This Video Game Is Turning Pandemic Jobless Into Crypto Traders

Axie Infinity's daily active users swelled from 30,000 in April this year to more than 1 million in August, with most logging on from developing countries hit hard by Covid.

When Vincent Gallarte was laid off in July, the Manila IT analyst found an unusual financial lifeline: an online game that rewards players in cryptocurrency. In his first two weeks of Pokémon-like questing and battling, Gallarte earned more than 37,000 pesos ($732), three times what he would have made at his "real job." Like a lot of newcomers to so-called play-to-earn games, the 25-year-old Gallarte hadn't had any particular interest in the world of Bitcoin, Ether and other cryptocurrencies. Now he imagines a lucrative side-hustle. "I started playing Axie the same day my employer terminated my contract," he said. "I'm so grateful." Axie Infinity is among the biggest - and most polarizing - of these new games, which allow players to accumulate tradeable crypto coins. To investors like billionaire Mark Cuban and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, who were part of a $7.5 million funding round for Vietnamese game-maker Sky Mavis in May, it's a gateway to crypto for people around the world. Others look at the buy-in cost, now more than $600, and the influx of newbies "working" for low-value tokens and see evidence the Axie Infinity model is unsustainable. Axie Infinity's daily active users swelled from 30,000 in April this year to more than 1 million in August, with most logging on from developing countries hit hard by Covid, including the Philippines, Brazil and Venezuela. Originally built on the Ethereum blockchain, Axie recorded around $30 million worth of Ether transfers a day over the past month, according to Etherscan. That's not much in the $2.2 trillion universe of cryptocurrencies, but meaningful for players-and governments-in poorer countries. On Monday, the Philippines' Department of Finance and the Bureau of Internal Revenue reminded players that their Axie Infinity profits are subject to income tax, local reports said.