards. The bridge operator nodes are responsible for confirming deposit and withdrawal events between chains:

A. When a user withdraws assets from Ethereum to Ronin, they must provide transfer proof to the bridge operator. Once verified, the corresponding assets can be generated on Ronin.

B. Conversely, users can also withdraw assets from Ronin to other EVM chains through the bridge operator. In this case, they must provide transaction proof from the Ronin network. At the same time, the bridge operator will lock the corresponding assets on Ronin and release equivalent assets on the target chain.

This mechanism ensures secure interoperability of assets between different blockchains. Additionally, in order to incentivize the efficiency and integrity of bridge operators, Ronin has designed a reward and punishment mechanism. Operators who cause accidents due to mistakes will have their qualifications revoked. Through the Ronin bridge, assets can flow seamlessly between EVM-compatible chains, greatly enhancing the network’s internal and external connectivity.

3.3. Nodes

3.3.1. Ronin Nodes

Ronin nodes are the core components of the Ronin network infrastructure and mainly consist of three types:

① Non-Validation Nodes: These nodes do not participate in consensus and only synchronize the ledger state and observe the network. They can be connected to DApps to provide resource query support.

② Validation Nodes: The validation nodes in the Ronin network are responsible for block production and transaction verification. They are the core of the entire network. Validation nodes need to stake a certain amount of RON tokens to gain the right to produce blocks. Block production follows a queuing system where different nodes take turns to become block producers. When a node becomes a block producer, it collects transactions from the network to form a candidate block. Other validation nodes then vote to confirm the block. If more than 2/3 of the nodes confirm it, the block is confirmed and added to the chain. Validation nodes can also modify certain on-chain parameters, such as adjusting transaction fees, adding or removing validation nodes, etc. This requires the majority consent of the governance nodes, which is more than 2/3.

③ Archive Nodes: These nodes are responsible for long-term storage of historical ledger data, dating back to the genesis block. They provide long-term query support for browsers and other backend services.

Validation nodes and non-validation nodes regularly compress recent data, while archive nodes keep all information stored for a long time. All nodes are deployed and managed through an open-source approach. In addition to participating in consensus, validation nodes can also run for block production through RON staking. Ronin operates in a distributed network form, with nodes working together to ensure stable and efficient system operation. Among them, block production and transaction confirmation by validation nodes are the core and important support of the Ronin ecosystem. The node mechanism is an essential part of Ronin’s successful operation.

3.3.2. Bridge Nodes

Bridge nodes act as a bridge for asset transfers between the Ronin network and Ethereum network. When users withdraw assets from the Ethereum network to Ronin, they need to initiate a transfer on the Ethereum chain and provide transaction proof. After verification by bridge nodes, the corresponding amount of tokens will be released on the Ronin network. Conversely, if users want to withdraw tokens from Ronin to Ethereum, they need to provide transaction proof from Ronin. After the bridge nodes confirm the transaction, they will lock the user’s tokens on Ronin and release the corresponding amount of tokens on the Ethereum network. Bridge nodes are jointly supervised by multiple parties to ensure the security of the asset transfer process.

3.4. Project Roles

The Ronin network mainly consists of three types of roles: delegators, validators, and bridge node operators.

1) Delegators

Delegators are participants who stake their Ronin tokens with validators and earn rewards from it. Anyone holding Ronin tokens can choose to become a delegator. Delegators do not need to run nodes, they only need to stake their tokens with validators to receive a share of block rewards. Delegators can choose based on factors like the validator’s profit-sharing ratio. Becoming a delegator earns stable token rewards and also allows participation in Ronin network governance. This lowers the barrier for becoming a validator, allowing ordinary investors to participate.

2) Validators

Validators are responsible for maintaining the Ronin network, producing and validating blocks. Validators need to stake a significant amount of Ronin tokens and operate nodes. Based on the quantity of staked Ronin tokens, validators have the opportunity to produce blocks. Validators can stake their own tokens or receive staking support from delegators. Their income comes from block rewards and transaction fees. Validators need to responsibly fulfill their duties, or they will be penalized.

3) Bridge Node Operators

Bridge node operators facilitate the conversion of assets between the Ronin network and the Ethereum network. Bridge nodes monitor asset changes on both chains and respond to deposit/withdrawal operations by executing token exchanges on the other chain, completing asset transfers. Bridge node operators also need to stake Ronin tokens and ensure stable node operation. Failure to respond to asset conversions in a timely manner will result in penalties.

