Open Ronin officially announced that 1kx is heavily betting. Can Ronin usher in a golden age?

Author: Zen, PANews

The dull chain game track finally ushered in some noise. Recently, the Ethereum gaming network Ronin has attracted attention - this ecosystem with the largest Web3 gaming community has announced the "Open Ronin" plan, opening the door to all developers to allow them to build new games in the ecosystem, go to Centralized applications or other projects. "The golden age of Ronin has begun." Ronin has high hopes for this major change.

Against the backdrop of the long-term downturn in the Web3 game track, Ronin has performed well in recent years. From Pixels, a popular farm game at the beginning of last year, to Apeiron, the first God simulation game in Web3, to Pirate Nation, the popular full-chain game disclosed in the "Open Ronin" plan announcement, Ronin has become a number of people with its "growth effect" The new home that the chain game team yearns for.

Open Ronin may be a new engine for accelerated growth?

In the past, Ronin has always chosen to take the "high-quality route", only screening out project developers they believe are high-quality and high-quality, and carefully planning and empowering them with ecology and resources.

Ronin co-founder Jeff "Jihoz" Zirlin once said that games in the crypto field are "oversupply" and players need them. He also said: "This strategy emphasizes quality rather than quantity, allowing us to work closely with fewer teams and ensure they have long-term success in the ever-evolving Web3 gaming space." According to Dune, Pixel, The Machines Arena, The four games, Axie Infinity and Apeiron, currently support the entire ecosystem, accounting for at least 90% of the player share.

The newly released "Open Ronin" plan obviously shows that Ronin has given up his original strategy. “Now, the ecosystem is more mature and the market demand is growing, and it makes sense to move to a more self-service model, which will allow more developers and creators to build, experiment and scale on Ronin while keeping it initially appealing quality and success.” Trung Nguyen, CEO and co-founder of Sky Mavis , said in a statement.

Sky Mavis, the developer of the popular game Axie Infinity, is also the designer of the Ronin blockchain. Sky Mavis released the Ronin Developer Console as a toolkit to help those who build on the web. The toolkit will help developers create simple NFT lists, sponsored transactions (so that players avoid paying gas fees), and in-game markets, and will provide smart contract templates. "With Open Ronin, we are accelerating growth - unlocking more games, DeFi and dApps than ever before," Nguyen said.

Zirlin claims that with permission-free, the number of games deployed on the Ronin game network will accelerate. He hopes to avoid Ronin from missing the next hit product through this "hundred flowers blooming" method, copy the success of Axie Infinity and Pixels in the past, and promote the further development of the ecosystem.

According to Token Terminal data, as of February 17, Ronin had 570,000 daily active users, ranking sixth among all blockchains. Since the beginning of this year, its daily active users have fluctuated between 500,000 and 700,000. In addition, in the past year, Ronin's daily and weekly active users have begun to decline continuously after reaching their peak of 1.7 million and 2.6 million in August 2024, and have returned to the level at the beginning of last year. However, from the perspective of indicators, Ronin is still one of the ten most used blockchains in the world.

"No. 1 supporter" 1kx bets on Ronin

Earlier this month, the well-known investment institution 1kx network announced that in the past year and a half, it has become one of the largest holders of Ronin's RON tokens through a series of open market liquidity purchases. 1kx said that Ronin is leading Play-to-Earn's transformation into the gaming industry and is expected to become the core platform in the next generation of gaming fields, competing with top gaming platforms such as Steam and Epic.

Unlike projects that often claim to launch tens of millions of ecological funds, as of now, Ronin Ecological Fund has invested less than US$10 million in the entire ecological construction, mainly for investment in games rather than providing subsidies.

1kx believes that Ronin’s core strength is its distribution capabilities, and its most sticky early community. Even during the most difficult times, Axie's core player community is still active, which has become the cornerstone of the Ronin ecosystem. It is also based on this distribution advantage that Ronin attracted Pixels to migrate from Polygon to this point and quickly rose to a milestone of over one million daily active users in May 2024. The success of Pixels' "Tree Moves" has formed a demonstration effect. Fableborne, The Forgotten Runiverse and other chain games have begun to leave their original ecology and move into Ronin.

In addition, Ronin is also the only chain created by the application product team, which has an in-depth understanding of the actual operation of the game economy and can provide the team with accurate guidance on the implementation of the real-time currency economy.

1kx also pointed out that Ronin ecosystem users are the most valuable on-chain transaction users in the entire crypto industry, and their NFT market transaction volume ranks fourth in the past year, second only to ETH, Solana and Base; Eco users in the past year More than US$10 million has been invested in game casting and crowdfunding; the retention rate of 30-day new address is 3 times higher than Base and 17.5 times higher than Solana. 1kx believes that the above data not only demonstrates the quality of Ronin users, but also reflects the core culture of Ronin ecosystem:

• Gao Chengxin : A deep trust relationship has been established between users and developers;
• Long-termism : After experiencing the bull and bear cycle, it still maintains continuous development;
• The positive thinking : all parties in the ecological environment grow together, not zero-sum competition;
• Community First : Strong community cohesion is key to Ronin’s ability to travel through the market cycle

“This spirit not only helps the community get through the bear market, but also rises back in 2025 to become one of the most valuable communities in the crypto consumption field.”