Ethereum Crypto Influencer Game 'Fantasy Top' Shutting Down

In brief

• Fantasy Top will close its doors next month, about two years after it launched.
• The game blended fantasy sports and social media using NFT trading cards of popular crypto influencers.
• It paid out more than $20 million to players and $3.2 million to the influencers that its game was based on.

Two years after causing a stir across Crypto Twitter, blockchain-based fantasy sports and social trading card mashup game Fantasy Top is shutting down at the end of June, the firm announced on Wednesday. 

The game allowed players to create lineups like in fantasy football, but instead of NFL players, it used NFT trading cards of popular crypto influencers and tracked their stats—engagement metrics on their social media posts on X—instead of things like receptions and touchdowns. 

Once a darling of crypto’s social scene, the game ultimately paid out more than $20 million to its players and $3.2 million to “heroes,” the crypto personalities that were the backbone of the game’s fantasy product. 

“What started as an experiment around attention markets and social finance became one of the most viral and engaging consumer crypto applications in the space,” the game posted on X.

“At the same time, the long-term economics of the [trading card game] model ultimately showed their limits,” it added, noting that the trading volume from its NFT playing cards was not a sustainable revenue model for long-term operations.

The game, which launched on the Ethereum layer-2 scaling network Blast in 2024, had been working on adjacent products and iterations of its social and finance mashup over the last 12 months, but says it was unable to find something that stuck. 

“Despite strong experimentation and iteration speed, none reached durable market fit,” it said. 

The game’s final fantasy competitions will conclude on June 18, with the website continuing operations for a further seven days after. Its other game offerings, like prediction markets and jackpots, will sunset on Thursday, with unused gameplay tickets being reimbursed to players. 

“We spent months looking at every direction we had left, talked to people we trust, seriously explored a pivot, and ultimately came to a clear conclusion: We didn’t have the conviction to keep going. So we’re doing the responsible thing and ending it well,” pseudonymous team member Kipit posted on X. 

“We failed for one core reason: We tried to put crypto on top of a model that was never built for crypto,” they added. 

The game’s closure continues a sustained trend of crypto gaming firms and games that have had to call it quits over the last year-plus as funding dried up and player communities splintered. 

Fantasy Top, which says it was self-funded for the last 2.5 years, noted that investors will be reimbursed for every dollar invested.

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