Fortnite-like battle royale shooter OpenSeason hosted a 12-hour competition promising players a slice of $350,000 worth of tokens. But instead of airdropping those Ethereum-based tokens, the developers burned them—and will burn many more ahead.

By the end of the token purge, 82% of the total supply of the FU Money (FU) token will have been burned, developer Fractional Uprising Studios told Decrypt’s GG. The team claims this is a move to help support the token’s health… and have a laugh while doing it.

Last week, OpenSeason’s creators announced the Mega Jeet competition—”jeet” being crypto slang for someone who sells quickly after obtaining a token. For 12 hours over the weekend, 909 gamers in total grinded on the Ethereum-based survival shooter—which is playable on PC via the Epic Games Store—in the hopes of getting a healthy portion of the six-figure airdrop.

Instead the team burned the tokens—equivalent to 2.67% of the total supply—initially branding it a mistake made by an intern. But it was just the tip of the iceberg in what’s planned to be a dramatic cut in the FU token supply.

“It was intended to show the insanity of gamers with expectations for free money, to show the broken emissions structure,” pseudonymous co-founder Krypticrooks told Decrypt.

In turn, chaos ensued in the project’s Discord, which the co-founder called “pretty damn funny.” It’s hard to tell what is satire and what isn’t here, however, particularly for a project that built its 3D shooter game around crypto memes—including taking aim at OpenSea following a dispute with the prominent NFT marketplace.

Many users in the Discord called the team scammers after the token burn was revealed, while another said, likely sarcastically, that he’s crying after thinking his family was rich. One player said they’d hoped to upgrade their PC with airdrop winnings, but then said after the burn that they “never hoped for anything.”

But that kind of reaction was both expected and desired, the developers told Decrypt. A “Shitty Bean” NFT will instead be sent to competition players as part of the apology, but the team is “not at all” scared to lose community members as a result of the stunt. 

“We’ve got real communities behind us that will join the tribalism for our project from all the NFTs competing etc,” Krypticrooks said, pointing to the NFT projects that are integrated into the game—the likes of Bored Ape Yacht Club and Milady Maker.

Now the “big burn” is about to commence, with 82% of the total token supply being removed from circulation—including the 2.67% burned in the Mega Jeet competition. This move will also see the team’s token supply reduced from 20% to 14%, and will burn tokens allocated to “future productions” and “rewards.”

What’s the point? The team realized that it had over-allocated tokens to the team and towards the funding of future projects. It believes this “supply overhang” made the FU token unappealing as an investment. After the burn, the core team’s control over the token supply will have been drastically reduced, which they believe will make it easier to “ape” into the token.

“Essentially, now there is nobody left to dump. The jeets have been pushed out, and those who bought before the burn will be greatly rewarded.” Krypticrooks explained, “After this burn, we will have given out almost 50% of the tokens from the airdrop. That is madness.”

The “big burn” is set to start this week, with 47% of the supply planned to be toast by next week. Then the team must wait until June for the final 35% of the supply to be unlocked—before it’s thrown straight onto the fire.

“We’re fortunate to do this because [we] never took on VCs,” Krypticrooks finished. “We’re burning FU Money!”

Edited by Andrew Hayward