Small Love Potion

What is Small Love Potion (SLP)?

Small Love Potion is an ERC-20 digital asset on Ethereum that plays a major part in Axie Infinity, a breakthrough blockchain game.

Players of Axie Infinity can earn SLP tokens through their in-game progress since the token serves in an analogous capacity to experience points commonly used in games. These SLP tokens can then be spent in-game to breed new axolotl-inspired creatures that the game revolves around.

Part trading and part battling, Axie Infinity tasks players with collecting, breeding, battling, and trading creatures called Axies that also exist on the blockchain in the form of ERC-721 non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

Since these Axies are provably unique digital assets, they can attain significant value at a certain level of quality. For this reason, Axie Infinity has become a source of revenue for many players and has given rise to the play-to-earn (P2E) trend in gaming powered by blockchain technology.

Axie Infinity operates using a dual-token structure. Axie Infinity Shards (AXS) tokens provide holders with governance across the game, while SLP is used within the game economy.

Who are the Founders of Small Love Potion?

Since the Small Love Potion token is an inextricable part of the Axie Infinity game, although it can be traded separately, credit for its founding goes to Axie Infinity founders Sky Mavis.

Sky Mavis is a Vietnam-based game development studio founded by Trung Nguyen and Aleksander Larsen. Nguyen is the studio’s CEO and worked at Anduin Transactions before setting up Sky Mavis. Larsen, meanwhile, serves as COO at Sky Mavis. He is also the Secretary of the Board of Directors at the Blockchain Game Alliance.

The studio raised $152 million at a $3 billion valuation in October 2021 and a further $150 million following the Ronin hack in early 2022.

The lead investor in this latest funding round was Binance, which would also support the Ronin Network with ETH withdrawals and deposits for Axie Infinity users. Alongside Binance in this $150 million funding round were Animoca Brands, a16z, Dialectic, Paradigm, and Accel.

When Was Small Love Potion Launched?

Axie Infinity’s development began in 2017, and the game was released along with the SLP token in March 2018. Many of the game’s systems came into being as part of major updates, with the battle system going live in October 2018.

The Ronin wallet for Axie Infinity was launched in early 2021, letting players take advantage of the eponymous sidechain for faster transactions and greatly reduced gas fees.

How Does Axie Infinity Work?

Axie Infinity revolves around NFT Axies that players must collect or purchase, then use in battle and breed. Battling, which comprises the main event of the game, is turn-based. Players pit their teams of Axies against both computer-controlled teams and live opponents.

Ethereum’s ERC-721 token standard is taken full advantage of by the game, with Axies and plots of land using them. This gives true ownership of in-game assets to the players and enables them to be traded.

Beyond simply being used in battle and improved, many players choose to breed and then sell their best Axies. For instance, Axie #2655, known as “Sir Gregory,” was purchased by Lunacian #585021 for 369 ETH in July 2021, worth over $800,000 at the time.

The sale and trading of Axies provide a vital return on investment because, unlike many other titles, Axie Infinity requires buy-in from players. Three NFT Axies are required to get started, a condition that became a significant barrier to entry for new players at the height of the 2021 crypto bull run.

This is a similar model to many other P2E projects, including Stepn. Still, many high-profile blockchain games like Illuvium have chosen to eschew this requirement and provide players with starting resources for free.

Each Axie has four attributes that define their performance in battle, a class that can be stronger or weaker against certain other classes, and six body parts that grant the Axie various abilities.

The attributes—health, morale, skill, and speed—define the Axie’s basic performance in battle. An Axie with more health can take more damage, whereas a higher speed means that it can act faster within the turn-based structure of battle, and so on.

Classes, meanwhile, include Aquatic, Beast, Bird, Bug, Plant, and Reptile. These are considered normal classes because three additional “secret” classes in Dawn, Dusk, and Mech complete the set.

What makes Small Love Potion Unique?

Small Love Potion tokens come into play when Axies are bred. Each of the six body parts of an Axie has a dominant (D), a recessive (R1), and a minor recessive (R2) gene associated with it. This defines a simple breeding system, where two Axies can be bred together, and the likelihood of certain outcomes is defined by these genes.

The dominant gene has a 37.5% chance of being passed down, while the recessive gene (9.375%) and the minor recessive gene (3.125%) are increasingly less likely. Here’s a tool to see what might result when you breed any two Axies.

Each Axie can be bred seven times. Players must fork out 4 AXS tokens for each breeding, but SLP requirements increase per cycle. While the exact requirements can change, they are currently set at 100 SLP for the first breed and 200 SLP for the second. The scale isn’t linear, though, with the fourth breed cycle costing 500 SLP, the sixth 1300 SLP, and the one 2100 SLP.

Thanks to this novel system of breeding NFT Axies, the game demonstrated the viability of play-to-earn as a model through which all stakeholders, including players, could benefit. Gamers in several countries, such as the Philippines, even turned to Axie Infinity full-time to make a living.

Axie Infinity was also one of the first games to experience the rise of a scholarship microeconomy. With players only able to use a limited number of Axies at a time and the cost of entry increasing, established players could lend extra Axies out to newbies or grinders and take a cut of their SLP earnings.

How is the Small Love Potion Network Secured?

Axie Infinity and its tokens, including the SLP token, were secured by Ethereum but adopted the Ronin sidechain in 2021. In early 2022, however, attackers from North Korean state-sponsored hacking groups APT38 and Lazarus Group compromised the Ronin Network, stealing over $600 million in ETH and USDC.

By hacking private keys, forging fake withdrawals, and compromising validator nodes, the hackers drained the Ronin bridge that connects Axie Infinity to Ethereum of 173,600 ETH and 25.5 million USDC.

The hackers took control of Sky Mavis’ four Ronin validator nodes and a third-party validator node run by Axie DAO. This gave them a majority of 5 out of a total of 9 network validator nodes, allowing them to complete the attack.

What is the Use of SLP?

As mentioned, SLP is accrued by players via gameplay and is used primarily as an in-game currency to breed Axies.

Who Controls Small Love Potion?

While SLP and Axie Infinity as a whole is controlled by Sky Mavis, the game is in the process of transitioning into a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO).

The Axie staking dashboard allows AXS holders to stake tokens and participate in governance voting. Per the project’s roadmap, a full-fledged DAO structure is expected to be reached during the year 2023.

How Much SLP is In Circulation?

SLP doesn’t have a total supply cap, and there are currently over 42 billion SLP tokens in circulation. The supply of SLP could change dramatically based on Axie Infinity activity, with an increase in supply possible if more players are active and win it from in-game activity. On the other hand, more Axie breeding activity means more SLP burned.

How Do You Buy SLP?

Uncharacteristically for an in-game currency, it is possible to buy SLP on various cryptocurrency exchanges. It is paired with several fiat currencies but can also be bought using stablecoins or other cryptos.

How Do You Store SLP?

You can store SLP on an exchange account, but it’s practically useless. To actually use SLP within the Axie Infinity game, you’ll need a Ronin wallet. In order to get started, you can visit the Axie Infinity website and check out the official guide.

Is SLP a Good Investment?

It’s hard to say that SLP is a great investment given that its supply is uncapped, and greater adoption of the Axie Infinity game may lead to accelerating emissions. The burning of tokens via Axie breeding is likely to offset this, and more engaged players could lead to heightened demand.