Fantasy Top finally pulls the plug...
SIDELINED NEWS 164
TLDR :
Fantasy top finally pulls the plug
MegaETH concludes its terminal campaign early
Project O fully pivots to Web2
🗞️ NEWS
FANTASY TOP FINALLY PULLS THE PLUG
After 2 years of operation, Fantasy Top (FT) is saying “farewell.” A bittersweet end to one of crypto’s most viral apps to date. However, some might say FT already died last November, when it decided to sunset Core Tournaments (its main reward structure)
The team states that the reason behind its shutdown is the lack of sustainability: “Similar to previous consumer crypto products in the space (TopShot, SoRare) trading volume was not sufficient to sustainably support long-term operations.”
Kipit (one of the co-founders) shared the following in his post-mortem: “We failed for one core reason: we tried to put crypto on top of a model that was never built for crypto.” and “The financial value of a card was a consequence of the gameplay’s quality and the community’s depth, not the entry point.”
Over the past year, FT experimented with various adjacent products across SocialFi, including prediction markets, mindshare tracking, social graphs, and different gameplay loops, but none achieved product-market fit
Remarkably (because it’s very uncommon in crypto), all investors of FT will be reimbursed $1 for every $1 invested. The company raised a total of $5.6M, largely through its pre-seed and seed rounds:
Pre-seed (February 2024): ~$600K from Alliance DAO, Manifold, and others
Seed (December 2024): $4.25M led by Dragonfly
One could speculate that the refund was done as a matter of legality, because the team didn’t end up launching a token
FT was heavily criticized because it generated ~$10M (reported numbers differ) from the community through trading fees and game revenue, while “stringing them along” for 2+ years, with a potential FAN token, without ever delivering
The “FAN Points” system launched in 2024 and rewarded points through platform usage (tournaments, competitions, quests, etc.). In 2025 - 2026, there was ongoing speculation about a token, as the idea hadn’t been ruled out and users were still expecting one. Only a few months ago, it became clear there wasn’t a FAN token coming anymore
A clear example of how expectations and reality are mismatched. It seems FT never explicitly confirmed a token, but never denied it either
From Kipit on the token: “We never launched a token. We thought about it many times. We didn’t because we never reached a milestone where it would have been honest. Rugging is launching a token knowing it will go to zero like 95% of them. We refused to do that."
The potential future performance of the FAN token aside, the question is whether it would have been more ethical to launch a token, instead of “farming the community” (how players felt)
Other than Kipit’s article, there were multiple post-mortems from users on FT. One of the more interesting ones came from GRITCULT, in which he argues that the product’s failure wasn’t a “TCG problem”:
“Fantasy imo was never just a Tcg. What they had was a live gacha casino in the form of the TCG built on their own social infra. A real time social graph of crypto's most influential voices in the form of the heroes.”
“The Fantasy story is a category error story, not an execution story. The team executed well inside the wrong frame.”
For anyone building crypto products, GRITCULT’s analysis is a recommended read
Overall, it’s sad (but not surprising) to see a product like FT shut down, because it couldn’t sustain itself. Illustrating a larger problem that’s incredibly hard to build hyperfinancialized products, because every user is expecting to be EV+
MEGAETH CONCLUDES TERMINAL EARLY
Last Thursday, MegaETH came out to share that they are concluding the Terminal Program (points campaign) early, after only running for 3 weeks out of 8:
For context, the campaign had 2.5% of the MEGA supply allocated to multiple 8-week seasons that incentivised users to use the apps on the chain. These MEGA incentives have now been removed, and users who participated will receive a USDm airdrop
Shuyao Kong (one of the co-founders) said: “The points program on Terminal has allowed crypto-native users to further explore the initial Mega Ecosystem, but we believe it has run its course.”
My interpretation is that the team realised that the added benefits of a points campaign are limited in today’s market, and don’t provide the “GTM acceleration” anymore, as we’ve historically seen with other L2-launch campaigns
Over the past year, the onchain TAM has considerably shrunk, likely due to the lack of “easy money-making opportunities”, 10/10, and the increased corporatization of crypto. It seems simply not viable anymore to run a business the size of MegaETH by focusing on onchain only
Unfortunately, this took more juice (sentiment) out of MegaETH, which has been underperforming since its token launch. However, the team being able to make a pivot like this is commendable, because community FUD is to be expected
A comment from Breadguy to CBB, who questioned whether they stress-tested the program: “After a few weeks of feedback and data collection we decided that some core problems couldn't be fixed and our time and resources were better spent elsewhere, so we moved on.”