With the balance and cooperation among these three role types, the Ronin network builds an efficient infrastructure for blockchain gaming. Each role has clear rights and responsibilities, and they mutually supervise each other, forming an ecosystem loop.

3.5. Project Ecosystem

According to the information displayed on the official website, the Ronin project ecosystem primarily consists of games and DApps.

Source: Ronin official website

3.5.1. Games

In terms of game projects, the Ronin ecosystem currently includes several popular games such as Axie Infinity, The Machines Arena, and Pixels.

1) Axie Infinity

Axie Infinity is the largest game on Ronin, where players can collect and nurture “Axies” for PvP battles. Let’s briefly review Axie Infinity. Axie Infinity is a turn-based tactical card battle game, where players can compete by forming teams of creatures called Axies.

Axie Classic is the first official version of the game, and it had a total of 21 seasons from December 2019 to June 2022.

On the basis of Axie Classic, the game launched an upgraded version called Origins in 2022, providing a new adventure and competitive mode experience. Origins paved the way for Axie’s evolution on the chain, laying the foundation for new mechanisms such as free starting Axies and equippable items. Origins is currently in its 5th season. The game features Axies, which are teamable and battleable digital pets, and players accumulate AXP through real battles to level up their Axies. Axie transitions from a passive NFT to a dynamic and evolving NFT through active participation in the game.

Regarding Axie, I believe everyone knows enough about it, so let’s briefly introduce the recent mechanism of AXP. AXP (Axie Experience Points) is Axie Infinity’s latest on-chain upgrade system that allows players to progress and level up their Axies by winning and earning points in Origins.

Players can earn up to 150 AXP points per battle in various game modes such as ranked battles and dungeon adventures in Origins, and each Axie can earn a maximum of 4,500 AXP per day. These AXP points cannot be traded and are directly bound to the corresponding Axie.

When Axies reach level 9, 19, and 29, they can activate upgrades through transactions on the Ronin sidechain, which require a total of 13,310, 110,480, and 334,170 AXP points respectively.

Source: Axie official website

The launch of the AXP system is significant because: 1) it allows Axie to evolve from a passive NFT asset to a digitally personalized creature that can accumulate experience through gameplay; 2) it brings depth to the Axie Infinity ecosystem itself; 3) it provides design references for other NFT games and projects with similar on-chain upgrade mechanisms.

This marks the transformation of Axie from a passive role to an organic creature that can evolve through accumulation, and it also suggests that similar on-chain upgrade mechanisms may be widespread in the vast realm of NFTs and games in the future. AXP materializes the Axie Core concept and injects new momentum into Axie Infinity and the overall NFT ecosystem.

Source: Axie official website

2) Pixels

On November 17, 2023, Jeff Zirlin, co-founder of Ronin and Axie Infinity, posted on the X platform that the daily active addresses of the chain game Pixels have exceeded 100,000. In addition, according to Blur data, the current floor price of Farm Land by Pixels NFT is 0.74 ETH, with a 7-day increase of 85.93%.

Source: Pixels Official Website

Pixels is a P2E farming game based on the concept of the metaverse. As the first chain game to integrate NFT avatars, Pixels was launched in 2021, allowing players to enjoy farming in the game world with their NFT characters.

Pixels adopts a three-tier asset system, including land, resources, and tokens. Players can choose to conduct business on free, leased, or self-purchased land. They can exchange harvested resources for the in-game currency Berry to achieve circulation.

In February 2022, Pixels completed a $2.4 million seed round financing, led by Animoca Brands and PKO Investments, with participation from OpenSea and others. On October 31, 2023, Pixels migrated to Ronin. The Pixels team stated that they chose Ronin because it has the most Web3 users and the strongest community.

A. After migrating to Ronin, Pixels’ daily active users have exceeded 55,000, and they plan to launch the PIXELS governance token in Q4.

B. Pixels has also received strong support from Jihoz, the founder of Ronin and Axie Infinity. Jihoz even appears as an NPC in the game and promotes Pixels on social media.

C. Currently, Pixels has integrated more than 50 well-known NFT brands, achieving deep GameFi interoperability. In the future, Pixels will also launch the governance token Pixel for distribution, and the team has a rich background in game development. Since its launch, the daily active players have exceeded 55,000, and the scale is expanding.

As one of the key supported projects in the Ronin ecosystem, Pixels is loved by Axie players. With product iterations and ecological reshaping, Pixels may become another representative project in the Ronin ecosystem, driving the flourishing development of the Ronin ecosystem along with Axie.

