Sky Mavis, creator of play-to-earn Axie Infinity is releasing RON, a governance token for its Ethereum sidechain, the Ronin Network, according to a company announcement Thursday.
The RON token enables users to pay for transactions on Ronin and also includes decentralized finance (DeFi) features like community governance and future utility via staking through validators to earn rewards.
RON is currently trading at around $3.75 according to CoinMarketCap.
Ronin was launched in February 2021 and aims to be an industry leading blockchain for gaming by speeding up transactions and eliminating expensive gas fees for players. In November, the layer 2 product from Sky Mavis processed 560% more total transactions than the Ethereum blockchain, according to a report from Nansen.
The blockchain currently has 250,000 unique daily active addresses according to data from Nansen and in 2021, processed 15% of all non-fungible token (NFT) volume.
As an incentive, Sky Mavis is offering users free transactions for holding Axies and Land in their Ronin wallets.
“It’s important that Ronin has shared ownership by the community that builds and uses it. In the first month of Ronin, Axie experienced a 300% increase in monthly NFT trading volume and a 131% increase in daily active battlers,” said Jeff Zirlin, Sky Mavis growth lead and co-founder.
The Ronin network also claims to be more energy efficient than the Bitcoin and Ethereum networks. By using 0.0000015 COT emissions (in KG) for one Ronin transaction, compared with what it takes for one Bitcoin transaction 1,079.18 and Ethereum 125.26.