While this announcement was surprising, the Terminal’s Program was under pressure since it started:
Users complained that most apps were gambling or only whale-focused
The number of quality apps was lacking, and the Terminal lacked curation
Another common complaint was that the campaign should be more like Blast, with a more transparent points design, more attractive incentives, and more incentive-driven marketing (the opposite of what they decided)
On the topic of incentive campaigns, I just want to highlight my piece: “Abstract XP and the reality of incentive design.” Another reminder of how difficult designing these campaigns is, because you can never make everybody happy
So, what’s next for MegaETH? From Shuyao Kong: “Moving forward, we will double down on sourcing and accelerating the best applications on MegaETH through personalized GTM, targeting users beyond crypto.”
Very ambitious, yet “necessary” for this industry to grow. Because outside of prediction markets and neobanks, how many apps can you name that successfully broke into the consumer market?
MegaETH's M(OS)S is its mobile crypto operating system and embedded wallet (like Tria, Redotpay, KAST, etc.). To my understanding, a consumer-friendly interaction layer, similar to the idea of ABS’s portal
Talking about ABS, it also seems a strategy more in line with how they positioned themselves, being the “consumer crypto chain”. However, despite its consumer-focused efforts, including NFT activations with big brands (e.g., Red Bull) and benefits from a verticalization perspective through Pudgy, we haven’t really seen their thesis unfold yet
Then, there’s also Sophon, a “consumer chain,” but I’m unsure they even tried
Moving forward, I will keep an eye on what kind of more consumer-focused apps will come out of MegaMafia (its incubator), and how these will approach their GTM
ORIGINS IS NO LONGER A “CRYPTO GAME”
Timothy Jooste, the CEO of Origins TCG (formerly Project O), shared a video update about their upcoming Steam demo, ownership, demo items, and more last week. A video that left a lot of questions of were the game is headed
For this reason, Timothy made an additional post to clarify where the game is headed. Let’s talk about it…
The big “shocker” from his message is that Origins TCG isn’t a “crypto game” anymore:
From Timothy: “it’s that after all these years blockchain tech still asks too much of the studio, the partners, and the consumer to make it the best way to scale a game globally. Not to mention the fact that many gamers still don’t understand it and will walk away the sec they hear it’s apart of your game.”
Origins won’t be using blockchain technology in its game, and is “retreating to the safety of a traditional web2 tcg meta game, we are doubling down by building what we call the Counter-strike of TCG’s…”
I.e, a TCG with a more purposefully designed layer of collectability
Apparently, it wasn’t “news”, as Apix posted something similar on March 30, and added that this transition to non-crypto has been going on for a while
Part of this pivot away from crypto includes its NFTs (Alpha Set, Blueprints, and KGDS), moving to the Steam Marketplace. Despite this change, making its collectable layer less interesting (imo), Origins will “honor the core promises” of its collections:
So, it is a little confusing that the Alpha Set sale was ~2 months ago, and offered as NFTs on OpenSea
For the KGDS, this mostly includes basic utility, such as early access, community perks, and in-game benefits
When it comes to the Blueprints, the original pitch included owning the IP rights and revenue/yield sharing (through trading fees) of certain cards of the “master set”. However, that idea has been scrapped
While I understand it’s not feasible with the current setup, that was the primary reason to buy them in the first place (they weren’t cheap). A couple of DAOs and whales also spent significant amounts of money on these, but I guess “business is business” after all in crypto (gaming)
The new utility may include future rewards, perks, special offers, and exclusive content, events, and game-related experiences (i.e., nothing of actual $ value)
Despite NFTs becoming items on the Steam Marketplace, the team still plans for 3rd-party marketplace integrations, including one on its own platform, DCC
Like with CS:GO, using 3rd-party websites for trading items is against ToS, yet it happens on a significant scale
However, whether owning a 3rd-marketplace and also having a game on Steam is something the platform will tolerate remains to be seen (maybe that’s why they technically split the two)
I can’t fully blame Origins TCG for completely “ditching” crypto, and was aware it would always be more of a Web2 game (according to the in-Discord pitch of 2024). But it’s still disappointing to see that the collectability layer (meta-game), which was much more interesting on onchain, is getting a huge downgrade
Lastly, the big question is whether the game can succeed as a traditional TCG. And while it has interesting and fresh game mechanics, I think the approach they’re taking with the IP, using public domains, is going to have an adverse effect:
As in, they try to overcome the “IP-first needs” to succeed in TCGs through borrowing existing IPs. However, I don’t think it provides enough of a hook to have cards from countless different IPs, while at the same time, you don’t really build out your own
FLASH NEWS
Ubisoft’s Champions Tactics is moving away from its crypto features
Nexpace generated $31M of revenue in its first year and is doing a $10M buyback
Pixelcraft steps down as the default dev of Aavegotchi and opens it up to the DAO
Sleepagotchi expands into AI Wellness by focusing on health data
The Beacon’s Goblins Gambit S1 kicked off today
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