tl;dr — Pegaxy is hands down the project to be in right now. I'm no longer putting money into Axie Infinity, for reasons that will be discussed forthwith. I'm also considering selling my Lunacia land because the Axie team is giving me a feeling they are just in over their heads.

I recently listened to 2 interviews, one from Jihoz (Axie) and one from Corey Wilton (head guy, Pegaxy) because I am going over a big decision in my head — how to grow a scholar base and build a guild without sinking all of my outside capital into a game. I'm looking for a self-sustaining economy. It's difficult because all crypto economies tend towards crash-and-burn ponzis. That's their natural state. Scholars create a constant sell pressure on tokens because they care more about the fiat value of the tokens than the tokens themselves. Unless the game's ecosystem incentivizes reinvestment, the game will fail.

This is the challenge Axie Infinity faced as the first widely adopted play to earn game in existence. As a matter of fact, many of the problems with play to earn wouldn't have even been defined without Axie's innovation. That being said, it might be time to move on from Axie indefinitely.

I'm basing this opinion on the stark difference between the 2 conversations I listened to. Here they are in case you want to listen.

Jihoz interview — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USmGmyEmyNg
Wilton interview — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFCAVTo6SQ4

Wilton was all solutions; Jihoz was all philosophy. Honestly, Jihoz sounded like he was still dealing with issues we've actually worked through. At one point, he said something about the Federalist papers (???), like "in order to create a democracy, we need a diverse community" or some shit. Dude, we've figured out that the ideal version of DAOs is not what people want. You just say DAO to virtue signal. Most people don't want to deal with governance; they just want to be lazy and earn full-time money playing an up-only fuckin game.

Mind you, anyone who can provide the service of giving lazy people this option deserves to be rich. And Wilton was rich with ideas of how to accomplish just this. I counted at least 6 burning mechanisms that would keep the supply/demand ratio of Pegaxy tokens in balance along with a number of ideas of how to attach the Pegaxy economy to outside sources of income. Once of the best, stadiums, would be an incredible way for guilds to create an immersive digital experience with huge sponsors. If it works, it would bring in millions from Web2 and Web3.

Lunacia has this potential as well with its Sandbox layout, but I really don't know if the Axie team is ready for what it has built. If you're one of those brovestors who just follow VC money and advisor name-drops, then stay in Axie by all means. They have the biggest funding rounds and the biggest treasury. What they don't have is direction. Jihoz is the only public figure who even makes an attempt to keep it together in public. Psychout and Kyori or whatever his name is honestly don't need to make any more public statements, and their Twitters should be shut down for the good of the game.

I still have some interest in a Ronin investment, but not right now. I have no doubt that Sky Mavis' huge treasury will attract mercenary devs who will code anything they're told to. Most people don't have direction or vision — they work for money and that's it. But will the Ronin economy have any sort of cohesiveness without a core team that can't even decide how to divest its own interest into its DAO?

Wilton, on the other hand, is the picture of humility and reason. He's not talking any idealist bullshit like the Federalist papers. When asked if Pegaxy would have gambling features, he didn't say he'd leave it up to the fuckin DAO which is sure to be full of stupid asses. He said straight up that gambling would bring regulation, and it was his job to keep the ecosystem away from that. However, he showed balance when answering questions about burn mechanisms, saying that he would basically "ask the community what would make you kill a Pega, and then we'll do that." Simple.

Wilton also referenced Axie on a number of occasions when asked about examples of how he would conduct future policy. Smart, because Axie has created some major data points. But so does Pegaxy and the hundreds of other play to earn games in the space. But Jihoz didn't reference any other game when asked about what he used to frame his future policy decisions. Dude. Seriously you can't even acknowledge how simple stuff like seed round cliffs, locked staking, prestige items, and verifiable randomness has extended the life of games in the space? It reeks of someone in a bubble — someone who thinks he's above everyone else.

If you want to make money in crypto, bet on people. Wilton has taken in all the lessons of Axie's mistakes, while Axie's team has learned nothing from the innovations of anyone else in the space. That alone assures Axie and Ronin will have a hard time digging themselves out of their hole, especially with scrappy competition nipping at their heels.

I'll put my rep on this — Pegaxy is going 10X from here. Get in now before it's too late. But understand the game as well. This isn't a buy and hold — you actually need to get into the ecosystem to profit here.