Written by: kipit
Compiled by: Luffy, Foresight News
TL;DR
- All angel round and seed round investors will receive a full refund of principal and interest, with all invested funds returned via the original payment method.
- Fantasy has been self-sustaining through revenue for two and a half years, returning approximately $20 million to the community in total.
- The core lesson learned over these two and a half years is: If a product prioritizes economic benefits above all else, it attracts speculators first, not users. This principle applies not only to card-based blockchain games but is also a fundamental reason why most social token and early-stage token projects struggle.
The decision to shut down Fantasy was not made impulsively. We spent months exploring all possible directions, consulting people we trust, seriously discussing pivots, and ultimately reached a consensus: we do not have enough conviction to continue. Therefore, we chose to responsibly end this journey and let it conclude gracefully.
This article is a retrospective note: what we built, why we failed, and the new understandings we gained about social products, cryptocurrencies, and tokens during this process. We are not the first team to explore this space, and we certainly won't be the last. If this experience can help future builders avoid the pitfalls we encountered, then this entrepreneurial exploration will have been worthwhile.
The Product We Built
For two and a half years, Fantasy has been self-sustaining through its own revenue. Although the project raised $5.6 million in funding led by Dragonfly, the team never utilized any of the investment funds for operations. Very few projects in the crypto space can claim this, and we take great pride in it.
The core reward data is straightforward:
- Distributed 2,665 ETH (approximately $8 million) to regular players.
- Distributed 1,078 ETH (approximately $3.2 million) to top influencers/creators.
- Leveraging the Blast ecosystem, distributed a total of $12.2 million in ecosystem incentives to all players and influencers.
- Including Blast rewards, 86% of players ultimately achieved profitability.
Overall, the amount Fantasy returned to the community far exceeded the revenue it generated from the community, which is the project's most valuable achievement.
We built one of the most viral and sticky products within the social crypto space. We introduced novel mechanisms: industry mindshare scoring, a social graph prediction market, and a lightweight, free-to-play model.
We consistently maintained a rapid iteration and efficient product launch pace. Even so, we still failed to break through the development bottleneck.
The Core Reason for Fantasy's Failure
There is only one core reason for our failure: We attempted to build cryptocurrency on a foundation that was not originally designed for cryptocurrency.
Trading card games (TCGs) themselves have a mature business logic. Magic: The Gathering, Pokémon, and Yu-Gi-Oh! are globally popular, enduring top-tier entertainment IPs. Players are passionate about card collection, trading, and battles, representing a massive user base.
However, all crypto card games have ultimately failed—from TopShot and Sorare to us today. This is no coincidence but stems from a structural flaw in the sector.
The core logic of traditional top-tier card games is to create the game first, with ancillary products coming second. Players acquire cards primarily to experience the fun of gameplay. The financial premium attached to cards is a natural byproduct after the gameplay matures and the community ecosystem grows, not the primary reason users join.
Crypto card games completely invert this logic: cards first become financial speculation instruments, with gameplay fun becoming secondary. They attract not game-loving players but a speculative crowd hoping to profit from card trading. The demands of these two groups are fundamentally different.
Once a project is fully financialized from birth, all subsequent operational decisions become constrained: unable to freely optimize gameplay as any rule change directly affects card prices; hesitant to launch new game modes for fear of triggering community interest redistribution. In the end, the team stops focusing on polishing the game content and is forced to become financial portfolio managers. This is precisely the industry predicament we were stuck in.
We recognized this problem early on and tried our utmost to break free. We launched Arena mode to lower the asset ownership barrier, built lightweight traffic channels, opened free-to-play entry, and even removed the NFT asset system to pivot entirely to a social prediction market. Every adjustment aimed to return to the初心 of "game first," but we ultimately failed to reverse the overall decline.
The waning of the Blast ecosystem further exacerbated our difficulties. Back then, Blast was unprecedentedly hot, with a large influx of users joining Fantasy solely to chase the rumored massive ecosystem airdrops. In the first month after the mainnet launch, revenue directly hit its historical peak, accounting for 70% of the project's total lifetime revenue.
Starting at the peak meant all subsequent operations were mired in a downward trend. The team could no longer steadily plan for long-term growth but was forced to passively deal with the decline in traffic and hype after the frenzy subsided.
Financialization Completely Changes the User Base
This industry-wide ailment is prevalent throughout the crypto space. Social tokens were initially created to reshape the connection between creators and fans, yet nearly all related attempts have failed. The reason is the same: genuine fans follow creators because they resonate with their work, ideas, and community atmosphere, not purely for profit.
Once the price fluctuations of a token are inserted between fans and the content they love, the pure emotional connection is fundamentally altered. The most active participants in the community become short-term traders rather than loyal fans.
This is not a minor issue but the core impediment hindering the sector's development.
