Jihoz Acknowledges Axie PH Community as Axie Open Manila 2022 Concludes

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Editing and Additional Reporting by Nathaniel Cajuday
In line with the celebration of the Philippine Web3 Festival, Axie Infinity, the popular blockchain game that popularized play-to-earn (P2E) gaming in the Philippines conducted one of the largest P2E Esports tournaments to date. The grand finals of Axie Open Manila 2022 were held on the last day of the festival, November 18, 2022, at Ayala Circuit Mall in Makati City.

The whole tournament was attended by a total of 256 players that went head-to-head for the $120,000 USD prize poolโpaid in AXS and worth around โฑ7 million.

For the finals day, the people behind the tournament were all hands-on to see it through, such as Jeffrey โJihozโ Zirlin, the co-founder of the game himself, and Nix Eniego, Sky Mavis Philippines Lead; together with the representatives of the convenors of the fest, Luis Buenaventura, the country manager of Yield Guild Games (YGG) and Carlo Mendiola, BlockchainSpaceโs Growth Lead.
โThe energy here in the Philippines is amazing. We all know that Axie and the Philippines are inexplicably linked, we grew up together. The energy from the community is super strong, it’s been a hard time for the crypto (and) web3 space recently but, being honest, being here really allows us to push forward and gain that strength that we need,โ Jihoz started when asked about his thoughts about the event.

He also revealed that it is not his first time in the Philippines but actually his fourth. According to him, back in the โearly days of Axieโ he would only speak in front of 10 to 20 people.
โNow (we have) thousands of really strong supporters, community members, cheering us on. It’s amazing, itโs a totally different feeling and it gives me a lot of hope for the future,โ he stated.
Meanwhile, with the Philippines having the most Axie Infinity players in the world, Jihoz also explained that there was a supposed Philippine-based Axie Conโlike the one held in Barcelona last Septemberโ but Sky Mavis โwerenโt sure about the COVID restrictions in Manilaโ at the time.
โBut of course, future big events like that in the Philippines will definitely make a lot of sense,โ he told BitPinas.
On the other hand, Buenaventura also expressed his pride and gratitude to all the people behind the fest as well as to those that participated and joined.
โI am incredibly proud of the teamโฆ weโve been waiting for this moment for 3, 4 years because we always knew that the Philippines would be the center of blockchain gaming, metaverse, and web3. Itโs only a matter of time before the rest of the world will see that as well,โ the country manager proclaimed.

To him, โthere is nothing like seeing your competition face-to-faceโ citing that it was always the Filipinos that traveled somewhere else to compete.
โNow, we are the ones where the people are coming into. We are now the ones where the world is going to visit, challenge, and compete against. And that is just a great feeling,โ he added.
And when BitPinas asked Buenaventura about the best market cycle to conduct a P2E tournament, the country manager answered:
โI donโt think the market cycle really matters as much. I think what matters is if the game is ready, if the community is ready, if the industry is ready. I think it does not matter so much what the prices are. It’s great nga that we can continue to enjoy events like this even (though) crypto prices are not great as they were before.โ
The tournament ended with Spamandrice taking home the grand prize of 1.5 million pesos, and his guildmate, Zaratustra, was in second place. The third placer of the tournament is Martinsuuuu the lone Filipino left competing since the quarterfinals who also celebrated his birthday a day prior to the grand finals match. (Read more: Event Recap โ Axie Open Manila 2022)

To end the event, Jihoz took the stage and gave a message to the Axie Infinity community:
โI want to shout out the Philippines, the entire week has been so emotional to me. It really feels surreal to see how strong our community is here. You see the numbers, you see the headlines, you watch the documentary, but everyone in the Axie Community needs to know how intense the hype is here. These have been hard times for crypto, hard times for web3, hard times for Axie but coming here gives us the strength to understand what weโre building for, who weโre building for, where weโre going; we need to keep pushing.โ

Just last month, Axie Infinity hosted the Axie Infinity Cabanatuan Community Meetupโthe Axie Capital of the Philippinesโwhere 256 players from 84 guilds faced each other for a 3030 Axie Infinity Shards (AXS) prize pool (approximately โฑ1.9 million). (Read more: [Event Recap] CabsyCon Recap โ Axie Infinity Cabanatuan Event)

This article is published on BitPinas: Jihoz Acknowledges Axie PH Community as Axie Open Manila 2022 Concludes
Disclaimer: BitPinas articles and its external content are not financial advice. The team serves to deliver independent, unbiased news to provide information for Philippine-crypto and beyond.