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From CryptoKitties to Crypto Billions: Inside Axie Infinity's Journey from 300 Players to Global Phenomenon

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Jeff ‘Jiho’ Zirlin is a co-founder of Sky Mavis, the team behind Axie Infinity and the Ronin blockchain. At the forefront of Web3's most groundbreaking experiments, Jeff helped transform Axie from a small crypto-native community into a cultural phenomenon that onboarded millions to blockchain technology. With over $4 billion in NFT trading volume - earning a Guinness World Record - Axie didn't just talk about bringing people to crypto; it actually did it. Beyond Axie, Jeff pioneered the Ronin blockchain, which now hosts 70+ games and has proven that purpose-built infrastructure can unlock exponential growth for crypto applications.

In this episode, we trace the evolution of Web3 gaming from its origins in the CryptoKitties community to today's institutional adoption cycle. The conversation explores how manual onboarding and white-glove user acquisition laid the foundation for viral growth. Jeff shares the pivotal moments that shaped Axie's trajectory: tokenizing experience points, creating the "play-to-earn" model that democratized crypto mining, and the strategic decision to build their own blockchain when existing infrastructure couldn't scale. We also examine the current state of crypto gaming, the shift from retail mania to Wall Street adoption, and why the next wave of innovation might create entirely new cultural mediums rather than just new ways to make money.

Key topics covered:

• The CryptoKitties Mafia: How a December 2017 viral game spawned the founders of Axie, OpenSea, and the modern NFT ecosystem
• Manual onboarding at scale: From personally gifting Axies to Binance angels to hitting 2 million users
• The biological insight: Why CryptoKitties failed (no death = exponential breeding) and how ecosystem balance became Axie's core principle
• 300 users was "#1": How being the largest crypto game with just 300 players became a marriage proposal line - and a growth trajectory
• Tokenizing the game economy: The moment players asked to buy experience points and accidentally invented play-to-earn
• "You can't build your startup on another startup": Why Loom Network's failure forced Sky Mavis to create Ronin blockchain
• The Ronin Effect: Deploying at 30,000 users, scaling to 2 million in six months - and the infrastructure playbook now powering 70+ games
• The Uniswap wealth effect: How every Axie player unexpectedly received $4,000, creating a growth catalyst nobody predicted
• Why gaming onboards better than DeFi: More people game than trade - and nostalgia beats complexity when introducing scary new technology
• From Binance to NYSE: This cycle's institutional meta and why crypto gaming hasn't figured out Wall Street yet
• The new Renaissance: How fractional reserve banking created the actual Renaissance, and why crypto's lasting impact will be cultural, not financial
• Loyalty programs vs. helicopter money: Evolving from infinite money glitches to targeted behavioral incentives
• 70+ economic experiments: From AI-powered tanuki battles to on-chain "Runescape" - why only one or two need to work
• The cypherpunk optimism: Why crypto offers a more definite, grounded vision for the future than AI or robotics

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Where to find...

Jeff 'Jiho' Zirlin:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/axieinfinity
• X: https://x.com/Jihoz_Axie
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffzirlin
  
  

Skymavis:

• Website: https://skymavis.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/axieinfinity
• X: https://x.com/skymavishq
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/skymavis

Axie

• Website: https://axieinfinity.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/axieinfinity
• X: https://x.com/AxieInfinity
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/axieinfinity

Ronin

• Website: https://roninchain.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/axieinfinity
• X: https://x.com/ronin_network
• LinkedIn: https://x.com/ronin_network

David Phillips:

• Website: www.fondo.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/axieinfinity
• X: https://x.com/davj
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davjphillips

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In This Episode, We Cover

(00:00) From 300 to thousands of Users: The Binance Effect

(17:41) Community-Driven Growth: The Role of Guilds

(18:38) Experimentation as a Growth Strategy

(19:52) Challenges and Advantages in Crypto Growth

(20:03) Learning Through Gaming: Onboarding to Crypto

(21:27) The Uniswap Airdrop: A Catalyst for Growth

(22:18) Onboarding and Scaling in Crypto Gaming

(23:17) The Ronin Network: A Solution for Scalability

(24:40) The Evolution of Ronin and Its Community

(25:10) Expanding the Ronin Ecosystem: New Games and Innovations

(27:02) Economic Experiments in Crypto Gaming

(28:56) The Cultural Renaissance of Crypto

(30:14) Future Innovations in Web3 Gaming

(31:36) Optimism for the Future of Crypto

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Brought to you by:

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