Source: Ronin Official Website

3) ACT Games

ACT Games is a well-known game company in Korea dedicated to promoting TCG and other card games. Its flagship work Zoids Wild Arena was originally launched based on Polygon. Zoids Wild Arena is an Android and PC-based collectible card game where players can collect Zoids series mechanical creature cards and engage in 1vs1 or 3vs3 battles. The cards have different attributes and talents, and the gameplay is similar to Heartstone. In November 2023, ACT Games partnered with Sky Mavis and plans to introduce Zoids Wild Arena and all future games into the Ronin ecosystem. ACT Games stated that this collaboration will leverage Ronin’s technological advantages to provide the high-standard experience expected by players and IP fans. After migration, Zoids Wild Arena players can use the Ronin wallet for various activities, such as in-game transactions, and take advantage of Ronin’s convenient asset exchange and circulation capabilities.

This is also an important move for Ronin to continue promoting game ecosystem construction. ACT Games’ participation demonstrates its trust in the Ronin system and its willingness to jointly build a more complete GameFi ecosystem. For Ronin, ACT Games’ joining will also bring new reputation to the ecosystem.

4) Other Game Ecosystems

In addition to the three main games discussed above, Sky Mavis has been working with multiple game studios to continuously enrich the Ronin ecosystem. Early collaborators include Directive Games, Bali Games, Tribes Studio, and more, with each studio now developing their own games using Ronin. Among them, Directive Games’ “Machine Arena” stands at the forefront as the first Ronin game.

A. “Machine Arena” is a 4v4 multiplayer online shooting game, where players battle on sci-fi battlefields as tanks or support heroes.

B. The game features a third-person perspective, offering both single-player and multiplayer modes. Currently in the PC testing phase, the game is planned to be available on the Epic Games Store. Directive is also planning to release a mobile version for iOS and Android, achieving a true cross-platform gaming experience.

Source: The Machines Arena Official Website

In addition, Sky Mavis has partnered with the NFT project CyberKongz. In July, CyberKongz launched a new NFT series called “Phantom Sea,” with 4,000 pieces available on Ronin through the Mavis Market. Sky Mavis also stated that they will use “Phantom Sea” as rewards for Axie players. At the same time, CyberKongz will collaborate with Ronin to develop a new game based on the “Phantom Sea” theme.

By continuously introducing high-quality game projects, the Ronin ecosystem continues to grow, providing users with diverse and mature gaming experiences, further strengthening Ronin’s position as a mainstream chain gaming platform.

5) Conclusion

As the first well-known chain gaming project, Axie has already driven rapid expansion of the Ronin ecosystem. Sky Mavis sees Axie as just the beginning and aims to develop it into a globally recognized IP representation. Despite significant setbacks in the past, Sky Mavis remains persistent, adhering to its vision of providing developers with high-quality, cost-effective services. They understand that this is the key to the long-term capabilities of chain gaming – rapid response and low-cost interaction. Building on the early success of Axie, more and more projects choose to trust Sky Mavis and join the Ronin ecosystem. The ecosystem is currently maturing and becoming richer, further strengthening Ronin’s position as a mainstream chain gaming platform. The challenge faced by Sky Mavis is how to continuously maintain the attractiveness and competitive advantage of Ronin. The management team has stated that they will uphold the concept of openness and sharing, continuously optimize the technical architecture and operational experience, and bring more value to the project. They also aim to attract more excellent games to join. As long as Sky Mavis can persist in exploring new possibilities, consolidate Ronin’s user stickiness among game developers, it may become one of the winners in the Web3 ecosystem in the future.

3.5.2. Dapp

1) RNS

According to official Twitter news, on November 16th, Ronin Name Service (RNS) has started its public sale and will hold an auction for high-value .ron domain names, which will last for 48 hours. RNS has integrated with Ronin Wallet, Ronin Explorer, Mavis Market, App.Axie, and Sky Mavis Account Service.

Ronin Name Service (RNS) is a distributed naming system based on the Ronin blockchain, which allows users to bind a readable “.ron” domain name to a long string of digital addresses.

A. Domain Classification: RNS domain names are classified as regular domains, auction domains, and protected domains. Regular domains are applied on a first-come, first-served basis; auction domains are obtained through bidding; protected domains are reserved for partners and well-known brands.

B. Domain Pricing: Domain prices include annual fees and auction domain reservation fees. Annual fees are charged based on the length of the domain name; reservation fees are 15% of the auction price, and the price may change due to domain name transactions and offers.