The crypto industry excels at designing incentive mechanisms and building consensus among participants—this is its core strength. However, a common misconception exists in the industry: simply and crudely overlaying financial attributes onto traditional internet products, games, or social communities can upgrade the business model.
The reality is恰恰相反. Overlaying financial attributes completely changes the essence of a product and, in most cases, fundamentally削弱 its original core value.
Attempting to replicate crypto products and achieve scale by relying on traditional internet ecosystems simply doesn't work. Financial attributes are always just an add-on; they directly reshape the user base structure and the reasons users join.
In-Depth Thoughts on Sector Tokens
This logic applies not only to end products but also to crypto startups themselves.
Our team never issued a project native token, even though we considered it multiple times. The reason is simple: issuing a token before the project achieves substantial development milestones is irresponsible in itself. 95% of tokens in the market see their prices decline after launch. Knowing this outcome yet still issuing tokens to "cut leeks" is behavior we firmly oppose.
Looking at various token issuance projects in this market cycle, I am increasingly convinced that the token issuance mechanisms of most projects themselves have serious flaws.
It is inherently wrong for a project to casually issue tokens in a stage where there is no mature product or stable market demand. Previously, I thought traditional financial regulations were overly strict. Now, I fully understand their underlying logic: strict regulation protects ordinary investors from early-stage projects lacking commercial viability. The crypto industry skips this risk screening layer, and the entire sector is paying the price.
Issuing tokens before validating product-market fit is all harm and no benefit for a project. Post-issuance, the team's attention shifts entirely to token price fluctuations, ordinary users only watch market movements, no one focuses on product development, and the project completely stagnates.
Even a quality project like Across Protocol, with real revenue and steady growth, has publicly admitted that the negative impact of issuing tokens far outweighs the actual value—a conclusion worth pondering for the entire industry.
The few robust token projects in this cycle are exceptions, not the norm: projects like Hyperliquid, Pump, Jupiter all first built mature business systems, achieved stable revenue, used platform profits for token buybacks and value accrual, and only issued tokens after possessing solid strength and genuine底气.
The Decentralized Physical Infrastructure (DePIN) sector is one of the few structural exceptions, but many early DePIN projects launched with inflated valuations that wouldn't hold up in today's market, and the sector still lacks a recognized long-term success benchmark case.
Similar to financialized card games, projects issuing tokens too early easily fall into a vicious cycle. High market financial expectations attached post-launch severely restrict a startup's flexibility to experiment and explore the right development path.
Full Refund to Investors
All angel round and seed round investors in Fantasy will receive a 100% full refund, with the exact amount invested returned via the original method.
Our ability to do this stems from the project's self-sustaining operations; we never used external investment funds. The initial investment was based on the belief that the project had the potential to grow into a high-quality, billion-dollar enterprise. Since the project is now unlikely to achieve that goal, and we lack sufficient conviction, we cannot use these funds to pursue a pivot we ourselves are not confident in.
We deeply value the trust given by our investors and will never消耗 that trust on盲目尝试 we ourselves don't believe in.
To the Platform Creators
Our sincere thanks to all of you! At a time when the project's business model was unproven, you were willing to join and build using your own reputation and influence. You cumulatively earned over $3.2 million on the platform. We hope this回报 is worthy of the trust you initially placed in us.
To the Entire Community
Every community member made Fantasy what it was. All the impressive data achievements mentioned above were made possible by your tremendous support. We once strived to build the most fun social game in the crypto space, and for a time, we succeeded. Thank you for your daily companionship, actively building decks, and participating in tournaments.
We deeply regret not meeting everyone's ultimate expectations. We understand the disappointment and regret, and we accept this outcome with坦荡.
If anyone still believes in the billion-dollar business idea潜藏 behind Fantasy, feel free to give it a try. The entire sector's opportunities are open and barrier-free. We are willing to share all our practical experience and lessons learned without reservation.
We encountered numerous difficult industry barriers. Future builders need not repeat these mistakes firsthand. Perhaps a completely new development approach, avoiding our detours, can create a better product than ours.
Writing this retrospective is not a formal farewell but an effort to leave behind practical reference material for future entrepreneurs.
Currently, crypto card games have a天然 development ceiling; social products prioritizing financial attributes will inevitably attract speculators, making it hard to凝聚 core fans; issuing tokens prematurely, detached from actual product落地 needs, often hinders project development.
These are not just the困境 of our single project but widespread痛点 across the entire crypto industry. These challenges are not unsolvable, but they cannot be addressed by一味复刻 outdated models.
We are not the first to try, and we certainly won't be the last. The most precious trait of the crypto industry is its willingness to boldly explore and experiment. Entrepreneurial exploration inherently involves success and failure, but every attempt holds unique value.
Finally, thank you once again to everyone who trusted and supported us.
