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What is AXS?

AXS, the Axie Infinity Shard, is an ERC-20 token capped at 270 million that anchors the Axie Infinity game economy. Axie Infinity is a collectible-creature game in which players assemble teams of NFT creatures called Axies to battle, breed and trade, and AXS is the asset the whole franchise settles around.

The token launched through a Binance Launchpad sale on 4 November 2020, before the game's 2021 boom made it one of the most recognized gaming tokens. While the contract lives on Ethereum, gameplay, staking and most transfers run on Ronin, the EVM network Sky Mavis operates for its titles.

How AXS works

AXS is staked on Ronin for rewards drawn from a fixed 29% allocation of supply. Sky Mavis revamped distribution in late 2025: from 1 December 2025 the emission pool decays by 5% every nine days, stretching the remaining rewards indefinitely instead of ending them on a cliff.

In the game, AXS is part of breeding costs alongside smooth love potion, and it is the unit for parts of the ecosystem like marketplace promotions and tournaments. A community treasury accumulates marketplace and breeding fees with the stated goal of one day being steered by staked AXS voters.

AXS supply and tokenomics

The 270 million cap was distributed as 29% staking rewards, 21% Sky Mavis, 20% play-to-earn rewards, 11% public sale, 8% ecosystem fund, 7% advisors and 4% private sale. Unlocks ran on a 65-month schedule from the November 2020 sale.

The final unlock was released on 7 April 2026, so the entire supply is now unlocked and no further scheduled dilution exists. Sky Mavis reported around 95% of the staking-reward allocation already distributed by late 2025, which motivated the switch to decaying emissions.

Who builds AXS

Sky Mavis, founded in 2018 and based in Vietnam, develops Axie Infinity and operates the Ronin network. Trung Nguyen and Aleksander Larsen are its best-known co-founders, and the studio has expanded Ronin from an Axie sidechain into a gaming network hosting third-party titles.

The team's defining crisis was the March 2022 Ronin bridge attack. After attackers compromised five of nine validator keys and withdrew 173,600 ETH and 25.5 million USDC, Sky Mavis raised 150 million dollars in a round led by Binance, reimbursed users and relaunched the bridge with stricter controls in June 2022.

How AXS is governed

AXS governance is a stated destination rather than a current mechanism. The whitepaper describes staking as the path to voting rights over the community treasury, and Sky Mavis consults staker and player groups, but decisions such as the 2025 staking revamp were made and announced by the company after community discussion rather than by binding token votes.

What people use AXS for

AXS sits in several places in the Axie economy at once, which is why holders interact with it on Ronin more than on Ethereum.

• Stake AXS on Ronin for a share of decaying emission rewards.
• Pay AXS as part of the cost of breeding new Axies.
• Hold it as the eventual voting weight over the community treasury.
• Move value between the Axie marketplace, tournaments and partner games.

AXS risks and considerations

Axie's economy has already been through a boom and bust: play-to-earn earnings collapsed in 2022 and daily players fell with them, and AXS demand depends on whether Sky Mavis can keep its games attractive without unsustainable token rewards.

The Ronin bridge attack, attributed by the FBI to the Lazarus Group, showed how much of the stack one company controlled; validator sets have widened since. Governance also remains with Sky Mavis in practice, and the AXS listed on other networks, such as the Binance-pegged version, is an exchange-issued representation rather than this contract.