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This guide will help you buy RON token of Ronin sidechain. Ronin is an Ethereum scaling solution (Layer-2 on Ethereum) that has helped Axie Infinity grow from 1000 users to 2 million users in a year.

Tldr – RON is flying under the radar because it is not yet transferrable and there is no market price. But you can buy RON perpetuals on FTX. It has higher TVL and more users than all of Polygon/Matic, the most valuable Ethereum L2 today but is trading at a fraction of its price. If you are already farming RON and want to hedge, sell RON PERPs via FTX.

Update – RON token is now released! Read more about it on the announcement post.

What is Ronin Sidechain / Ethereum L2?

Sky Mavis, the developer behind Axie Infinity built Ronin as an Ethereum sidechain to help scale Axie Infinity, the most valuable NFT game in existence today. In fact, Axie Infinity has been so successful that its marketcap rivals some of the largest names in traditional game studio world.

The below comparison is from Messari.

The Axie team built Ronin because it was all too aware of how Ethereum’s scaling issues can kill a nascent game economy like Axie. Today, Ronin is one of the most successful scaling solutions on Ethereum.

Not many know this, but Ronin has the highest TVL locked into any Ethereum bridge to date at $6 billion. This is higher than some other better known scaling solutions like Matic (Polygon). You can run or modify this Dune Analytics query to see the results.

The best thing for investors is that Ronin and RON token have gone under the radar so far because RON is not transferrable yet. Once it is released, you will see a lot more interest from crypto investors in owning a piece of the largest scaling solution on Ethereum today with both highest bridge TVL as well as highest number of unique wallets (over 100k+).

Therefore, if you think Ronin is undervalued based on usage and TVL metrics, you can buy RON token.

This graph from CryptoSlam showing blockchains by NFT sales volume should tell you everything you need to know about usage and volume. Sales volume is harder to fake than users (users are Sybil attacked with ease as creating new blockchain addresses is free). Ronin only trails Ethereum mainnet in terms of total traded volume, and is miles ahead of Polygon, the nearest Ethereum L2 competitor (ahead by over 10x).

What is RON Token?

RON is the native token of the Ronin sidechain. This is similar to how MATIC is the native token of the Polygon sidechain. In the future, all transaction fees on Ronin will be payable via RON, so RON is used as gas on Ronin.

The team will likely reserve some RON for yield farming and liquidity incentives purposes which can further increase the TVL on Ronin. Currently, 10% of RON is emitted for AXS/ETH and SLP/ETH LP stakers on the native DEX called Katana.

If you are bullish on the Ronin sidechain, then you should buy RON which is expected to become more valuable as usage of Ronin increases.

Future of Ronin and RON

Here is where this gets so much more interesting. Today, Axie Infinity is the only game on Ronin sidechain and all contracts are whitelisted and deployed only by the Sky Mavis team. They are taking a slow and steady approach. There is a native DEX Katana and the contracts to stake AXS and LP tokens like AXS/ETH and SLP/ETH. Then there are some claim contracts and that’s pretty much it.

However, as we have seen with all kinds of new blockchains or L2s, this is just the beginning. Once Ronin opens up to developers, there will be a whole host of DeFi applications and contracts built on top of Ronin.

The big advantage that Ronin has is in terms of installed wallets. Over 2 million people have downloaded and installed the Ronin wallet. This is very important because if you are just starting to build an NFT game, why would you not build on an ecosystem with millions of users and installed base already? Ronin can become the most used NFT gaming sidechain.

How to Buy Ronin’s RON Token

RON is currently released and listed on Ronin’s native Decentralized Exchange (DEX) Katana.

