AXS Sees Double-Digit Surge After Major Milestone With Tech Giant

AXS, the blockchain cryptocurrency of the popular pay-to-earn (P2E) blockchain-based game "Axie Infinity," saw a double-digit surge after its card-based strategy title rolled out on tech giant Apple's App Store on Wednesday.

Following the debut of "Axie Infinity: Origins" on the App Store, AXS saw a 12% surge over the past 24 hours, and was trading in the green zone at $8.04 from its previous price of $7.16.

This sparked hope among AXS holders, who over the past 30 days, saw over 17% loss on the crypto asset's value and approximately 64% decline in the price in a year.

"Axie Infinity: Origins" is a card-based strategy game where players can gather, own and utilize a wide range of Axies or creatures to fight other players.

Sky Mavis, the gaming studio behind the Non-Fungible Token (NFT) initiative "Axie Infinity," had launched "Axie Infinity: Origins" on the App Store in markets where the game was popular, including regions across Latin America and Asia, in countries like Argentina, Colombia, Peru, Mexico, Venezuela, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam, it said in a blog post.

"Axie Infinity: Origins" was previously rolled out in selected regions on the Google Play Store and through the Mavis Hub, the company's official digital storefront.

Sky Mavis considered this development a major milestone and a crucial step as it will allow players all over the world to enjoy the card-based game on their preferred device.

Unlike the original "Axie Infinity" title where users needed to purchase or rent NFTs to be able to play, "Origins" provided players with free non-NFT starter characters.

"In this early iOS version of Origins, players can also use upgradeable starter axies to play both Adventure and Arena Mode," Sky Mavis shared in the blog post, adding that gamers will be "able to promote these axies and enhance their cards using Class Badges and Honor Medals earned through gameplay. This will give new citizens of our digital nation a glimpse into the Axie universe."

Sky Mavis also confirmed in the iOS version of the card-based game, "only Moonshard crafting recipes will be available in-app," noting that players who want to "use SLP crafting recipes, players will need to use the desktop/Android APK versions."

Aside from allowing "Axie Infinity: Origins" to launch on the App Store, Apple also let players use their NFT axies--a first for the tech giant since it used to restrict externally-purchased non-fungible tokens.

AXS saw a 4.89% gain over the past 24 hours and was trading up $7.31 with a 24-hour volume of $303,255,340 as of 2:43 a.m. ET on Thursday, based on the latest data from CoinMarketCap.