The Axie Infinity team is making moves. On the one hand, they raised $860K “through a strategic sale of our governance token, AXS.” On the other, they announced an in-game decentralized exchange and their AXS increased in prize by 55% in the last 24 hours. Great numbers all around that would satisfy and attract any investor. And speaking about satisfied investors, their original backers were the people invited to Axie Infinity’s private sale.

Related Reading | New To Bitcoin? Learn To Trade Crypto With The NewsBTC Trading Course

Let’s digest all that part by part.

Axie Infinity ‘s $860K Private Sale

The terms of the “strategic sale” state the following:

“Axie Infinity raised $864,000 in a private sale of AXS to strategic investors in the middle of 2020. These investors purchased AXS at a 20% discount.

20% of the private sale tokens will be unlocked during the AXS public sale. The rest of the private sale tokens will be unlocked quarterly over the next 2 years.”

In the press release, they disclosed the investors:

• Arca

• Three Arrows Capital

• DeFiance Capital

• DeFi Capital

• Sparq Ventures

• Animoca Brands

• Hashed

• Dialectic

as well as angel investors:

• Alexander John Amsel

• Alex Svanevik (Nansen)

• Bashylok Oleksander

The investors seem extremely satisfied. In a recent tweet, DeFiance Capital’s Zhu Su announced Axie Infinity and their Axie Infinity Shards (AXS) are the company’s most profitable seed investment by far. “Craziest thing is at the time of the round, it was so undersubbed that many people invested just to support ecosystem without any expectation of returns,” he adds for color. 

$AXS @AxieInfinity I think is now @DeFianceCapital best seed investment ever and it's not even close

Craziest thing is at the time of the round, it was so undersubbed that many people invested just to support ecosystem without any expectation of returns

World is unbound growth

— Zhu Su ? (@zhusu) October 2, 2021

The Great AXS 55% Rise

According to Chinese journalist Colin Wu, “Axie Infinity is launching a decentralized exchange and its price rose 55% in 24h. However, its trading volume and active users are declining.” He also said it was “the highest increase among top50 crypto.” At the time of writing, the number has decreased a little. According to Coinmarketcap, AXS is “up 42.90% in the last 24 hours.”

Axie Infinity is launching a decentralized exchange and its price rosed 55% in 24h. However, its trading volume and active users are declining.

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) October 2, 2021

The recently announced decentralized exchange will eliminate the need to leave Axie Infinity to trade tokens. “People want to acquire and use their tokens from the same place without having to use a bridge constantly,” growth lead Jeff Zirlin told The Block” That website broke the Axie Infinity meets DeFi story, saying:

“The DEX could help keep users playing the game because it will remove certain frictions that exist for players who have to move their tokens off the platform to trade them. The DEX will be built on Ronin, an Ethereum-linked sidechain purpose-built for Axie Infinity.”

In the “Strategic Sale” press release, they quote Defiance Capital’s Arthur0x, who said:

“Axie has been building relentlessly since 2018 and we are impressed by their execution so far. Their vision of combining NFT, gaming and DeFi together is extremely exciting. We are thrilled to see Axie continue to be at the forefront of innovation in NFT gaming and DeFi space.”

AXS price chart for 10/02/2021 on Gemini | Source: AXS/USD on TradingView.com

Epilogue: Our Prediction

Just three months ago, when NewsBTC first covered Axie Infinity, we predicted: 

“In the long run, Axie Infinity could add new features to its game, a new game mode, more resources. The expansion of this universe is set to provide cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology with a real-world use case that nurtures the gaming experience.”

Related Reading | Jack Dorsey Plans to Build A Decentralized Exchange For Bitcoin

They did add new features, just not the ones we were expecting. 

At that time, AXS was trading at $17,47. Each token is worth $111.21 nowadays.

Featured Image: Axie Infinity screenshot from their press release | Charts by TradingView