You can also farm for RON on Katana via AXS/ETH and SLP/ETH LP (liquidity provider) tokens and now also with RON/ETH LP tokens. From Feb 3 to Dec 31 2022, this the reward structure for farming RON on Katana:

• AXS/ETH daily rewards: 24,169.18 RON
• SLP/ETH daily rewards: 132,930.51 RON
• RON/ETH daily rewards: 84,592.15 RON

Neon District, one of the most hotly anticipated blockchain gaming platforms built on Ethereum and Loom network, has an ongoing registration for ‘Founder Key’. You can sign up for free here, only for the next 2 days. By signing up, you not only show an interest in Neon District, but will also get some really cool exclusive in-game assets. In addition, Founder Key holders will get exclusive early access and access to Founders Sale as well.

Neon District is created by the famous Marguerite deCourcelle, aka Coin Artist (coin_artist) who is well known in the broader blockchain and crypto community for her intriguing puzzles that can be solved to unlock Bitcoin or crypto.

Neon District is already valued at $13 million, with investments from the likes of investors like Ari Paul, who have raised hundreds of millions of dollars during the peak crypto boom of 2017.

Blockchain Gaming

Blockchain gaming is becoming increasingly complex and competitive, and serious game builders and developers are finding a home in this space. Blockchain native games with minimal gameplay like CryptoKitties have shown a proof of concept of what is possible. Games like Neon District are taking it to the next step.

There are of course several advantages of putting in-game assets on the blockchain. Interoperability with third-party applications, for example, is a huge one. Another is the aspect of ownership – even Neon District cannot arbitrarily stop you from trading your asset or selling it, so it represents property ownership rights as closely as possible, similar to the ‘real world’.

There are of course challenges like scalability. Neon District is using a Plasma Chain to build its app and make transactions, using the Loom Network. Loom has become the chain of choice for these types of games as it provides developer tools and onboarding for new games.

Get your Founder Key – for Free!

With this background in mind, all gamers and blockchain enthusiasts should sign up for Neon District’s Founder Key, over the next 2 days. It is free currently, and you’ll get some cool in-game assets to boast or sell. After all, it’s yours on the blockchain, and you can always sell it to buyers and game enthusiasts down the road!

Third party tools to play CryptoKitties are a must have whether you’re an experienced player, or new to the game. Being an Ethereum blockchain-based game, there are many tools for CryptoKitties that are independently developed by the players and the community.

There are several reasons to use these third-party tools instead of just using the main CryptoKitties website as a player. For one, the CryptoKitties website lacks a whole lot of information when it comes to what you need to know to play and breed well. Another advantage of using third-party tools is to bypass the main CryptoKittties website for breeding. This is essential for regular players since the main website is known to lag behind the blockchain, especially during peak play times (such as fancy chases), making competitive gameplay impossible. Luckily, many third-party tools have stepped in to fill the gap.

Here are some must-have tools for CryptoKitties players.

CKBox Extension

This is probably the single most useful tool you need to really play CK. Believe it or not, it is actually not possible to see recessive genes for your cats on the main CryptoKitties website!

To solve for this, you need to install this extension. Once you’re inside a cat’s page on the main CryptoKitties website, you can click to reveal its full set of genes, including wild, environment, purrstige (which again you cannot see on the main CK website).

The developers also regularly add new features. For example, today it also shows a full history of the cat, such as previous sales, sires, marketplace listings, etc. In the cattributes page, you can see the full chart of all the mewtations possible with each category.

Overall, a must-have extension to play.

Heaven.Cat

This is quickly becoming a strong tool for searching and breeding, two very important functions that every CryptoKitties player needs, and also functions that are severely lacking in the main CK website.

For search, it has an easy to understand way to find recessive/hidden genes. Simply enter the cattribute you’re interested in, and check for hidden genes at various spots (you can select any of the hidden positions – H1, H2, or H3). You can also search for fancies.

Here’s an example showing how to search for all cats with Jaguar as the dominant trait, and otaku in the H1 hidden spot.

The other tool that heaven.cat provides is a breeding tool. This lets you create and save breeding pairs, and tells you when the pairs are ready to breed again. This is especially useful during fancy chases. You can save all your pairs here, and with one click, breed a pair. An added advantage is the seems to perform well even when the main CryptoKitties website is down or lagging, so you can continue to breed.

