Welcome to my Axie Infinity scholarship guide!

This walkthrough will show you how to create your very own scholarship program to help new players start playing and earning in Axie Infinity.

Many Axie Infinity scholarship “how to” posts focus exclusively on the technical tasks involved with onboarding scholars: creating accounts, transferring axies and sending QR codes.

In this post, we’ll start with these technical fundamentals and then dive even deeper, looking at other key elements to prepare such as a Discord server and a welcome email template. We’ll discuss a few ideas to encourage camaraderie and community amongst your scholars and wrap up by reviewing an example scholarship application.

You may think you’re 100% prepared to become a manager, but – I promise – there will be things in this post that you have not yet thought of.

Make sure to check out the answers to the most frequently asked questions I hear from new managers!

Key topics in this post:

• What is a Scholarship in Axie Infinity?
• Before Starting a Scholarship
• Setting Up a Scholarship
• Communicating with Your Scholar
• Ideas to Encourage Active & Happy Scholars
• Things You Haven’t Thought Of
• FAQ
• Creating a Scholarship Application

Let’s get into it!

Disclaimer: This post is not investment advice. Please do your own research.

What is a Scholarship in Axie Infinity?

Axie Infinity has exploded in popularity in recent months, with hundreds of thousands of new players joining the community. However, many more people are unable to play because the cost of the required starting axies is too high.

Scholarship programs have emerged as a way for established players (“managers”) to lend their axies to new players (“scholars”) in return for a portion of earnings. These earnings consist of an in-game currency called Smooth Love Potions (SLP), which are collected from progressing through adventure mode content and winning arena battles.

Scholarship arrangements make Axie Infinity more accessible to people who otherwise would not be able to buy a team of axies on their own. By setting up a scholarship, you have the opportunity to change someone’s life for the better while also getting a return on your investment.

If you haven’t already, there’s an amazing Play to Earn documentary, which illustrates the impact that Axie Infinity has had on communities in the Philippines:

Before Starting a Scholarship

So you want to start an Axie Infinity scholarship? Before you onboard your first scholar, there are a handful of key decisions you will need to make.

Payout Amount and Schedule

Scholars earn an in-game currency called Smooth Love Potions (SLP) while playing Axie Infinity. As a scholarship manager, you decide how much of this SLP is paid out to the scholar and how much is retained by you, the manager. It is considered fair to pay at least 50% of the SLP to scholars, however most scholarships pay out 60-80%.

Similarly, you must decide how often you will pay out. The two most common payout schedules are once every two weeks and once a month.

Finally, how will you pay your scholars? Some managers transfer SLP to scholars’ Ronin wallets and leave the rest up to the individual. Other managers pay out in ETH directly to scholars’ crypto wallets (ex: MetaMask or TrustWallet).

Scholar Axies

How will you obtain the axies for your scholarship? Will you buy them from the Axie Infinity marketplace? Or will you breed your own? Setting up a breeding farm can be a more affordable way of acquiring axies if you don’t mind waiting 5 days between breeds.

Scholarship Rules

It is important to decide upon the rules of your scholarship before opening the application process. For example, will you require a certain number of hours of playtime per day or a minimum amount of SLP earned per week? Later in this post we will look at a set of common scholarship rules.

Scholarship Application

Many managers use Google Forms or Typeform to create a scholarship application and collect responses. You can then link to your scholarship application form within social media bios for extra visibility.

Another option is to have a list of application questions that can be copied by the scholar, filled in and then sent via Twitter or Discord.

Check out the Creating a Scholarship Application section later in the post for more information on form builders and application questions.

Scholarship Promotion

How will you promote your scholarship and recruit new scholars? Will you vet candidates before they apply or after? Will you recruit from the community or via friends and family?

The most popular places to announce new scholarships are:

• Twitter (using hashtags #AxieInfinity and #AxieScholarship)
• Reddit (r/AxieScholarships)
• Discord

On the plus side, social networks allow you to cast a wide net and attract thousands of applicants extremely quickly. The problem then becomes: how do you vet all of the applicants? It is very overwhelming, trust me.

An alternative you might consider is to ditch the blanket application process and recruit within friends and family.

Using this tactic, you’ll find and vet a few initial applicants, preferably within the same geographic area. After you’ve onboarded them as scholars and confirmed that they are trustworthy, you can ask for referrals to their friends and family. This means less vetting for you and an even greater sense of community and belonging for your scholars.

Setting Up a Scholarship

The most commonly asked question about Axie Infinity scholarships is “how do I get a scholarship?”. The second most commonly asked question is “how do I set up a scholarship?” In this section, we’re going to walk through what you need to do to create the accounts for your first scholar.

