Inside SM Aura, one of Metro Manila’s many sprawling shopping malls, you’ll find a wonderfully whimsical “co-baking” space called Bakebe. Pronounce
Inside SM Aura, one of Metro Manila’s many sprawling shopping malls, you’ll find a wonderfully whimsical “co-baking” space called Bakebe. Pronounced Bake-be, the idea is borrowed from a concept store in Hong Kong that uses an app to teach guests how to bake the cake of their dreams. Upon arrival, you’re greeted by a gaggle of electric mixers straight out of Barbie’s Dreamhouse, and pink-frosting walls lined with big glass jars, each brimming with edible treasures: chocolate buttons, rainbow sprinkles, mini meringues, cookie crumbles and more.
And now, to top off your magical Bakebe experience, you can pay using magical internet money.
Leah Callon-Butler, a CoinDesk columnist, is the Director of Emfarsis, a consulting firm based in Southeast Asia that represents play-to-earn sector clients including Animoca Brands, Yield Guild Games, Blockchain Game Alliance and others.
The Nextperience Group, Bakebe’s parent company, represents a portfolio of imaginative businesses catering to everything from kids’ birthdays to team-building events. In mid-July, it began accepting an Ethereum-based utility token called Smooth Love Potion (SLP) for payments. Since then, it has processed 50 online bookings totaling PHP 150,000 ($2,980) in revenue. Co-founder and CEO Nikko Que believes it would have closed many more sales had Manila not been forced back into lockdown at the end of July.
It’s not the only merchant in on SLP, either. A quick quiz on social media turns up a bunch of advertisements for all sorts of things you can buy in the Philippines with SLP. Those include a pair of new kicks at SneakyX; a car service at Adz Garage, a polishing at Ecowash; insurance renewal at Divinagracia Insurance Agency; a test for COVID-19 at Swab Republic; a dermatitis treatment at The Healthician Clinic; an outfit for your toddler at Little Blossoms; a gift from SOLID TOYS; a laptop upgrade at Meron Ako; a massage chair at ZION; a milk tea at Chi Figata; a plate of dumplings at Mama’s Boys; and a session with online fitness coach, The Architect.
“The minting and acquisition of SLP has become an everyday task for a lot of people, so it’s useful to be able to spend it as an everyday currency,” said Joseph Moore, Que’s business partner. He’s referring to the obscure ERC-20 token originating from within the blockchain game, Axie Infinity, which has become a source of livelihood for many Filipinos.
The Bakebe boys say their customers tend to assess the price of SLP in terms of the effort it would take them to earn it. If a baking experience costs 150 SLP, they might say, “Oh, 150 SLP, that’s just my daily quest.”
Living in the Philippines, I’ve seen this tendency to value SLP in relation to real-world items, too. It seems the player community cares less about how much SLP is worth in terms of PHP or USD. A friend of mine, on his first day of playing Axie, excitedly told me he had earned three Chicken Joys in just a few hours. If you already know that Chicken Joy is a popular item on the menu at the much-loved fast food store in the Philippines called Jollibee, you’ll also know that this is a highly relatable and culturally relevant unit of account, understood instantly by Filipinos everywhere.
The birds and the bees of NFTs
To explain the purpose of SLP in Axie Infinity, I’ll need to give you a lesson on “the birds and the bees” of non-fungible tokens (NFTs). You see, Axies are NFTs with the ability to procreate, and if you want to get a couple of adult Axies in the mood to make a baby, SLP works like Barry White and candlelight.
To acquire SLP, Axie owners pit their NFT pets against one another, and whoever wins is rewarded with little vials of the digital aphrodisiac as a prize. But if you’re not into breeding Axies, you can sell your hard-earned SLP on an open market in exchange for other cryptocurrencies.
In some countries, the trade volume for SLP is so high that progressive platforms are enabling users to exchange the token for the local currency. And here in the Philippines, a growing number of local merchants have gone a step further, with sellers willing to accept micro-doses of the stuff as payment for goods and services.
They do it all via a dedicated wallet, the Ronin wallet, which is basically MetaMask for Axie’s sidechain and allows users to conduct up to 100 free transactions every day. At the time of purchase, merchants take it on a case-by-case basis, checking the price of SLP on Binance before providing their customers with a timely conversion rate. Other sellers – specifically, those who are willing to adopt a win-some, lose-some approach – will dictate a fixed selling price that sits somewhere between SLP’s lowest and highest value for the month.
“There are more Filipinos with Ronin wallets than there are Filipinos with credit cards,” Que said to me via a Zoom call, with a twinkle in his eye. He was being cheeky, of course. While Axie’s growth in the Philippines has gone…
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