C. Domain Grades: Based on the number of characters and market prices, RNS classifies domain names into levels 1, 2, and 3. Higher-level domain names are shorter and rarer, and their grades are indicated by the color of the domain name.

D. Managing Domain Names: Users can choose a main domain name, renew domain names, and trade domain names on Mavis Market. Only the original user can renew a domain name within 90 days before it expires.

E. Use Cases: Users can use RNS instead of long wallet addresses for asset transfers and payments. RNS can also provide unique identification within the Ronin ecosystem.

Source: Ronin official website

Overall, RNS makes Ronin addresses more concise and readable, improving user experience and asset usability. Its categorized domain name system also creates brand value.

2) Staking

Ronin Stake (RON Stake) is an application on the Ronin chain that allows RON holders to stake RON tokens with validation nodes to participate in Ronin network governance and receive rewards.

A. Staking Targets: RON holders can choose to stake RON with any validation node, and different nodes offer different profit shares.

B. Equity Management: Users can increase or decrease the staked amount and transfer staked RON to other validation nodes at any time.

C. Reward Distribution: Staking RON allows users to receive block reward shares from validation nodes, and the rewards will be settled in the user’s wallet balance.

D. Participating in Governance: The amount of RON staked determines the user’s voting weight in Ronin network governance.

Through RON staking, ordinary RON holders can participate in Ronin network construction and receive economic returns. This helps attract more users to contribute to the Ronin ecosystem and also enhances the decentralization level of the Ronin network.

Source: Ronin official website

In conclusion, Ronin is not only a high-performance and secure oracle product, but more importantly, as a decentralized infrastructure, it solves practical problems of WEB3.0 through various advantages, serving CBDC, DeFi, GameFi, and NFT industries. This has significant market significance for Ronin.

3) Katana

Katana is the decentralized exchange of the Ronin network, where users can trade digital assets within the Ronin ecosystem.

A. Swap: Katana supports the trading pairs of different ERC20 tokens within the Ronin network, allowing users to easily exchange.

B. Liquidity Mining: Users can provide liquidity to the trading pairs and become liquidity providers to earn transaction fees and RON rewards.

C. Staking Mining: Users can also stake the provided liquidity tokens to earn more RON mining rewards.

D. Data Statistics: Katana provides users with detailed data statistics and analysis of their trades and earnings.

Katana brings decentralized trading functionality similar to Uniswap to the Ronin ecosystem. It reduces the need for cross-chain exchanges and provides users with ways to earn profits, attracting more users to join the Ronin network.

Source: Ronin official website

4. Track Space and Potential

4.1. Track Overview

4.1.1. Track Positioning

Ronin is positioned as a dedicated gaming chain, a game public chain Cidie, aiming to provide high-performance and low-cost infrastructure support for blockchain games.

4.1.2. Track Size

With the emergence of Web2.5 games, the importance of game platforms and ecosystems is becoming increasingly prominent. Compared to a single game, platforms and ecosystems have longer lifecycles and can better withstand the impact of the end of a single game’s lifecycle. In addition, platforms aggregate game resources such as funds, communities, and incubation capabilities, providing important windows for user acquisition and reducing user acquisition costs for new games. They can also capture some of the value of individual game projects through the design of token economies. For game players, the navigation and blockchain infrastructure provided by platforms help them easily find games they like and optimize the transition from Web2 to Web3. Therefore, in the future, game platforms are expected to reduce game acquisition costs through specialized operations and token economies unrelated to game content, achieving a relatively separate game content creation and user acquisition process. This model of empowering games through platforms is one of the most promising directions in the blockchain gaming field. Recently, some game projects have begun to transition from single games to providing game platform capabilities, indicating that this is a trend and direction. Overall, game platforms and ecosystems can gain more sustainable vitality, contributing to the development of the entire blockchain gaming field towards specialization and positive development.

4.1.3. Track Pattern

With the booming development of the gaming blockchain industry, Ronin, as the first representative project of blockchain games represented by Axie, has attracted much attention. Currently, Ronin mainly faces competition from multi-functional public chains and other chains, and the current competitive pattern mainly includes the following aspects:

1) Traditional Multi-functional Public Chains

A. Binance Smart Chain (BSC): As of November 2023, BSC has launched 963 blockchain games, occupying an absolute advantage in terms of game quantity. This is due to the following advantages of BSC:

– Performance: BSC can achieve thousands of transactions per second (TPS) with extremely low transaction costs, meeting the requirements of GameFi for high concurrency and low costs.

