What play-to-earn actually was
In 2021 Axie Infinity let players earn tokens by playing, and those tokens could be sold for real money. In the Philippines, Venezuela, Nigeria and elsewhere, people earned meaningful income doing it — in some cases more than local wages.
A "scholarship" system grew around it: someone who owned the required Axie NFTs lent them to a player who could not afford the entry cost, and they split the earnings. Nigerian guilds and managers operated at real scale. For a period, this was genuinely a job.
Then it stopped, and the reason was arithmetic. The tokens players earned were paid out of new token issuance, and the demand for those tokens came almost entirely from new players needing to buy in. That is the structure of a scheme that requires continuous growth. When new-player growth slowed, token prices fell; falling prices made playing less rewarding, which slowed growth further. The model did not fail because of bad management — it failed because it could not do anything else.
The structural lesson
Ask one question of any play-to-earn game: where does the money paid to players come from?
| Source of player rewards | Sustainable? |
|---|---|
| New players buying in | No. This requires permanent growth. |
| Token issuance with no offsetting demand | No. Dilution paid to participants. |
| Players spending money because the game is fun | Yes — this is how the games industry works |
| Advertising or external revenue | Yes, if it is real |
Almost every play-to-earn game of the 2021 cohort was in the first two rows. The games that survive are the ones moving toward the third — which means being fun first and having a token second, rather than the reverse.
The Ronin hack — the other lesson
In March 2022 the Ronin bridge, which connected Axie Infinity's sidechain to Ethereum, was exploited for roughly $625 million — one of the largest crypto thefts on record. The attack compromised validator keys, and the breach went undetected for days.
Two things Nigerian holders should take from it. First, bridges are among the most attacked components in crypto, and holding assets on a game's own sidechain means depending on that bridge. Second, funds were partly restored to users through the company raising capital — which was decent of them and is not something you can rely on. Most exploits are not made good.
The category now
| Token | What it is | Honest assessment |
|---|---|---|
| AXS / SLP | Axie Infinity | Still operating and far below its peak. The earning model has been restructured repeatedly. |
| SAND | The Sandbox — virtual land and creation | Real partnerships announced; user activity modest relative to valuation |
| MANA | Decentraland — virtual world | Persistently low concurrent user numbers relative to its market value |
| IMX | Immutable — gaming-focused layer 2 | Infrastructure rather than a game. A better-structured bet on the sector. |
| GALA | Gala Games — games platform | Mixed delivery record |
| RON | Ronin — the chain Axie runs on | Infrastructure; tied to the ecosystem's fortunes |
| APE | ApeCoin — Bored Ape ecosystem | Largely a cultural and speculative asset |
The pattern worth noticing. Infrastructure plays like Immutable are structurally better positioned than individual games, for the same reason picking a chain is easier than picking one application on it: you do not have to guess which specific game succeeds. Whether the sector grows at all is still the open question.
On "the metaverse" specifically
Worth being blunt. The virtual-world tokens — MANA, SAND — are valued at figures that imply substantial populations living, working and spending in these worlds. The actual concurrent user numbers of the major crypto metaverse platforms have been persistently and publicly low, frequently in the hundreds or low thousands.
That gap between valuation and usage is the entire investment case, in either direction. If you believe usage arrives eventually, the tokens are early. If you think the current numbers reflect genuine demand for the product, they are expensive. Whichever you believe, you should know that the gap is what you are betting on rather than any current business.
The Nigerian angle
- Play-to-earn as income is largely over. The realistic earning routes now are crypto jobs and, at much smaller scale, airdrops and tap-to-earn.
- Device and data requirements are a real barrier. Many of these games need hardware and bandwidth beyond a typical Nigerian phone and data plan. Factor that in before committing to a guild.
- Naira exit is indirect. Sell the token for USDT on a centralised exchange, then USDT for naira.
- Guild and scholarship arrangements should be in writing. Where they still operate, agree the split and the exit terms in advance. Disputes in these arrangements were common and had no recourse.
How to evaluate a gaming token in four questions
Would anyone play this if there were no token?
If not, it is not a game. This one question eliminates most of the category.
Where does player reward money come from?
New players buying in means it needs permanent growth.
How many people actually play, right now?
Look for concurrent or daily active users, not registered accounts or Discord members.
What does the token entitle a holder to?
Governance, an in-game currency, or a share of revenue? These are very different things.
Whatever the answers, this belongs in the speculative tier of our allocation framework — money written off.
We do not print prices in prose — they go stale and cost readers money. Every figure you need is live on crypto prices in naira.
Frequently asked questions
Can you still make money playing crypto games in Nigeria?
Not at the scale of 2021. Play-to-earn rewards were paid from new token issuance with demand coming from new players buying in, which required permanent growth. When growth slowed the model broke, and it could not have done otherwise. Crypto jobs are the realistic earning route now.
Why did Axie Infinity's play-to-earn model fail?
Because player rewards came from token issuance and token demand came from new players needing to buy in. Slowing growth meant falling token prices, which made playing less rewarding, which slowed growth further. It was structural rather than a management failure.
What was the Ronin hack?
In March 2022 the bridge connecting Axie Infinity's sidechain to Ethereum was exploited for roughly $625 million by compromising validator keys, and it went undetected for days. Users were partly made whole through the company raising capital — which is decent and not something you can rely on.
Are metaverse tokens like MANA and SAND worth buying?
Their valuations imply substantial populations living and spending in these virtual worlds, while actual concurrent user numbers have been persistently low. That gap is the entire investment case in either direction, and you should know you are betting on the gap rather than on a current business.
How do I evaluate a new crypto game?
Four questions. Would anyone play it if there were no token? Where does player reward money actually come from? How many people play right now, measured in daily active users rather than registered accounts? And what does the token entitle a holder to?
How do I sell gaming tokens for naira?
Indirectly — sell the token for USDT on a centralised exchange, then sell the USDT for naira. Nigerian P2P depth in gaming tokens is minimal.
Is a guild or scholarship arrangement safe?
Where they still operate, agree the earnings split and exit terms in writing before you start. Disputes in these arrangements were common during the boom and there was no recourse when they went wrong.
Related guides
Last reviewed: 2026-09-09. We update this page whenever Nigerian rules, fees or platform availability change. Nothing here is financial, tax or legal advice — see our editorial policy.
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