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What Is Smooth Love Potion (SLP)? Axie Infinity's Breeding Token in 2026

SLP is Axie Infinity's in-game token for breeding and crafting. Since 7 January 2026, Origins no longer pays SLP rewards. What changed and what's left.

· By ZIPMEX · 5 min read

Smooth Love Potion (SLP) is the in-game utility token of Axie Infinity, the blockchain game developed by Sky Mavis. Players spend it to breed Axies (the game's NFT creatures) and to craft and morph them. The main change in 2026 came on 7 January, when Axie Infinity stopped paying out new SLP as rewards in Axie Infinity: Origins, its main battle game. Players can still use the SLP they already hold. On 25 October 2026, CoinGecko listed SLP at about $0.00052, with a market capitalisation of about $18.9 million and an unlimited maximum supply.

What changed in January 2026

On 5 January 2026, the official Axie Infinity account on X announced that "SLP emissions in Origins will cease starting January 7." The same post said players could keep depositing SLP for crafting and morphing as before. Sky Mavis co-founder Jeff "Jihoz" Zirlin also posted on X that "$SLP emissions will be removed from Origins this week."

The stated reason was bot farming. According to BitPinas's report of 6 January 2026, a community letter from Sky Mavis growth lead "Jaatster" said "SLP extraction at this scale is harmful to the long-term health of the Axie ecosystem." The letter also said development of new Origins features had been paused. After 7 January, Ranked Mode in Origins no longer pays SLP.

A related change for AXS, Axie's governance token, followed later in January. BlockchainGamer.biz reported on 19 January 2026 that AXS rewards would be replaced by bAXS ("Bonded AXS"). bAXS is backed 1:1 by AXS and can only be spent or staked. It is built on Limit Break's ERC20-C standard. Terrariums V1, the land-based earning system that launched in June 2026, pays rewards in bAXS. BlockchainGamer.biz's coverage of Terrariums does not mention SLP.

Most of what is known about this change comes from posts on X by Axie Infinity and Sky Mavis staff, as reported by BitPinas, TradingView/CoinMarketCal and BlockchainGamer.biz. We could not retrieve a full official blog post explaining it.

What SLP is used for

Breeding

Breeding two Axies costs SLP plus an AXS fee. Each Axie can be bred at most seven times. The Axie Infinity whitepaper explains the cap: "To avoid hyperinflation of Axies there is a maximum amount of times an Axie can be bred before it is sterile."

The SLP cost rises with each breed. The whitepaper's breeding page lists these costs per parent:

Breed numberSLP cost per parent
1900
21,350
32,250
43,600
55,850
69,450
715,300

The whitepaper says the AXS portion "is variable and subject to adjustment based on a myriad of economic factors." Sky Mavis has changed breeding costs several times. CoinGecko's SLP page gives a different, much lower schedule, from 100 SLP up to 2,100 SLP for a seventh breed. Before you spend anything, check the current cost on the in-game breeding screen.

Crafting and morphing

Players could still deposit SLP for crafting items and for morphing Axies after the January 2026 change. This is now the main in-game use of existing SLP besides breeding.

What SLP does not do

The whitepaper states that "Axie Infinity does not sell $SLP to players directly." SLP is not a governance token; that role belongs to AXS. CoinGecko lists no maximum supply. New SLP enters circulation only through game rewards, and the largest of those, Origins Ranked Mode, ended on 7 January 2026.

SLP and AXS: the two-token design

Axie Infinity was built around two tokens:

  • SLP: the gameplay token. It was earned in battles and spent on breeding, crafting and morphing. It has no supply cap.
  • AXS (Axie Infinity Shards): the governance and staking token. It is also part of the breeding fee.

The 2026 changes reduce how much of both tokens the game hands out: SLP rewards ended in Origins, and AXS rewards are moving to bAXS, which can only be spent or staked. In BlockchainGamer.biz's report, Zirlin calls these "structural changes to supply."

Where SLP came from

CoinGecko notes that SLP was formerly called "Small Love Potion" and was renamed when the token was upgraded to the Ronin blockchain. The whitepaper describes Ronin as "an Ethereum-linked sidechain made specifically for Axie Infinity." SLP exists on both networks:

  • Ronin: 0xa8754b9fa15fc18bb59458815510e40a12cd2014
  • Ethereum: 0xcc8fa225d80b9c7d42f96e9570156c65d6caaa25

Compare these addresses with any token you see in a wallet or on a decentralised exchange. Copycat tokens often use the same name and ticker.

SLP's history explains why it is still well known. In August 2021, Ark Invest analyst Nick Grous said full-time Axie players had averaged about $1,500 in the previous month. He also said the Philippines made up 40% of the game's 350,000 daily active users (reported by Benzinga). Other reporting from the same period found much lower typical earnings, around $200 to $300 a month.

Price and market data

CoinGecko figures as of 25 October 2026:

MetricValue
Priceabout $0.00052
Market capitalisationabout $18.9 million
Circulating supplyabout 36.2 billion SLP
Maximum supplyUnlimited
All-time high$0.3997
All-time low$0.0004392

The current price is about 99.9% below the all-time high and close to the all-time low. CoinMarketCap's AI news summary says SLP was delisted by one venue in October 2025 and removed from some margin services in December 2025 (not verified against primary sources). If either is accurate, there are fewer places to trade SLP, and spreads may be wider.

How to get SLP now

  • Through play: Origins Ranked Mode stopped paying SLP on 7 January 2026, so SLP should no longer be treated as a play-to-earn reward.
  • On the market: SLP still trades on centralised venues and on decentralised exchanges on Ronin. Check the contract address before you trade.
  • Storage: SLP on Ronin needs a Ronin-compatible wallet. SLP on Ethereum works with standard ERC-20 wallets. Sending a token to the wrong network can lose it.

What to watch

  • Official notices from Sky Mavis on any new ways to use SLP, or any return of SLP rewards.
  • Breeding, crafting and morphing activity, which uses up SLP.
  • The circulating supply on CoinGecko, which shows whether supply is still growing after the January change.
  • Atia's Legacy, Sky Mavis's MMO, which was in playtests in 2025 and 2026. Its role for SLP has not been announced.

For background on the game itself, see our guide to [how Axie Infinity works](/blog/axie-infinity-game-explained/) and our explainer on [AXS](/blog/what-is-axs-axie-infinity/).

Limitations: details of the January 2026 change come from X posts and press reports, not a full official write-up. Breeding costs and market data change often, so check them before relying on them. This article is not investment advice.

Updated on Oct 25, 2026