Ronin готовится к обращению своих токенов: обратный выкуп на $4,6 млн Translation: Ronin prepares to reclaim its tokens: buyback of $4.6 million

The team behind the Ronin gaming sidechain plans to buy back native tokens worth approximately $4.6 million in order to reduce the circulating supply of RON.

As stated in their announcement, over the past four years, the project has accumulated $4 million in ETH (including the «wrapped» version of WETH) and around 652,000 USDC in its treasury.

In total, the Ronin Treasury holds assets worth about $5.3 million, with only around $78,500 of that being RON. The funds have been generated through transaction fees from the DEX Katana and the Ronin Marketplace, as well as from the fees associated with the RNS service.

In the announced buyback plan, the treasury will exchange all ETH and USDC reserves for the native Ronin token through third-party market makers over the course of a month starting September 29.

This move is expected to remove approximately 9.4 million RON from circulation, accounting for about 1.3% of the current supply. The team stated they do not plan to sell these tokens or use them for any other purpose.

“The aggressive timeline further affirms our strong belief that RON is undervalued and poised for a new growth phase. This is the first step towards achieving our strategic goal,” remarked Ronin’s team.

In August, the project announced the transfer of its sidechain used in the Web3 game Axie Infinity back to Ethereum, transforming it into a full-scale Layer 2 network. The team is utilizing OP Stack tools to construct the L2 solution. The protocol separated from the second-largest cryptocurrency’s blockchain due to low throughput and high fees in 2021.

“Ronin is using the last of its treasury funds to buy back 1.3% of its own tokens and will rely on Optimism grants for future development. It seems that the key terms of their deal are now clear,” sarcastically commented one observer on the buyback.

Some users argued that the removal of such a small volume of the asset from the market while maintaining issuance is unlikely to have a significant impact on price dynamics.

“The buyback will increase the amount of RON in the treasury and reduce supply. This will further unite our ecosystem, token holders, and developers as Ronin evolves into a fully functional L2 network. It will also prepare our movement for further growth as the rest of the world returns to Web3 gaming,” stated Ronin.

At the time of writing, RON is trading at around $0.50, which is 86.5% lower than its all-time high of $4.45 reached in March 2024 (CoinGecko). Over the last 24 hours, the token has decreased by 8.5%, more than double the overall correction seen in the crypto market.

The total value locked in the Ronin sidechain has plummeted from a record high of approximately $1.5 billion in December 2021 to $52.3 million. The dominant share of this metric comes from the Katana exchange — nearly $51 billion. This platform, in conjunction with Axie Infinity, generates almost all the revenue from network fees.

The number of active monthly users of the blockchain game has dropped from a peak of 2.8 million in January 2022 to 195,000 (Active Player). Following a slight spike in interest in June 2024, Axie Infinity has been losing tens of thousands of players each month.

In late March 2022, Ronin fell victim to a hacking attack on a cross-chain bridge to Ethereum, losing over $625 million. The sidechain paused operations and resumed only in July after the relaunch.

It’s worth mentioning that in the fall of 2024, Sky Mavis, the studio behind Axie Infinity and Ronin, laid off 21% of its workforce as part of a strategic reorganization.