This section assumes that you already have a personal Ronin wallet and a personal account on the Axie Infinity marketplace.

Create a Wallet Account for your Scholar

First, create a new Ronin account for your scholar.

To do this, click the blue Ronin icon in your browser bar to open the popup.

Click your profile icon in the top right and then click Create Account. Enter an account name and click Create.

Next, click the Ronin icon in your browser bar and make sure that the new scholar account is activated by clicking the profile icon in the top right of the popup and selecting the new account from the list of accounts.

Next, visit the Axie Infinity marketplace login page.

Click the blue “Login with Ronin Wallet” button.

This will cause a Ronin popup to appear. Double check that the scholar account is active. Click Confirm.

You should now see the new account dashboard.

Name the Axie Infinity Account

A dialog box will appear asking you to enter a name for the account.

One idea is to encourage scholars to enter their own name by setting the account name to be something like:

YOUR NAME | Team Name

Note: If you ever need to rename the account, you can do so from the Account page. Click the pencil icon next to the account name in the upper left and enter a new name.

Side Note: Giving Scholars Access to their Account

There are two ways to enable a scholar to access their account:

1. Email and password
2. QR code

Providing your scholar with their own email and password will allow them to log into the Axie Infinity marketplace and get their QR code. This method allows them to play the game on their computer as well as on their phone.

Providing your scholar with a QR code will allow them to play the Axie Infinity mobile game only (currently available on Android). QR codes expire every 14 days so you will need to remember to send new codes to your scholar so that they can continue to play on their phone.

Set Up Email & Password

If you decide to provide your scholar with email and password access, keep reading to set up these login credentials.

From the Account dashboard click the blue “Set up email & password” button.

Enter an email and password and click Confirm. You’ll then be prompted to check your email for a code.

Enter the code from the verification email into the confirmation dialog to complete the setup process.

A quick note about emails

Many managers make the mistake of creating one new gmail account for each scholar. Instead, you can use a little known trick to manage everything from a single “main” gmail account.

Let’s say your team name is AxieMaxie and your main gmail address is axiemaxiescholar@gmail.com.

You can then “create” unlimited scholar emails using “+” notation, for example: axiemaxiescholar+1@gmail.com, axiemaxiescholar+2@gmail.com, axiemaxiescholar+3@gmail.com etc. These emails are considered “different” for the purpose of creating a new login on the Axie Infinity site. And the best part: all mail sent to these accounts will be received by axiemaxiescholar@gmail.com.

This trick allows you to manage confirmation emails for multiple scholars without creating multiple gmail accounts.

Send Axies to your Scholar Account

Now it’s time to fill the empty scholar account with axies!

Copy the Ronin address of the scholar account that you just set up. You can find the address in the top bar of the Axie Infinity marketplace. Or, click the blue Ronin icon in your browser bar and click the icon that looks like two squares to copy the address.

Log out of the scholar account on the Axie Infinity marketplace.

Activate your main Ronin account and then log back into the Axie Infinity marketplace.

Visit your inventory page and find the axies that you want to transfer. If you haven’t assembled a team yet, buy what you need from the marketplace.

Click the first axie you want to transfer to open its profile page. Click Gift.

Paste in the Ronin address of the scholar account. The name of the account will appear under the input box. Make absolutely sure the name of the account matches the name you entered when setting up the account in the previous step. There is no undo.

Click Confirm and then confirm the transaction in the Ronin popup. Because this transfer takes place on the Ronin network, it is 100% free and there are no transaction/gas fees.

Repeat this process for all of the axies you want to transfer to the scholar account.

A quick note about team composition

You may be wondering, what axies should I give my scholars?

There are many factors to consider.

❗️Scholars will need at least 3 axies in order to play the game. The benefit of transferring more than 3 axies is that scholars will have more energy and faster energy regeneration.

What’s energy for anyway? Players need energy to earn experience (EXP) in Adventure mode and to earn SLP from Arena battles. When a player’s energy reaches zero, they will only be able to farm SLP from Adventure mode. At the end of the day, more energy means more arena matches and more potential SLP earnings.

For reference, the energy and energy regeneration tiers are:

• 3 to 9 axies: 20 energy, 5 energy/6hrs
• 10 to 19 axies: 40 energy, 5 energy/3hrs
• 20+ axies: 60 energy, 5 energy/2 hrs

❗️Floor axies won’t cut it. On August 9, 2020, the SLP rewards for adventure mode, including the daily quest, were cut by 50%. This move was made to reduce the minting rate and to combat botting, i.e. people using automated tools to farm PVE content.

