The Ronin Network is one of the most popular blockchains for web3 gaming right now, and as one of the leading blockchains, it offers crucial insight into the most exciting elements of blockchain gaming.
Built from the ground up to power the top blockchain games, Ronin focuses on optimizing transaction speed and reducing costs. It has become a leading choice for game developers looking to get the most out of blockchain.
Find out exactly what Ronin is, what it can offer and where it came from!
Ronin basics explained
Ronin, launched in 2021, is best known for its ability to process a large volume of transactions quickly and inexpensively. With millions of item trades, smooth gameplay, and no lag in player interactions, it’s quickly becoming an ideal platform for web3 games.
Sky Mavis, the creators of the popular web3 game Axie Infinity, designed Ronin specifically to meet Axie’s demands, as no other blockchain could at the time. Ronin has grown in popularity, investment, and top games, raising over $311 million USD from notable investors such as Animoca Brands, Andreessen Horowitz, and others.
Ronin’s core function is to facilitate gaming ecosystems through a specialized blockchain. As an Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible Layer-1 blockchain, it’s serving the needs of a growing gaming industry, providing the effective scalability to oversee millions of players each day.
Why is Ronin good for gamers?
With Ronin’s architecture specifically designed for gaming, it gives players significant advantages such as lower fees when buying and selling in-game items, faster transaction speeds, and more straightforward interactions between games and NFTs.
The primary token in the Ronin ecosystem is $RON, which is used for transactions, staking, and governance. On the network, games and applications can create their own tokens, such as $AXS and $SLP, which are used in the Axie Infinity ecosystem. These can be stored in the Ronin wallet, available via a mobile app or browser extension.
With daily trading volumes currently approaching $100,000 USD, the Mavis Market serves as the primary NFT trading hub for Ronin assets.
Where did Ronin come from?
Ronin really took off with its two most popular games – Axie Infinity, famous for jumpstarting the play-to-earn boom in 2021, and Pixels, following its move from Polygon to Ronin in 2023.
In Axie Infinity, users can breed, trade, and possess virtual animals known as Axies to use in PVP combat. At its height, the game had 2.8 million daily players and $42 million USD in daily transactions, making it the #1 blockchain game in late 2021 and early 2022.
The open-world farming massively multiplayer online game Pixels saw a quick ascent to fame in late 2023 and early 2024, ranking first among blockchain games in terms of player population. As a result of Pixels’ success, Ronin saw a sharp increase in the number of users; daily active addresses shot up from 12,000 to over 200,000.
With plans to improve and broaden its features even more and attract a fresh batch of top blockchain games, Ronin is predicted to keep growing in the years to come. Ronin is a major player in the web3 gaming industry, and its position is expected to strengthen due to its solid reputation for reliability and massively popular web3 titles.
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