Despite raising $40 million in May 2022, US developer Irreverent Labs has announced it will be “pausing development of its MechaFightClub blockchain game for the foreseeable future.”
It’s stated that it hasn’t given up entirely on the project but that it cannot continue in its current form as a game with blockchain elements.
Notably it blames the current lack of clarity in terms of American regulatory law; something it says has changed drastically over the past two years. This has made it impossible to create the sort of in-game economy it would like to design without worries it will be taken to court by regulators, notably the SEC.
For these reasons, Irreverent will switch its focus entirely to the creator tools it had been working on for MechaFightClub, which it hopes will mature into something that “will have sweeping impacts into the way people build and consume entertainment”.
Buyback program launches
However, the good news for the 7,000-odd MechaFightClub NFT holders is that Irreverent is launching a buyback program for the NFTs.
Called SOL 4 Cocks, NFT holders will have to send their NFTs to a burn address, receiving 18 SOL (worth $360) in return. This is significant as the floor price for MechaFightClub NFTs averaged around 5 SOL, peaking around 9 SOL, although the dollar price of SOL was higher during this NFT mint period.
Nevertheless, this is a pretty generous deal that will cost Irreverent Labs around $2.5 million.
It’s also worth noting that Irreverent has already taken a snapshot of all the wallets holding MechaFightClub NFTs and it will not reward any NFTs sent to the burn address if those NFTs have been transferred or traded to any other wallet. This is to prevent scams.
You can read the full statement here.