Shifting players away from PVE and toward PVP gameplay has interesting consequences. For scholarship managers, it means that scholars need decent teams of axies to compete (and win) in arena mode. Buying a set of cheap floor axies might have been sufficient for adventure mode, but it will only handicap scholars in player vs. player battles.

This change also increases the need for thoughtful onboarding and education.

Gone are the days where players can mindlessly spam any cards in adventure mode and earn maximum SLP. Scholars, particularly those who are completely new to the game, will need to learn arena battle mechanics and the abilities of their specific axies. To support their growth, Managers’ will need to take on a more high-touch approach, providing resources and coaching to help their scholars outperform and earn more SLP.

Communicating with Your Scholar

With everything set up, you can now send the account login information to your scholar. This will be either the email and password that you created or the QR code shown on the scholar’s Account page.

If you’re sending a QR code, simply take a screenshot and send it to your scholar. Remember, you’ll need to send a new QR code every 14 days.

How should you communicate with your scholars? Discord seems to be the most popular choice, followed by Twitter.

Personally, I use email to send important welcome information so that it can be saved for future reference. All follow up communication is done on Discord.

Ideas to Encourage Active & Happy Scholars

Finally, I want to leave you with a few ideas to maximize the happiness and earning potential of your scholars:

1. Encourage scholars to name their accounts. This gives them a feeling of ownership of their new team of axies.
2. Create dedicated Discord channels for your scholars. Discord provides a place for you scholars to hang out and share learnings.
3. Offer giveaways and prize pools. Here’s one idea: Set aside a portion of the manager’s share of SLP into a communal pool. Once the pool reaches a certain threshold, purchase an axie and give it away to a random scholar.
4. Create an arena leaderboard for some friendly competition. This encourages scholars to keep trying their best to climb the PVP rankings. Remember: as they increase their ranking, they earn more SLP. For example, check out Loot Squad’s Leaderboard: https://lootsquad.gg/loot-squad-scholars-leaderboard/
5. Start a “Scholar of the Week” campaign. Highlight achievements and progress.
6. Recruit family and friends. Asking existing scholars for referrals is a great way to recruit new scholars to your team. It also gives scholars a sense of belonging and pride to give back to their RL (real life) community.
7. Trick out your Discord. There’s a lot more to Discord than #general chat. You can add music, points and leveling, custom commands and emoji, quizzes and so much more using Bots like MEE6. Make your server special and people will want to stick around.

How do you engage with your scholars? Let me know on Twitter: @amypeniston

Things You Haven’t Thought Of

Before starting my own scholarship, I consumed as much content as possible to try to prepare myself. Despite my best efforts, there were still a few things that I hadn’t thought of and wasn’t prepared for.

Below is a (growing) list of ideas/action items you can use to prepare in advance so that you’re not caught off guard during the onboarding process.

• Create a welcome email/message template to send to new scholars. Once you’ve picked out your first scholar, you’ll need to send them, at minimum, their username/password and/or QR code. Make your life easier by creating a template that contains all of the important welcome content to send along with their login credentials. You can also include your team logo, getting started guide, Discord invite and other helpful articles or YouTube videos.
• Write thorough onboarding instructions. Although many new scholars will have watched Axie Infinity content on YouTube, don’t assume that they know how to log into the Axie Infinity Marketplace or access their QR code. My suggestion would be to either write a detailed Getting Started blog post or have an onboarding channel in Discord where scholars can help each other.
• Set up your Discord server. Yes, I know we talked about having a Discord server but you really need one. And don’t think that you can just create a new server and a #general chat and walk away. You need to spend some time to create channels, permissions, roles and rules so that your server doesn’t become a huge mess – i.e. people posting irrelevant content everywhere, people spamming their resume, people linking to other servers, people being rude, etc. I am not saying that I’ve found the perfect setup, but here’s how I’m currently organizing the text channels in my Discord channel:

• Think about Discord moderation. Expect a literal flood of new joiners when you open your scholarship application and Discord server. With this influx of people inevitably comes negative posts and spam, both of which cause frustration amongst good actors who actually want to build a community around your scholarship. One solution is to have a plan regarding content moderation, even if you don’t implement it right away. This means you should create a moderator role (along with its appropriate permissions) so that you’re ready to onboard your first mod without having to futz with Discord settings. Some of your early community members might even offer to moderate for you.

