‘Axie Infinity’ Gaming Network Ronin Sets Date for Ethereum Layer-2 Migration
In short
- The Ronin blockchain will migrate to Ethereum layer-2 on Could 12 after 4 years as a sidechain.
- $RON token inflation will drop dramatically from over 20% to lower than 1%.
- Ronin’s token is down practically 98% from peak, reflecting flagging momentum throughout the crypto gaming business.
Ronin, the gaming-focused blockchain that powers video games like Axie Infinity and Pixels, will migrate to turn into a real Ethereum layer-2 scaling community on Could 12, marking a elementary shift after 4 years working as an Ethereum sidechain.
The migration will set off at block 55,577,490, transitioning Ronin to the OP Stack, Ethereum layer-2 infrastructure that powers hundreds of thousands of transactions each day throughout different scaling networks. Customers ought to put together for roughly 10 hours of mainnet downtime between 11 a.m. and 9 p.m. ET throughout the transition, Ronin builders mentioned, with video games doubtlessly unavailable throughout that span.
The financial restructuring is sweeping. $RON token inflation will plummet from over 20% to lower than 1%, whereas market charges flowing to the Treasury soar 2.5x from 0.5% to 1.25%. Moreover, 90 million $RON tokens beforehand allotted for staking can be redirected to the Ronin treasury.
A brand new “proof of distribution” system launching with the migration will automate $RON rewards for builders, changing handbook allocation processes because the community reestablishes itself inside Ethereum’s ecosystem.
The timing displays mounting stress on standalone gaming chains to leverage established infrastructure somewhat than preserve pricey impartial networks. Ronin processed billions of {dollars} value of NFT buying and selling quantity throughout Axie Infinity’s 2021-2022 peak, however sustaining that infrastructure has confirmed difficult because the crypto gaming market declined.
Ronin launched in 2021 particularly to deal with Axie Infinity’s transaction calls for when Ethereum’s mainnet charges made gaming economically unfeasible. The sidechain resolution enabled the play-to-earn phenomenon that attracted hundreds of thousands of each day customers and generated unprecedented buying and selling volumes for blockchain gaming.
Now, Ronin developer Sky Mavis says that advances in layer-2 expertise supply the identical advantages—low prices and excessive throughput—whereas inheriting Ethereum’s safety ensures.
Whereas the $RON token is up about 11% during the last week to a latest worth of $0.097, it’s had a brutal fall during the last couple of years as crypto gaming momentum largely disappeared. $RON has fallen by practically 81% within the final yr, per information from CoinGecko, and is now down about 98% from a peak worth of $4.45 set in March 2024.
The tokens of high video games on Ronin have additionally cratered, with Axie Infinity’s AXS token down over 99% from its November 2021 peak, and Pixels’ PIXEL token down simply as a lot from its personal March 2024 excessive. However that’s not a problem remoted to Ronin or its video games, with different main gaming tokens like Immutable (IMX) and Gala Video games (GALA) additionally down at the very least 98% from their respective peaks.
Quite a few distinguished crypto video games shut down over the course of 2025, usually with builders citing a scarcity of funding and participant curiosity to proceed operations. That development has continued into 2026 with the latest closure of video games like Forgotten Runiverse on Ronin and Xociety on Sui.
Business specialists advised Decrypt in late 2025 that the wave of crypto recreation closures centered on the disappearance of enterprise capital funding amid flagging blockchain gaming momentum, driving many initiatives to both pivot their focus or shut down their video games fully. That downward swing has solely continued into this yr, thus far.
