Sky Mavis will stake over 11 million AXS tokens

Sky Mavis, co-founder of Axie Infinity, stated that the business will stake the 11,475,000 AXS tokens on its balance sheet to “reinforce [its] long-term commitment to the Axie Infinity ecosystem.”

“Staking this AXS represents our strong alignment with a new type of social contract, one where players and developers work and build together through aligned incentives,” it added in a tweet thread.

Sky Mavis is the inventor of the play-to-earn game Axie Infinity, which saw a spectacular spike in popularity in 2021 before plummeting in the new year due to the decreasing value of in-game token prizes, as previously reported. Axie co-founder Jeffrey Zirlin recently remarked on The Scoop that the game has subsequently announced a pivot away from the play-to-earn strategy in an effort to encourage users to receive more from the game than its tokens.

The most recent move could dilute the 43 million AXS now staked and lower the annual percentage rate (APR) for current AXS stakers. As of publication, there were over 42 million AXS staked at a 43% annual percentage rate, valued at $491 million.

“I don’t understand how this signals long-term commitment when Sky Mavis can unstake whenever they want,” said Thomas Bialek, NFT analyst.