The Big Whale: A lot of people don't necessarily know Axie Infinity. Could you explain what it is?

Aleksander Larsen Leonard: Axie Infinity is a blockchain game in which you compete against other users with little monsters (which look like Pokemon 😺, ed. note).

These are NFTs that you evolve by making them fight and that can reproduce. As soon as you win a fight, you earn money in the form of chips. This is the principle of play-to-earn.

A year ago, Axie Infinity was the talk of the town, the frenzy around the game, and since then, nothing much has happened... What happened?

The ecosystem is maturing, which is a very good thing. With the market down, we are in a phase where we need to work more on the product and on our community, the core.

Some people were interested in Axie Infinity for the wrong reasons. They were in it for the speculative dimension. As the markets fell, they left.

Is this a good thing?

I don't know if it's a good thing, but what is sure is that we want to make a product for people who believe in our project, in our long-term vision.

What is this vision exactly?

Web3 will allow video games to be decentralized 🎮. Players will own everything in them.

How is Axie Infinity doing?

We have about 200,000 active players per month right now, which is pretty good, although we've lost a lot of them over the last year. During the top of the market we were at 3 million, which was pretty huge!

‍Beyondthe market downturn, didn't the mega-hack (173,000 ethers, or $600 million at the time of the event) you suffered in 2022 also play a role?

Honestly, it wasn't easy. I was the one who handled the case, so I know how hard it was, but I'm also very happy with the way we handled it: we refunded all the users with our money. We also fixed the bridge issue 🌉 (read our feature on it) and put everything back together. And then you know, we have to move on. The most important thing is that we kept the trust of the users.

‍What'syour take on "GameFi"?

I am not a big fan of this name. It symbolizes gamified finance, which is far too reductive. For me, video games on blockchain evoke the ownership of digital objects, decentralized identity, in other words a universe where the player is at the center. And that's what we want to do with Axie.

How will you achieve this?

This will take time because there are many issues in terms of regulation, distribution...

What does that mean?

On distribution, there is the issue of Apple's App Store being far too restrictive when you use NFTs; they tell you that you can't do this, can't do that, and also that. This centralized approach is contrary to the spirit of Web3. If you can't own things, do what you want, then you're selling Web2 games 🫠

How do you think Apple could take a different approach?

They won't do it because it's not in their interest. The movement will come from the bottom up, from the users. It's the users who will force Apple and the other gaming giants to relax their policies and move to Web3.

You live in Norway, but a large part of your team is in Vietnam and Singapore. How is the market there?

What I like about Vietnam is that they are very open to cryptos. It's very different from Europe where there is a demand that is more speculative. In Asia, the approach is more utilitarian, especially on NFTs, because there is a culture very much focused on technologies and their uses.

The other strong point of Asia is that there is a lot of capital. You have Japan, South Korea, obviously Singapore and also Hong Kong, even if the situation is not easy.

You have developed your own blockchain, Ronin, which works in parallel with Ethereum. Why is that?

Since the beginning, we see Ronin as an additional blockchain to Ethereum (a sidechain, ed.). Today we don't use Ethereum for our security, we have our own, a bit like Avalanche. We don't want to be impacted if Ethereum has difficulties.

What projects are you working on?

We work on three axes. First, there is Axie, which is really the mother ship of the company. It's the main game and the one with the biggest audience. We're going to work to get the number of players to increase and get back to where it was a year ago. And then there are the other games, like Homeland, that we're continuing to work on.

The second axis is our blockchain, Ronin, on which I spend a lot of time. The third is to make sure that partners use all the tools we have developed around Ronin. They can create a game on our infrastructure and benefit from our royalty system. 💰

What products will you launch?

Mobile games. Only a few weeks left to wait to know which ones!

Are you looking to raise funds?

Sky Mavis is very well funded. We have enough money in fiat and cryptos to last at least four years. We don't need to raise money and instead will even invest in other game studios.

Sorare has quickly become one of the most famous crypto games. What do you think about it?

I'm not a big soccer fan ⚽ (Sorare is also available in basketball and baseball, ed.), but I really like what they are doing. They've found their niche market and they execute very well. I just think the downfall of Sorare is that they have to pay a lot of money for licenses to clubs and leagues to grow.

But they have the advantage of having links with the traditional economy...

Yes, it's a different approach. But we too will eventually be tied to the traditional economy.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) just explained that NFTs and other cryptos could be considered financial securities. Is this a problem for you?

Things are not yet clear-cut. Now, you're talking about NBA Top Shot and other games like that which are in North America and therefore very scrutinized by the regulator.

Axie Infinity is essentially in Asia, so it's further away. But more globally, I find this idea of considering NFTs as financial securities completely ridiculous. NFTs are just a technology, the underlying needs to be regulated. ⚖️

You were in France for NFT Paris. Why were you there?

There are several objectives, but the first one is clearly to reconnect with partners, investors, and actors in the sector. There are also interesting projects in which we could invest.

What do you think of the French ecosystem, and more globally of the European one?

There are many very interesting projects. The ecosystem is developing very well. But more fundamentally what I find interesting is the political will of the authorities.

A few days ago, I heard the Minister of Digital Affairs, Jean-Noël Barrot, talk about Web3. He is very positive, it makes you want to set up in Europe and especially in France. 🇫🇷