Kittyexplorer

Kittyexplorer is a super useful website that shows the sales history of the various cats, and a bunch of statistics around the sales data. You can search by time period and by cattributes or fancies.

Kittyhelper

Kittyhelper is a relatively new site that is integrating many of the tools that CK players need, from breeding calculators to price stats. It also has more advanced tools like family jewel search and offers history. Overall, seems like Kittyhelper is aiming to be the one-stop shop for all third-party CK needs.

Kotobaza

Kotobaza is a Russian language CryptoKitty blog and resource, but also has lots of interesting information for the English speaking community. For example, it is one of the only sites where you can see the breakdown of the Boot fancy into the corresponding teams instead of being lumped together as one.

Cryptokitties.city

This is an interesting leaderboard that has moved the prices of fancies in the past, such as making the low # fancies much more valuable. It shows the different active players and how well they have created their fancy collections, such as completing the full fancy codex. An interesting tool to keep an eye out on the largest accounts as well. There are other leaderboards being added too.

Gene Reader Spreadsheet

This is a spreadsheet that gives you the full details of a cat’s genes given the ID. It works when the CryptoKitties website is lagging, so it is a handy tool.

Etherscan

Finally, let’s not forget Etherscan, the Ethereum community’s favorite tool! It has added support for ERC721s like CryptoKitties in addition to ERC20s. You can enter an address and see the list of all the cats owned by that address. If the CK website is lagging, you can use Etherscan to check for any new cats being born, and use that ID to look up the genes in the spreadsheet above.

These are just some of the third-party tools for CryptoKitties players, and there will be many more in the future we are sure. In the future, we hope there are more tools for collectors in addition to breeders.

Did we miss your favorite third-party tool? Let us know in the comments below.

Axie Infinity, a crypto-game and collectible digital pet game on the blockchain, has launched its much awaited battle feature on the Ethereum mainnet. With this deployment, the feature is live for all players to use. The release follows months of testing internally and via limited and public beta with the community.

The battle feature lets players battle their Axies in an arena, 3 at a time, against an opponent. Axie battles are a complex mix of moves, statistics, and randomness, making them strategic and also including a component of luck.

Next Level of Crypto-Gaming

With the release of the battle feature, Axie Infinity distinguishes itself from the other crypto-gaming platforms like CryptoKitties. With the battle feature, players can actually improve their Axie over time through gameplay. This is a fairly novel implementation in the crypto-gaming space although it is common in regular gaming spheres.

With the battle feature, Axie Infinity has shown that it can become a real gaming platform instead of only a digital collectible. The Axies that participate in battles gain experience points or EXP. EXP is required for certain game features such as breeding and leveling up for the Axies. The Axies of the winning team gain 30 EXP whereas the Axies of the losing team gain 15 EXP. There is a limit of 3 battles every 12 hours per Axie.

Players are better off entering their Axies in a battle even if they lose against a stronger opponent. There is no indication of whether the battles can be fought for higher stakes than just EXP, such as Ether itself. For example, the more recent addition to crypto-gaming, Gods Unchained, has tournament play for Ether.

On and Off Blockchain

The ownership of the Axie is still on the Ethereum blockchain which means that Axie players are able to hold their Axies in their own custody instead of the company holding the assets. The Axies themselves are represented as a non-fungible token i.e. each token that represents an Axie has unique parameters.

However, the tournament play itself is offline on Axie Infinity’s servers. This provides for a significantly better gaming experience for the players as there are no delays and there is no cost to battle for the players. This also helps prevent gaming issues due to a congested blockchain due to scalability issues.

In the future, Axie Infinity plans to run their game on a plasma chain provided by Loom. Plasma enables applications like games to run on a separate ‘chain’ as a sidechain instead of taking up space on the main Ethereum chain. Several implementations of plasma are expected to go live over the coming months on Ethereum.