- Sky Mavis has announced that Axie Infinity: Origins is now available on the Apple App Store, but only in a few countries.
- Argentina, Colombia, Peru, Mexico, Venezuela, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam are among the countries involved in the launch, with a focus on Latin America and parts of Southeast Asia.
- The game developer went on to say that it is collaborating with Google and Apple to provide mobile consumers with feature parity across both platforms.
Sky Mavis, the creator of the non-fungible token (NFT) project Axie Infinity, is releasing its Axie Infinity: Origins card game on the Apple App Store in the game’s most famous markets. Previously, the game was only available in select regions on the Google Play store and through the company’s Mavis Hub.
The card-based strategy game, which includes free non-NFT “starter” characters, will first be available in Latin America and Asia, including Argentina, Colombia, Peru, Mexico, Venezuela, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam. The game has 1.5 million installs across all platforms and intends to expand globally through Google and Apple mobile users.
Sky Mavis is also introducing Mavis Market, a curated NFT marketplace powered by the company’s proprietary Ronin blockchain. Some collectibles from a third-party game or dApp developers who use Ronin will be available on the market beginning Wednesday. The company also intends to open a merchandise store.
According to Trung Nguyen, CEO of Sky Marvis,
“Sky Mavis remains committed to our vision of a player-owner digital nation and is excited to work with app stores to open our ecosystem to a new generation of Lunacians.”
Axie Infinity worked hard to rebound after a $625 million hack last year, overhauling Ronin’s core systems in March to make the network more decentralized and secure. Furthermore, the company collaborated with game development studios such as Tribes Studio, Bali Games, Directive Games, and Bowled.io to expand the Axie Infinity universe, allowing selected games to use the Axie IP.
Axie Infinity Token Increases by 12%
Following the news, AXS rose more than 12% from $7.16 to $8.04, becoming the top gainer on CoinDesk Indices’ leaderboard. At the time of publication, AXS was on track for its best single-day percentage gain since January 22. The cryptocurrency fell by more than 3% in April, marking its third consecutive monthly decline amid token unlocking and broader market risk aversion.
Open Interest Spikes
The price increase in AXS was accompanied by a significant rise in notional futures open interest or the dollar value locked in available futures contracts. This is a sign of new money entering the market.
According to Coinglass, notional open interest increased to more than $75 million from nearly $40 million the day before, the highest level since February.
However, the leverage appeared to be skewed to the bearish side, as perpetual futures funding rates remained negative. Negative rates indicate that bearish short positions dominate the market.
Investors most likely shorted perpetual futures contracts to protect their long position in the spot market from a sudden price drop, indicating a lack of confidence in the price rally’s sustainability.
