The Explosive Growth of Ethereum's Gaming Sidechain Ronin: What's Behind the Surge

Ronin Network Sees Surge in Activity Following Launch of Pixels Game

Ronin, the Ethereum sidechain network best known for hosting Axie Infinity, has seen a significant increase in network activity after the recent launch of a game called Pixels. According to data shared by Alex Svanevik, the founder and CEO of Nansen, the number of active wallet addresses on Ronin has tripled in recent days, jumping from just over 20,000 to about 70,000.

At the same time, Ronin’s native token RON has surged by 13% over the last 24 hours to a current price of about $0.68. The token has also increased by 37% over the past week and 59% in the last 30 days. This surge in activity is not unique to RON, as other gaming tokens have also experienced substantial jumps recently.

Pixels Game Launch and Features

Pixels, which was previously on Polygon before migrating to Ronin, officially launched on the Axie network on October 31. The game offers a classic 16-bit role-playing adventure experience, allowing players to navigate through a pixel-art world, interact with each other, farm the land, play mini-games, and earn token rewards.

The game also allows holders of select NFT profile picture (PFP) collections to use their owned avatars in the game. Projects like Bored Ape Yacht Club and CrypToadz are supported in this feature.

Expansion of Ronin Network

Ronin, developed by Axie Infinity creator Sky Mavis, has welcomed additional games onto its network, including The Machines Arena, Zoids Wild Arena, and the CyberKongz Play and Kollect game.

Security Concerns and Recent Hacks

Despite its recent success with the launch of Pixels and other games, Ronin faced a major security breach in March 2022 when it experienced a $622 million hack to its Ethereum bridge. The U.S. Treasury later blamed this incident on the North Korean state-sponsored hacking group Lazarus. However, Sky Mavis reimbursed stolen user funds and recovered about 10% of the stolen funds that were routed through centralized exchanges.

Hot Take: Axie Infinity Tokens Also Surge

Axie Infinity’s own tokens have also experienced price boosts in recent weeks. The AXS governance token is up 42% in the last 30 days to a current price above $6.00, while the SLP reward token has jumped 71% in that span to a price above $0.002 per token.