The wider world · 76 / 86 · 2 min
Gaming, play-to-earn, and DePIN
Play-to-earn pays players in a token. DePIN says physical machines, like hotspots or sensors, will be paid in a token. The payout usually depends on new buyers of that token.
Play-to-earn and machine networks usually pay in a token that needs new buyers.
A worked case
A game pays players in its token. Players sell the token to pay rent. The buyers are new players. When new players slow down, the token no longer covers the time. The game was real. The wage was the next buyer's money.
The words
The game or the hardware is real enough to cost you money. The reward is a market. When the market leaves, the wage leaves, and the items or machines remain as costs.
How it ends
Emissions pay early users. Later users need a higher token price. The price needs new money. When new money slows, the wage collapses.
A job that only pays in its own coin is the company printing the payroll.
Axie: the wage was the next player
Axie Infinity paid players, especially in the Philippines, in tokens. For a while the tokens covered more than a local wage, and the game was reported as a new economy. The tokens were valuable because new players bought them. When new players slowed and the wider market fell in 2022, the wage collapsed. Then, in March 2022, the Ronin bridge that held the game's deposits was drained of hundreds of millions of dollars. The game had been real. The wage had been the next buyer. The bridge had been a small set of keys.
DePIN projects, which pay people to run a hotspot or a sensor, usually pay in a token with the same shape. The machine is real. The payout depends on someone wanting the token. When that bid stops, the electricity bill remains.
If the reward is a coin the issuer can create, write down who buys it from you. If the answer is the next person like you, you know which of the three yield sources you are in.
Read it yourself
These links are the record. They are not a recommendation, and they are not instructions. A news story or a court paper can still be wrong about a detail. The check does not change because a famous name is in the story.
Apply the check
Open a question. The line is about this topic. It is not a verdict that anything is safe.
Selling players, and the company that kept a reserve of tokens.
The issuer, who sets the reward and can mint.
The end of new buyers. A freeze, if the token has one.
Check yourself
If you earned the token in a game, have you earned spendable money?
Only if someone will buy it at a price that covers your costs.
After this you can ask who buys the reward token, besides the people earning it.