In general, I wish I had more content lined up to assist new scholars with onboarding. Naively, I had expected scholars to know exactly where to go, how to log in, how to get the QR code, how to sync axies in-game, etc.

Rather than assuming this prior knowledge, I should have had screenshots ready to illustrate the login process and links to videos explaining “day 1 as a scholar”. Now I realize that this sort of content should be easily accessible in a #getting-started Discord channel. 🤦‍♀️

FAQ

Below are a few of the most common questions I see from new managers.

P.S. Did I miss one? Please let me know on Twitter: @amypeniston

What are the most important things I need to review with my scholars?

• The most important rule is no multi-accounting. Make sure that every scholar knows that they cannot use more than one account or participate in more than more than one scholarship.
• The SLP split and payout schedule. How much of the earnings will go to the scholar? Be up front about the payout terms and schedule.
• How to log in. Provide your scholars with either a QR code or email/password credentials so that they can play the game. Depending on their familiarity with the game (from YouTube tutorials or relatives, for example), some scholars may need more or less help logging in and getting their QR code.
• How to play. One way to help new scholars get up to speed is by sharing YouTube videos in a Resources channel on your Discord server. If you encourage existing scholars to help their peers, thereby learning in the process, everybody wins.

What is multi-accounting?

Multi-accounting is when someone uses more than one account on a single device. Multi-accounting is not allowed and can result in a ban, which renders axies unusable. It is your responsibility as a scholarship manager to ensure that your scholars are not breaking the Axie Infinity terms of service. If scholars break the terms, your Axies will be banned.

Can the scholar transfer or sell axies from their account?

No. The manager retains control of the Ronin wallet that is linked to the scholar’s account, which prevents the scholar from signing any marketplace transactions (including selling or gifting axies).

How do I choose which axies to give to my scholar?

Most importantly, the axies should be synergistic. They don’t need to be “pure” (6/6 matching dominant genes) but they do need to work well as a team.

If you’re new to the game, you can check out the current top players on the Axie Infinity leaderboard for team composition ideas. If you have questions on specific axies or team comps, you can ask for advice within the Axie Infinity Discord #arena channel. Elijah, an Axie arena superstar, also has great video content on effective and affordable team comps.

Many managers use a breeding pool to generate axies for scholars. If you decide to go this route, be sure to use the ChillAxie breeding simulator to select the axies with the best chance of producing top performing offspring. 😉

Where can I learn more about Axie Infinity scholarships?

Here are a couple of videos that I found helpful:

What’s Next?

If you made it this far, well done and best of luck starting your own Axie Infinity scholarship! You’re about to embark on an amazing adventure and change someone’s life in the process.

Don’t forget – once you’ve onboarded your first scholar, there’s still one thing left to do…

Onboard another!

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…oh, hi! You’re still here? Awesome.

In this bonus section, we’re going to deep dive into the scholarship application creation process.

Creating a Scholarship Application

There are two main routes you can take when creating a scholarship application:

1. Use a form builder and share a link to the form
2. Create a text-based template and ask applicants to fill in the blanks

Let’s look at each of these options in more detail.

Form Builders

Google Forms is currently the most popular platform for creating scholarship applications. You can very quickly create and customize an application form and connect it with Google Sheets to view responses in a tabular format. You can also turn on email notifications so that you’re alerted when new responses are submitted.

Price: free for unlimited responses

Typeform is another option to consider if you are serious about aesthetics as there are nearly unlimited customization options. Typeform also offers more advanced question structures and a variety of integrations. The major downside is price, especially if you are planning to open your application to the general public (Typeform pricing plans are tiered based on the number of responses).

Price: paid plans start at $25/mo for 100 responses (far too low for most scholarship applications, unless you are vetting scholars before they apply)

Other form builders such as JotForm and SurveyMonkey can get the job done. I’ve not used either of them and can’t vouch for their functionality.

Text-Based Applications

Text-based applications are a popular solution because they can be shared on a wide variety of platforms such as Twitter and Discord. You can pin a Tweet or Discord message that contains the application questions and then instruct applicants to copy the questions, fill in their answers and then paste the completed application in a channel or thread of your choosing.

The benefit of using a basic text application is that it doesn’t require any special software or website, so it’s easy to create and to complete. The downside is that there is no structure to each question (should this be a numeric response? is this a multiple choice question? etc.) and you have to parse responses manually.

If you go this route, be sure to create a separate #applications or #resumes Discord channel so that all of the submissions don’t flood the rest of your server.

