Axie Infinity and CyberKongz join forces as Mystic Axie holders get free NFTs

Axie Infinity creator Sky Mavis announced a partnership with NFT collection CyberKongz which will include rewarding some of the web3 game’s players with digital assets.

CyberKongz is unveiling a new NFT collection called Genkai on July 27 with some of the tokens minted on Ronin, the Ethereum sidechain Sky Mavis uses for its popular crypto game Axie Infinity.

“Genkai is an anime-inspired art collection and the next edition” of the CyberKongz brand, the company said in a statement. The mint has a total supply of 20,000 tokens, 4,000 of which will be “made available on Ronin" via Sky Mavis’s in-house NFT marketplace called Mavis Market.

Sky Mavis said it “will reward each Mystic Axie holder with a Genkai NFT per Mystic Axie owned.” A Mystic Axie is an Axie Infinity NFT with rarer traits.

Genkai NFT art. Source: CyberKongz

NFT price doldrums

Like even the most successful of NFT collections — including Bored Ape Yacht Club, which as a PFP collection has a similar aesthetic — CyberKongz tokens have seen their value and trading volumes crushed by the prolonged bear market. Since surpassing $48 million in sales volume during October 2021, when the average price of a CyberKongz shot to more than $64,000 according to CryptoSlam! data, the collection has fallen on harder times.

Last month, sales volume was about $315,000, with the average price of a CyberKongz NFT coming in at about $2,600. Although monthly sales volumes now register less than 1% of what they did at their height, Axie Infinity retains the title as the best-selling NFT collection of all-time with more than $4.2 billion in sales volume.

Outside of the 4,000 Genkai NFTs being minted on Sky Mavis’s Ronin chain, the other 16,000 tokens will be “made available on Ethereum Mainnet,” the company said. CyberKongz is also Ethereum based.

Incorporating Ronin with the new collection appears to be rooted in CyberKongz creators’ desire to expand more into gaming.

“CyberKongz will be working with Ronin to develop a game featuring Genkai,” CyberKongz founder Myoo said.