– Ecological resources: BSC itself has a huge tokenomic foundation, with institutions like Binance Labs continuously investing in GameFi projects, greatly expanding the ecosystem.

– User base: With Binance as the entry point, BSC has a wide Web3 user community, providing early traffic advantages for GameFi projects.

– Clear roadmap: BSC has a clear strategy of “low gas, high speed” development, providing long-term reliable support for GameFi projects.

Although BSC lacks representative head projects like Axie, its advantage in ecological diversification has kept it consistently ahead in terms of the number of GameFi projects. With technological and ecological developments, BSC will continue to consolidate its position in the GameFi field. Overall, BSC has broad prospects in the GameFi track.

B. Polygon: As an important Layer 2 solution for Ethereum, Polygon has also performed impressively in the GameFi field. As of November 2023, Polygon has launched 473 games, showing a growth rate of 74.28% compared to the same period last year, indicating its advantage in attracting GameFi projects.

– Solid ecological support: The percentage of monthly active users among total active users is over 65%, demonstrating the ecosystem’s vibrancy. In addition, excellent projects like The Sandbox have also conveyed confidence.

– Obvious technological advantages: TPS in the thousands and low gas costs solve Ethereum’s performance issues, and deep integration with Ethereum greatly expands its ecosystem influence.

– Significant ecological collaboration: Polygon Studios has been incubating high-quality projects and actively exploring various cooperative models to stimulate ecosystem vitality.

– Strong user base: Thanks to the Ethereum community, every project on Polygon can gain rich early user support.

Overall, Polygon is in a leading position in the GameFi field and may continue to consolidate this advantage based on its technological and ecological construction advantages, becoming one of the mainstream GameFi public chains.

C. Ethereum: As of November 2023, Ethereum has the second highest number of GameFi projects, with 770 games launched. Ethereum has the richest ecosystem resources, with a large number of developers and users. However, as the first smart contract platform, Ethereum faces performance bottlenecks with only 15 TPS and high transaction fees. This also limits the development of high-frequency applications like GameFi.

Source: Footprint 

2) Professional Public Chains that Focus on Game Applications

A. WAX: Positioned as an NFT and GameFi public chain, with user volume second only to the BSC chain, the ecosystem has developed early and matured. It has typical cases such as Alien Worlds, with a large daily transaction volume. As of November 2023, WAX has launched 166 games.

l Solid technical support: WAX TPS can reach 2700+, transaction speed is better than VISA, and staking is free as gas, meeting the low-cost and high-concurrency demands of GameFi.

l Significant operational effectiveness: With resources such as OPSkins, WAX has deeply cultivated the NFT and gaming business models, forming a complete ecological industrial chain.

l Huge impact of the Alien Worlds project: Represented by Alien Worlds, the daily trading volume on WAX is at the top, bringing sustained vitality to the ecosystem.

l Strong and continuously expanding user base: WAX is second only to BSC in terms of active users, and the user research and development community continues to grow, impacting the ecosystem.

l Cross-chain capability continuously improves: WAX strengthens interoperability with mainstream chains, and its business scope covers various commercial models such as games and NFTs.

WAX, as a well-established public chain focusing on GameFi, has become one of the leaders in the field with its excellent technology and ecosystem.

Source: Footprint 

B. Hive: Focusing on social and gaming aspects, the ecosystem is mainly centered around Splinterlands. Although there are only 16 games so far, Hive has maintained a relatively high daily active user base, indicating good ecosystem quality.

l Significant role of Splinterlands: As the representative game of Hive, Splinterlands has performed well and has long served as the “first moat” for the GameFi ecosystem of the chain.

l Obvious technological advantages: Hive meets the demands of GameFi with its “fast, stable, and low-cost” characteristics, winning praise for user experience.

l Strong base of active users: Despite having few projects, Hive still maintains over 35,000 daily active users, and Splinterlands helps maintain high traffic.

l Need to accelerate the addition of other games: In addition to Splinterlands, Hive needs to attract and nurture more GameFi projects in the future to expand the depth of the ecosystem.

l Strengthen interconnection with the mainnet: Enhancing connectivity with mainstream public chains will contribute to the scaled development of Hive GameFi.

Overall, Hive maintains a certain influence in the GameFi field in the long term with its technological advantages and top games. However, further efforts are needed in extending the ecosystem and exploring projects, which will determine the future prospects of GameFi on Hive.