One thing you’ll notice is that many scholars fill out one text-based application and then post it everywhere – in response to #AxieInfinity tweets, in private messages, in general chat…EVERYWHERE. Even if the application template isn’t specific to your scholarship, they’ll still send it to you. Moderators in Discord can and should redirect these posters to a dedicated channel and clean up after their spam to discourage others from following suite.

Structure of an Application

The general structure I would recommend is:

1. Scholarship Details: an intro section and/or blog post that describes how the application process works, the earnings split and payout schedule.
2. Rules: what scholars must do (or not do) while in your program.
3. Application Questions: basic personal/social/admin questions followed by more open-ended or character questions.

Scholarship Details

First, outline how the application process works and what the scholar can expect if they are selected. Will they need to interview with you? Is there a probationary period?

It’s important to be as transparent as possible about your plans for your scholarship. If you’re looking for 5 scholars, great, so say. If you’re taking on 50, great, say so. A growing number of “managers” are launching fake scholarship programs as a growth hacking strategy to get more followers. This is a pathetic tactic that get hundreds and thousands of people’s hopes up for no reason. Be clear about how many scholars you are looking to take on and over what time period.

Make sure to highlight what’s in it for the scholar, specifically, how much SLP will they earn? This is commonly written as a X%/Y% split, where X% goes to the scholar and Y% goes to the manager.

Example Scholarship Details:

1. Apply to be a scholar by filling out this application.
2. If you make it to the next round, you’ll be contacted on Discord to set up a 15-min interview.
3. If you are accepted into the scholarship, I will lend you a team of axies so that you can play Axie Infinity. All axies remain my property and I may switch them out from time to time. If I think I can improve your team, I will talk to you to make sure you agree before making any changes.
4. The earnings split is 60% to the scholar, 40% to the manager. The scholar’s share will be paid out to your Ronin wallet every 2 weeks on Wednesdays.
5. While you are a ChillAxie scholar, you must follow the rules outlined below: *insert rules here*

Rules

Scholarship rules describe what expected from scholars while they are part of your program and should be communicated up front, before scholars apply. Rules also help protect your assets (axies) from being banned – for example, due to a scholar not being aware that playing on multiple accounts on a single device breaks the Axie Infinity terms of service (“multi-accounting”).

Here are a few rules you might consider:

Example Rules

• Multi-account is forbidden. You cannot participate in other scholarships or use other Axie accounts. If you use more than one account, the axies in your scholar account will be banned and will not be usable.
• You must have a Ronin wallet to receive SLP.
• If you are inactive for more than X days, your account will be suspended and given to another scholar.
• The target SLP per week/month is X.
• In order to qualify for a scholarship you must follow XYZ on Twitter, sign up for discord, etc.

Application Questions

The meat of the application will be filled out by the scholar. The application questions are your chance to learn more about them as a person and their motivations for wanting a scholarship.

Example Personal/Social/Admin Questions

• First name
• Age (make this a numeric input field)
• Email
• Link to Twitter profile
• Discord tag
• City/Country
• Ronin wallet address
• Ethereum wallet address

Example Character Questions

• What level of experience do you have with Axie Infinity?
• Do you have any other gaming experience?
• Do you currently own any axies?
• Describe your dream Axie team.
• Have you ever been accepted into a scholarship program?
• What devices will you use to play Axie Infinity?
• What type of internet access do you have?
• How much time are you willing to dedicate to playing Axie Infinity?
• Have you ever traded crypto assets before?
• How are you going to cash out your earned SLP?
• What are the rules regarding multi-accounting?
• Do you agree to follow the rules of this scholarship?
• How would you benefit from a scholarship?
• Why should we choose you as our next scholar?

A few final application tips:

• Add validation rules to application form fields – for example, making age and target SLP numeric fields. For your own sake, make your application as structured a possible unless you want questions to be up for interpretation. Don’t expect scholars to fill out the form in the way you expected.
• Ask applicants whether they have friends/family who want to play – this opens the door to trustworthy referral applicants.
• Ask for links to social profiles, rather than handles – usernames are easily mistyped/auto-corrected, especially on a phone. Instead of asking for their @handle, get applicants to paste the whole URL to their profile page. This makes it a lot easier for you to vet social profiles.
• Ask for city and/or country, not just location – this makes it easier for you to select from a small region, which can be a way to foster a greater sense of community within your scholars.

This just scratches the surface of what you could ask, but it’s a good starting point. Remember, you’re going to have to read all of the responses, so you don’t want to go overboard!

Thank you for reading. If you would be willing to share this post with your network, I would greatly appreciate it. By sharing, you may inspire someone to become a manager and, as a result, radically change the lives of those who are lucky enough to become scholars. 😊