Gamers giving a demonstration on how to play Axie Infinity, an NFT game where players earn tokens that can be exchanged for cryptocurrency or cash, in Taguig, suburban Manila. — AFP
A recent exploit on the Wormhole bridge, which transfers tokens between Ethereum and Solana, was resolved when its sponsor Jump Trading replaced roughly US$300mil in stolen Ether. , its popularity has been such that the authorities last year saw fit to remind gamers that profits from playing are subject to tax, local media reported.’s blog, “The Lunacian”, showed the number of daily active users had jumped to around 2.5 million, an increase of roughly one million from three months before. The Philippines accounts for about 40% of active players, according to two different third-party websites that track gaming usage.
“In terms of who gets harmed the most by this, it’s not the venture capitalists,” said Catherine Flick, associate professor in computing and social responsibility at De Montfort University in the UK. “Even a few days’ delay in refilling the bridge, that’s going to affect someone feeding their family or paying bills, and in much, much greater a way than having a bit of a blip on someone’s investment portfolio.