Source: Footprint

3) Other game-specific sidechains

A. ImmutableX: Recently, the number of games in the ImmutableX ecosystem has increased to 150+, with daily trading volume and user numbers rising rapidly. Star games like Gods Unchained, Guild of Guardians, and Illuvium have driven the platform’s development and attracted more high-quality games to join.

– Clear technological advantages: Technologies like zkRollup solve the gas problem, providing a high-performance, low-cost operating environment for games.

– Accumulating user base: Immutable X has surpassed 100,000 daily active users, gaining a certain scale of user base.

– Collaboration with mainstream platforms: Collaborating with mainstream gaming platforms like GameStop brings in more users.

– Establishing a gateway position: In the NFT gaming field, Immutable X has become an important entry point, with the potential to further enhance influence.

– Deepening the ecosystem: There is a need to further increase flagship games, enrich the ecosystem content, and enhance user activity.

– Continuous technological innovation: Continuously optimizing performance, lowering barriers, and improving user experience is crucial.

Overall, Immutable X is rising rapidly as an important infrastructure in the NFT gaming field, with primary advantages in technological innovation and ecosystem expansion capabilities. Continuing to deepen the ecosystem and maintaining technological advantages are key to Immutable X’s success in the gaming public chain competition.

4) Competitive landscape analysis

In recent years, GameFi has been developing rapidly, and Ethereum once dominated. However, with the congestion and gas fee issues on-chain exposed, GameFi projects have been shifting to the new generation public chains.

A. In terms of traditional public chains, BSC has the largest number of GameFi projects due to its strong technical performance and user base. Polygon has been actively participating in the GameFi sector in this bear market, gradually becoming a mainstream choice.

B. In the gaming public chain sector, Hive has the largest user base with Splinterlands taking the lead. Harmony and Ronin have shown outstanding transaction volume performance, laying the foundation for future fine development in GameFi.

C. As the chain for the Axie game, Ronin performed excellently in the initial stage in 2021, benefiting from Axie’s strong impact. However, with the decline in Axie’s popularity and the exposure of single dependence flaws, Ronin’s future development faces challenges.

D. Meanwhile, the maturing cross-chain technology will also impact the future landscape of GameFi. More and more projects will deploy on multiple public chains, seeking dual advantages in technology and the market.

Overall, from the perspective of competition, Ronin mainly faces challenges from Layer 2 competitors such as Immutable X, which are trying to improve blockchain to enhance gaming performance. Other public chains like WAX and BSC attract more games through resources. With the iteration of technology and products, GameFi will form a new pattern dominated by traditional public chains and refined gaming public chains. Ronin needs to continue improving itself and collaborating more extensively with other chains to consolidate its core position in the gaming on-chain field.

4.2. Competitive Analysis

4.2.1. Core Competitive Factors

To evaluate the performance of public chains in the GameFi field, analysis is mainly conducted from several dimensions, including performance, ecosystem, user experience, and innovation ability.

A. Performance Completeness: TPS reflects network capacity, and gas fees reflect usage costs. This is related to game fluency and thresholds.

B. Ecosystem Unity: The richness and diversity of the ecosystem are important competitive points. It is also crucial whether there is interoperability and interconnectedness among projects.

C. User Experience: Reducing user learning and usage barriers and providing a seamless experience is crucial. Security is also related to asset security.

D. Application Scale: Building flagship applications in the blockchain field can quickly accumulate users and resources, gaining first-mover advantages.

E. Innovation Ability: Whether core technology and products can remain at the forefront reflects the platform’s foresight and competitiveness.

4.2.2. Competitive Advantages

Based on the analysis above, combined with Ronin’s network characteristics, we will analyze Ronin’s competitive advantages from the above core competitive factors.

1) Advantages

A. Customized design focused on gaming requirements, making it excel in performance

Ronin is a sidechain tailored for Axie Infinity. Through technologies such as DPOS consensus, Ronin’s TPS can reach tens of thousands per second, meeting Axie’s high-frequency trading needs. Compared to Immutable X, Ronin can provide more customized support. Games on Immutable X are relatively dispersed, making it unable to provide special customization for a specific game.

B. Holding the leading game Axie to gain initial traffic advantage

Axie’s heavyweight status helps Ronin attract hundreds of thousands of users, and a large number of players who favor Axie create an important ecological foundation. Ronin exclusively owns Axie Infinity’s powerful ecosystem and user base. Axie has created market capitalization of over 10 billion, which enables Ronin to gain an early development advantage as a leading force.

C. Design to reduce gas fees and lower usage costs

Ronin has almost eliminated all gas fees, greatly reducing the usage costs for Axie players. This is also a design consideration for Ronin’s game application.

