Axie Infinity is best known for being an expensive investment. Crypto gaming nerds spend large sums of cash just to access the game.

But how can we play this game for free? Is such a thing even possible?

Can You Play Axie Infinity for Free?

Yes, by using scholarships. Scholarships are the Axie community’s solution for pulling new players into Axie Infinity. A scholarship pairs a player with an investor who funds the Axies, and the two then split the SLP (Smooth Love Potion) profits.

With a scholarship, you can earn money without spending $1.5k, hell, without spending a cent. Through this system of investors and in-game entrepreneurs, the game’s popularity has boomed.

With so many aspiring scholars everywhere, we created this guide to show them how to achieve their Axie aspirations. 

What Is a Scholarship?

Getting a little more specific, an Axie Infinity scholarship is a community system with several different roles. Scholars are given the opportunity of earning money in the game without buying an Axie, and they typically earn half of the profit for playing the game. The other roles typically split the minority share in various ways.

Scholars are the people that wish to play the game without spending money. They may do this to learn the game, or they may play this way indefinitely depending on their circumstances.

Scholars and their managers agree on a specific split. Since scholars are effectively renting Axies, they pay for it by splitting their earnings with their managers.

SLP cuts are computed by percentage, some typical splits are below:

(Scholar/Manager)

40 % / 60 %

50% / 50 %

60 %  /  40 %

70 %  /  30 %

80 %  /  20  %

These are examples of common SLP splits in the community. Scholars always seek the most favorable split and might be able to negotiate a better one based on experience and earning potential. There are many more would-be scholars than scholarships though, so that isn’t always possible.

Investors

Investors are people who allow other people to play their Axies in exchange for a cut in their earnings. They need to own or buy extra Axie teams that can be lent to scholars. 

Axie Infinity investors typically don’t play the game themselves, they just provide the funding. Providing scholarships allows them to continuously earn SLP without ever touching their devices. The more scholars an investor has, the more money they can make.

Managers

Managers are people who directly oversee the gameplay of the scholars. They provide support and training to scholars to help them start earning and increase their earnings. 

Often, the investor and the manager are the same people, but not always. These two roles are filled by different people in larger guilds, but they are both paid out of the investor’s share of the SLP (which may in turn require less favorable splits with the scholar).

Guilds

Guilds are the communities/organizations behind scholarship programs. A guild contains all of the individuals above, but by volume most of the members are scholars.  A single guild can host 20-50+ scholarships.

Guilds can consist of multiple leaders along with helpers or admins. This allows easier supervision and transactions between the investors and managers and its scholars. Sometimes the guild receives a small cut of the SLP earnings (5%-10%) which is used to develop the community and/or provide contests and incentives for scholars.

One of the biggest guilds (if not THE biggest) is Yield Guild Games, which is venture-funded and currently holds 4,000+ scholars.

Pros and Cons of Getting a Scholarship

Pros

• In-game experience
  • New players often don’t know much about the game. Scholars are free to familiarize themselves with the game.

• Free cash
  • Scholars are given Axies by managers, so they don’t spend money in the game. 
  • Managers may fund the gas fee of the first cash out. Scholars can then take that role after having some ETH (Ethereum) in their wallets.

• Forming relationships
  • Having a community of Axie players provides many benefits. One of them is sharing knowledge about current strategies and tactics in the game.

Cons

• Risk of scams
  • There are always potential scholarship scams. Managers can pull out the SLP without sharing the cut with scholars (although this seems very unlikely).
    

• Competition between aspiring scholars
  • After Axie Infinity’s popularity skyrocketed around July-August 2021, many players applied for scholarships. This created a lot more demand for scholarships, far outstripping the supply.
  • Because of high demands, lots of players bottleneck and clog scholarship programs. Too many people apply, so getting a scholarship is like winning the lottery. Although finding someone to make you a scholar is hard, it’s worth the time and effort.
    

• Slower earnings
  • Since managers ask for a cut, scholars earn more slowly than normal players do.
    
    

How Can I Get a Scholarship?

Getting a scholarship is simple, but not as easy as you might think. 

In terms of process, people can just get a manager to hire them, then that’s it. The hard part is finding a manager willing to hire you.

Once you got the scholarship, the manager will give out instructions on setting up your scholarship account, and once you’re logged in, voila! You are now an Axie Infinity scholar.

Where Can I Find Scholarships?

Social media is where you’ll find most of Axie Infinity’s content and players. Managers and scholars are scattered all over the internet, but I’ll share the most credible places you should be looking into.

Reddit 

There are subreddits solely for Axie scholarships. Managers occupy most of the top posts here, making it easy for players to identify scholarship applications.

Posts here involve application forms that help managers find quality scholars.

Personally, this is my favorite platform for finding scholarships. I got hired as a scholar writer (hence why I’m writing this article for you guys) after filling out a form assessing my writing ability. See, if I can get one, then you can too!

Check out the subreddit r/AxieScholarships as a starting point. There are a lot of people looking for scholars here 24/7.

Pro Tip: Invitations to discord servers are less likely to result in scholarships. Prioritize application forms over Discord invites to avoid wasting time.

Twitter

Most guilds have social media accounts. Twitter is a common outlet for various guilds that use their accounts as news pages.

Examples of famous guilds on this platform are Crit Theory Gaming (CTG) and Yield Guild Gaming (YGG). These communities contain top competitors in the metaverse while hosting more than a thousand scholars.

Following Axie Infinity content creators increases your chances of finding a developing guild. Most players interact with known figures of the game, so monitoring comment sections can lead you to users with guild-like content.

Even simply searching “Axie Scholarships” on Twitter can lead you to scholarship programs.

Discord

Axie Infinity has a global Discord server for all players to communicate with each other. The server is monitored by Axie Infinity admins, making scams unlikely on this platform.

You can find a channel named “scholarship” on the server where scholars and managers post opportunities or resumes. The channel is pretty flooded, and each message only lasts 3 seconds before getting pushed down by another message.

Discord has a feature where you can search keywords of a channel. People can use this feature to find manager recruitments with keywords such as “looking for scholars” or “scholarship program.”

Beware: People sometimes impersonate known guilds on social media platforms. Research the people you contact and always avoid giving out wallet details unless you’re sure they are legitimate.

What do YOU think about the guide? Did I miss any hot spots for scholarship programs? Comment it down below!