Through bots and airdrops, Ronin has grown into the No. 2 blockchain for daily users and not just Pixels fans – Cointelegraph Magazine

The Ronin Network, the Ethereum sidechain that hosts Axie Infinity and other games, is experiencing a resurgence with approximately 1.4 million daily active users.

According to Token Terminal, this ranks second among all blockchains, just behind Tron’s 2.2 million daily active users.

However, the Ronin network generated the 13th highest fee revenue of all blockchains over the past 30 days, at just $200,000. So something didn’t add up.

The increase in user numbers is a dramatic reversal from last October, when Ronin was essentially on life support with fewer than 20,000 daily active users.

This was around the time farming simulation game Pixels abandoned its original Polygon and moved to the then-moribund chain.

The arrival of Pixels helped kickstart the network’s resurgence, catapulting the chain to its current heights. Jeff Zirlin, co-founder of Ronin developer Sky Mavis, said as recently as March that the network was changing “parabolically and exponentially,” largely due to Pixels. Today, more than half of Ronin’s wallets are on Pixels, which are used in-game. Items, PIXEL cryptocurrency and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

But are all those users legitimate? Pixels had nearly 779,000 unique active wallets as of May 20, according to DappRadar.

Data from ChainArgos, a Singapore-based blockchain forensics company, suggests that Pixels’ high wallet count may be influenced by widespread bot activity.

The companies say the cumulative increase in daily unique pixel recipients is “too benign” to be considered human activity and is likely a bot.

Game developers have acknowledged this is a problem and have implemented regular bans to remove accounts engaging in bot behavior. Pixels recently announced that it banned 750,000 accounts in one week.

To be fair, supporters say the game has a “huge” number of human players, making up a third of all players. Like Axie Infinity, some players located in the Philippines are earning a hefty daily wage by owning in-game land.

Jonathan Reiter, co-founder of ChainArgos, looked closely at activity data and told the Magazine that even with bots, the story that Pixels is pushing Ronin to higher levels is overblown.

Reiter says the non-economic activity associated with SOUL airdrops is actually much higher than that associated with Pixels. On May 21, the Ronin network recorded 8 times more SOUL transactions than PIXEL.

“I first looked at Ronin because I had heard claims that it was a popular blockchain, which is not something that comes up often,” Reiter told the Magazine.

“It was readily apparent that the activity in question was unrelated to the alleged project.”

Ronin and developer Sky Mavis did not respond to Magazine’s requests for comment.

Blockchain with a lot of SOUL

ChainArgos data shows an increase in activity in October last year when Pixel set up shop in Ronin.

The number of unique transactions involving BERRY, formerly Pixels’ in-game token, soared immediately after the migration, debuting on Halloween Day with approximately 4,700 transactions.

It didn’t take long for BERRY trading to outpace Axie Infinity’s main in-game currency, SLP.

As BERRY transactions were phased out by developers, they were replaced by PIXEL transactions.

However, the surge in trading of Pixel-related tokens does not coincide with major surges in Ronin blockchain activity, including in mid-December, suggesting other projects could be moving the needle.

SOUL, a token associated with data-sharing project Carv, stands out as a likely candidate responsible for Ronin’s increased transaction count. This project allows businesses and gamers to share data and monetize it.

It raised $10 million in a Series A funding round, which will reportedly be added to a 2022 seed round that includes the venture capital arm of Singapore-backed wealth fund Temasek, bringing the project’s valuation to $40 million.

In response to the surge in Ronin activity starting in mid-December, Carv launched the SOUL airdrop. SOUL tokens started moving from a single null wallet address to hundreds of thousands of other wallets.

Airdrop campaigns are not typical one-time distributions. Rather, participants must link a wallet or online account (Google, Facebook, etc.) and share personal data. They are rewarded with SOUL every day. Users can receive 10 SOUL per day by linking their Ronin wallet.

According to Carv’s website, users who have accumulated SOUL can convert them to the utility token CARV once new tokens are created. As of May 24, users can still participate in data sharing.

There are more SOUL transactions than any other major token on Ronin, including PIXEL.

On May 21, there were 387,500 SOUL transactions and 47,000 PIXEL transactions on the Ronin Network.

Reiter argues that SOUL transactions do not reflect healthy economic activity because the thousands of addresses that have received SOUL tokens from Ronin have “never done anything” so far.

If it turns out that someone can sell it for a ton of money and go buy some service for it in the future, have fun. However, it appears to have been airdropped to a number of dormant addresses. “That is not economic activity,” he said.

Ronin is listed as the second most active network, but network rates do not support this ranking. It generated less than $200,000 in revenue in the 30 days ending May 22, suggesting low economic activity.

Bots are ruining real players.

The high number of bots in Pixels games isn’t something that founder Luke Barwikowski ignores.

Bot activity is evident on most online platforms, including social media. Bot activity in games is generally considered cheating and often carries punishments such as permanent bans. However, users often come back with new armies of bots under different accounts.

Pixels can be a particularly attractive platform for sybil and bot activity due to the direct financial incentives associated with gameplay.

During an April X Spaces session, Barwikowski said: said The battle against bots has become more evident since the launch of the game’s BERRY token.

Pixels did not respond to the Magazine’s request for comment, but the bot topic was one Barwikowski spoke about regularly during his AMA sessions. He frequently warns players that users who use automation-related extensions to gain an unfair advantage over other players will be banned.

According to DappRadar data on active addresses, a sharp drop in active wallets quickly rebounds, so banning bots may only have a temporary impact.

“Fewer bots means more rewards for real people,” Can Picak, CEO of Web3 games studio Eldarune, told Magazine.

Pika, who has not logged in to Pixels for about three months, estimates that about 70% of in-game accounts are bots.

“But even if 70% or even 90% of them are bots, the number of real users playing every day is huge,” Picak told the Magazine.

For some, it can be a stable source of income.

The crackdown on bots has also caught some grinders and players in the crossfire. Several players took to social platforms to complain that they had been banned.

This shows that while the Pixel has a bot problem, it’s far from a ghost town that Android runs on.

According to Joniel Bon, co-founder of NFT

Landowners can open their land to the public for players to grow and gather materials and resources, which can ultimately be used to craft items and sell them for PIXEL tokens.

By doing so, they may receive a commission.

“I don’t have much time to work, so I let the community till my land and I get a commission from them,” says Bon.

Bon estimates he earns about $11 (₱640) per day as a landowner. This figure is slightly higher than the daily minimum wage in the Philippine metropolitan area as reported by the local labor department. Business-minded gamers like Bon can generate numerous revenue streams from multiple games.

He bought his land NFT for about $2,500 in Ethereum about a year ago, which he may be able to convert for a profit. Mr Vaughn said he currently has no plans to sell his land.

According to CoinGecko, as of May 23, the lowest price for a Pixels farmland NFT is 1.39 Ether, or about $5,400.

So Ronin’s status as the #2 blockchain for daily users evaporates the closer you look, but thanks to bots and SOUL airdrops, it appears that a significant number of humans are also playing the game, which could be profitable for those who try hard enough. Virtual Farm.

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Yoon Yohan

Yohan Yoon is a multimedia journalist covering blockchain since 2017. He contributed as an editor to Forkast, a media outlet specializing in cryptocurrency, and covered Asian technology stories as an assistant reporter for Bloomberg BNA and Forbes. He spends his free time cooking and experimenting with new recipes.