2) Areas for Future Improvement

A. Ensuring User Asset Security and Avoiding Single Point of Failure Risk

Ronin relies too much on Axie, creating a single point of failure risk. Further improvements to security mechanisms are needed to prevent events like the RoninBridge attack from happening again.

B. Attracting Developers to Continuously Build a Rich Ecosystem

Further expanding the ecosystem and attracting more game integrations will reduce reliance and make the ecosystem more diverse and robust.

C. Benchmarking Against Major Public Blockchains and Narrowing the Gap

Continuously optimizing performance and maintaining good interoperability with main networks like Ethereum will help narrow the gap with major public blockchains.

Overall, Ronin has gained an advantage in the GameFi space by focusing on gaming itself. However, continuous innovation is necessary to maintain competitiveness and establish a solid position in the race.

4.3. Tokenomics Analysis

4.3.1. Token Supply and Distribution

1) Token Information

Token symbol: $RON

Contract address: 0xe514d9deb7966c8be0ca922de8a064264ea6bcd4

Current price: $0.8

Current market cap: $216,247,964

24-hour trading volume: $2,943,950

Fully diluted market cap: $800,039,254

Circulating supply: 270,309,192

Max supply: 1,000,000,000

Total supply: 1,000,000,000

Source: Coingecko

2) Token Secondary Market Performance

Ron was listed on the secondary market in January 2022, with prices stabilizing around 3U. As the theft incident and the overall crypto bear market arrived, the price dropped to around 0.2U, and it rebounded four-fold from the lowest point. (At the beginning of the year, the price went up to around 1.5U with the overall market rebound and the launch of staking activities, experiencing a nearly eight-fold rebound from the lowest point.)

3) Token Distribution

The token will be gradually unlocked over a period of 9 years.

• Sky Mavis: 30%;
• Community: 30%;
• Staking Rewards: 25%;
• Ecosystem Fund: 15%.

4.3.2. Token Value Capture

The Ronin token is used for network governance, payment of network service fees, etc., and primarily has the following value:

1) Payment of transaction fees

l As the volume of Ronin transactions continues to increase, users need to continuously pay gas fees to maintain a reasonable level

l Shortening confirmation time and optimizing performance to attract more continuous release of value

2) Validator staking consensus

l Increasing the staking threshold to attract more nodes for decentralization

l Establishing a reward mechanism to lock circulating supply and support the Ronin price

l Adjusting policies to involve the community in maintaining network security

3) Participation in network governance

l Granting more voting rights to attract token holders to participate in decision-making

l Promoting consensus and coordinated governance through voting reward design

l Enhancing the token’s value through community building

4.3.3. Core Token Demand

1) Validators

l Becoming a validating node requires holding a certain amount of Ronin tokens to participate in network consensus and maintenance

l Continuous increase in rewards for staking will drive the growth of validators

2) Users

l As a gaming chain, users need to hold a certain amount of Ronin tokens to pay for gas fees

l With the increase in Ronin’s ecological applications, the expenditure for users’ experience will gradually expand

l The future payment scenarios expanding to other fields will attract a wider user base

3) Developers

l Developers need to hold tokens to support the development costs of introducing more DApps

l Long-term investment is required for ecological construction, and developers need to hold tokens to participate in new projects

l With policy support, more third parties will be attracted to participate in application development

4.4. SWOT Analysis

4.4.1. Project Strengths

Project strengths can be found in the Core Investment Logic section 1.1.

l Supported by its own well-known game Axie Infinity, with a large user base

l Large ecosystem scale, technological advantages, and rich management experience:

4.4.2. Project Weaknesses

Ronin being an exclusive side chain of Axie Infinity, its high dependency and underdeveloped ecosystem pose potential risks. Ronin highly relies on Axie Infinity as its flagship application, which has brought tremendous trading volume and influence to Ronin. However, as the popularity of Axie declines, Ronin’s trading volume has also dropped significantly. This indicates that while Ronin’s ecosystem is highly unified, it also faces the risk of dependence on a single application. If the popularity of Axie Infinity continues to decline, it will severely impact the continuous development of Ronin. Additionally, the gaming ecosystem on Ronin needs further expansion. According to official data, there are only 8 game applications on Ronin, making the ecosystem very limited. In comparison, competitors have much more diverse gaming ecosystems. For example, there are over 160 games on WAX, and Immutable X has over 150. The singularity of the Ronin ecosystem limits its attractiveness and economies of scale. If it fails to introduce more high-quality games, Ronin may struggle to compete with its competitors. Overall, the high dependency and underdeveloped ecosystem pose risks for Ronin, affecting its ability to quickly obtain network effects and ensure long-term development. Ronin needs to actively expand its ecosystem, attract more high-quality gaming applications, and reduce its dependency on Axie Infinity to achieve ecosystem diversification.

