Shaun T. Dy's Business & Economics Perspective Blog

A recent article I wrote was focused on the not-so-surprising outcome that Axie Infinity finally crashed . I really have no reason to enter into cryptocurrency--not especially since its volatility is way too high in contrast to stocks. I've been recently monitoring my UITF investments every now and then. I tend to do it daily because I might get an opportunity to buy more or to see which UITF (from GInvest for now) would have lower NAPVU--meaning my PHP 1,000.00 for the month will buy more units. Now, I decided to give an update on my most recent post on Axie Infinity's crash with this one.  I remembered writing about the irony of turning down investments while having a gambling addiction . A "follow-up" to it was a write-up where I mentioned  the irony of saying AXA is a scam while possibly playing Axie Infinity thinking it's an investment . I wrote some of my memories while living in Downtown Cebu until I was 14 years old. I could remember how gambling addiction

llustration: Daniel Guerrero Fernandez for Bloomberg Businessweek I remembered some time ago when I wrote about Axie Infinity . One article I wrote about why I never bothered to enter the Axie Infinity arena was the poor security . I compared it to a cockfighting game--a game where so few win and so many lose. A previous article I wrote was all about why play-to-earn games are too good to be true . What's not too surprising is the collapse of Axie Infinity . It's pretty much too good to be true. A casual gamer can testify that they buy online passes not to earn but to play . It's like buying a Playstation Plus card to play online for an entire year. You buy games out of the money you earn. You don't earn money out of gaming.  What truly never surprised me was how Axie Infinity crashed. It promised riches but onoy resulted to disaster. I even wrote that there could be an ironic moment somebody says that AXA is a scam while playing Axie Infinity thinking that it's an

As I turned 37 (and still single) this year--I thought about how I had my HealthMax from AXA as part of my investments. Technically, a health insurance is an investment since I took it since I  almost thought I had dengue in 2012. My modest investments (confidential) into funds, bonds, and the like had me thinking about some losers. I was thinking about past experiences with people who have no investments or insurance. In fact, as of 2021, it's also revealed that at least 38.9 million Filipinos have no bank account--that accounts for 48% of the adult population of the country. Bank accounts are very important to finance the economy as the money is used to finance businesses and government spending. Another interesting thing to think about is the irony of turning down investments and insurance while having a gambling addiction. It sounds weird but it happens, right? I could remember how gambling is truly a problem in the Philippines. In the 1990s, I remembered how I saw people play

I've been running into ads that promise the "play to earn" games even before the pandemic. Some of them featured a game that all I needed was to merge this and that or pop bubbles and boom--I get money! I remembered finding ways to make money online and they encouraged gambling. There's always the rule of thumb in finances--if it's too good to be true then run  from it. It reminds me of how I get irritated by those fake game ads and now these new fake game ads? It's already bad enough I was duped into downloading Gardenscape with the fake ads. Now, these fake ads are probably the worst offenders over mobile demos that irritate us with annoying display of stupidity.  Any gamer who probably owned a Playstation 3 or an XBox 360 (or any seventh generation console) would remember having to buy credits to buy extra content. A buyer may have had to buy Playstation Points (or the like) to purchase additional content. Later, there's the pay to play online which a p