The case to farm Ronin
Can RON provide index-wide gaming exposure for this cycle?
In a similar way to how we have described TIA as being a way to get index-wide exposure to the modular sector via airdrop farming, we believe RON could represent a similar opportunity in the gaming sector.
Gaming is one of those sectors where deep research and product experimentation will be required to pick individual winners (i.e. the games themselves). The idea of being able to capture the success of a narrative or sector with one single bet is extremely attractive, this is what attracts us to gaming infrastructure plays and particularly Ronin.
What is Ronin?
Ronin is an EVM-compatible Ethereum-linked sidechain (basically its own L1) focussed on gaming and built by the Sky Mavis team (the team behind Axie Infinity). Of their 255 employees, 50% are dedicated to Ronin while 50% are game developers. Ronin were able to fast-track usage by on-boarding the entire Axie Infinity userbase and creating a mobile wallet (12m downloads to date) which set the chain up for a strong start in terms of usage. This strong trend in usage has continued throughout time as additional games have launched, positioning Ronin as the most-used gaming chain currently:
Across Unique Active Wallets, Transaction Count On-Chain and Daily Dapp Volume, Ronin beats out the two major infrastructure competitors (ImmutableX and Beam). As mentioned above, this makes Ronin the most heavily used gaming chain right now which is largely thanks to the portfolio of games which are live on the chain. There are currently 11 games live on Ronin of which Axie Infinity and Pixels represent 2 of the largest Crypto Games with ~359k and ~502k Unique Active Wallets respectively (h/t @OuroborosCap8). The success of these non-Axie Infinity games has demonstrated that Ronin is more than just the Axie chain and can be a home for any gaming team. The market clearly recognises this as there is a strong pipeline of games coming to launch on Ronin.
The RON farming opportunity
With RON trading cheaper than it’s closes competitors IMX and BEAM while boasting significantly better usage metrics than both chains, buying RON and being exposed to the price volatility of what looks to be the premier gaming coin is likely a viable standalone play. However, RON staking adds an additional layer of potential returns which piques our interest. Following their migration to Ronin from Polygon, Pixels airdropped PIXEL to RON stakers:
Similarly to what we have seen in other ecosystems, this likely sets a precedent for other teams who are set to launch their game and token on Ronin. The circulating rumour amongst those close to the project is that there will be 11 tokens airdropped to RON stakers this year with at least 1 new game ever 3-4 weeks, the near term airdrops are likely the games labelled as “coming soon” on the Ronin Ecosystem page:
With $PIXEL now sitting at a roughly $2bn FDV, if the $PIXEL airdrop is at all representative of what is to come, RON stakers are going to be eating good!
Conclusion
For the non-gaming expert who wants index-exposure to the Gaming sector via the leading infrastructure play while also being exposed to new and upcoming games via airdrops, there is a strong case to be made for staked RON.
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