Ronin‘s security issues and decentralization risks: Ronin has experienced a severe security incident where $600 million was stolen by hackers, which has had a negative impact on its security image. In March 2022, Ronin’s cross-chain bridge was maliciously attacked, resulting in the theft of approximately $600 million in assets. This security incident directly caused a more than 70% drop in the price of Ron, the native token of Ronin, exposing the weak security aspects of Ronin and reducing trust in its security by users and investors. Additionally, Ronin uses an authority proof mechanism, which means that the number of validating nodes is very limited, currently only 21. This limited decentralization also poses certain risks. If individual nodes encounter issues, it will threaten the overall security of the chain. In comparison, proof of work (POW) and proof of stake (POS) mechanisms can achieve a higher degree of decentralization and reliability.

4.4.3. Project Opportunities:

Position in the mainstream chain gaming platform and the growth of ecological value: With the rapid development of the blockchain gaming market, Ronin has the opportunity to become a mainstream infrastructure in this emerging field and benefit significantly from it. With its ecological advantages, Ronin is expected to take a leading position in the blockchain gaming wave. The success of Axie Infinity will attract more users and developers to join the Ronin ecosystem, creating a network effect. Ronin is also increasing its third-party collaborations, which will enrich its ecosystem content. As the ecosystem scales up, Ronin’s social and commercial value will also increase. It will provide a rich on-chain entertainment experience for more users. Additionally, through transaction fees, advertising, and other commercial means, Ronin’s economic model will become more diverse.

The enormous potential of the chain gaming market brought by the flourishing development of Web3.0: As the Web3.0 concept becomes increasingly popular worldwide, chain gaming, as one of the leading applications, will enter a period of rapid growth. Currently, many well-known IPs are laying out games on the blockchain, which is expected to generate a significant increase in demand. As a public chain dedicated to chain gaming, Ronin is in a historical opportunity point. If it continues to leverage its technological advantages and ecological support to attract more top games, it will benefit greatly. Moreover, with the rise of the Metaverse concept, driving the virtual economy to its prime, if Ronin can establish a strong presence in this area, it will introduce large-scale commercial value. Additionally, as cross-chain technology matures, it will open up more cooperation opportunities for Ronin. As long as it seizes this key transformation opportunity of technological upgrades, its influence will be exponentially amplified.

4.4.4. Project Threats:

Intense competition among public chains poses a challenge to Ronin’s technological position: With the industry flourishing, various public chains are continuously upgrading and evolving their technologies to compete for the support of chain game users, putting Ronin in a passive defensive position in the technological race. At the same time, young public chains are constantly emerging, attracting more small games with their low-cost advantages, posing a threat to Ronin’s leadership position in the future. Additionally, many established public chains such as BSC and Hive are consolidating their existing advantages without making any aggressive moves. They can leverage their first-mover advantage to attract more resources, which is extremely dangerous for Ronin. Therefore, Ronin’s technological architecture urgently needs significant upgrades and cannot afford to be stagnant. This also requires a strong research and development team to support continuous innovation. Furthermore, as the underlying chain for the on-chain product Axie, relying too heavily on it is not a sustainable strategy for Ronin. In the future, it must focus on enhancing its own brand value and influence. Overall, the competition among public chains will be a persistent and major challenge for Ronin, and the key lies in seizing the high ground through technological strength to consolidate its market position.

5. References

https://roninchain.com/ Ronin Official Website

https://twitter.com/SkyMavisHQ Ronin Official Twitter

https://discord.com/invite/axie Ronin Official Discord

https://docs.roninchain.com/ Ronin DOCS

https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ronin/ CMC (CoinMarketCap)

https://mirror.xyz/bimeng.eth/7Hm8BIufjH57TQiBTMmK5ZbT_L4XdZrD92soIS-35Ys Ronin Project Newsletter

https://www.odaily.news/post/5190923 Pixels’ 2nd Anniversary: Will it Become the Second Axie Infinity on Ronin?

https://www.odaily.news/post/5190748 Multiple Games Joining, Is Ronin Returning to the Center of “Blockchain Gaming Infrastructure” Narrative?

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