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MechaFightClub, an NFT game from Solana’s Irreverent Labs, has halted development indefinitely as its creators believe the future of crypto in the United States is uncertain now amid regulatory challenges.
“We don’t see a clear path forward to launch the economy from the US,” said Irreverent Labs CEO and co-founder Rahul Sood. Decrypt in the decision to stop the development.
“Moving it to other jurisdictions would require most of the senior team to move out of the USA over a period of time,” he added.
MechaFightClub (MFC) is a planned cockfighting video game that uses artificial intelligence and sees mechanical chickens fight it out in “Cocktagon.” Sood said Decrypt that the closure was Irreverent’s own decision, but that it would not sell the MFC brand because it was “too close to the soul of our company.”
He added that the game has reached “alpha” status, which generally means it’s playable and feature-complete, but may still lack enough content and polish. Sood said that the MechFightClub It may “resurface again in the future in a different form,” but the team hasn’t decided yet.
The company shared the news to close the MechaFightClub Thursday night with a promise to buy back any mechabot NFT for 18 SOL each—approximately $365 each—from May 15th to June 29th.
Before the announcement, NFTs were trading for around 7 SOL, less than half that price, on the Magic Eden NFT market. MFC NFTs have since been kept from selling at Magic Eden.
The SEC’s crypto crackdown
Irreverent Labs claims a open letter that the game is “trapped in regulatory limbo.” In recent months, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has intensified its enforcement actions against crypto startups and platforms in the country, alleging widespread violations of securities laws.
“The regulatory and operational environment around blockchain within the USA has changed significantly over the past two years,” Irreverent Labs wrote in its letter.
“We are an American company, and the lack of clarity makes it difficult for blockchain companies to operate here,” added Irreverent Labs. “With the current regulatory confusion, we cannot create an in-game economy without worrying about regulatory consequences.”
In Irreverent One Hundred Years of Podcasting This week, just days before news of MFC’s closure, Sood said he believes SEC Chair Gary Gensler “owes his job to Elizabeth Warren” and argued that Gensler and US Senator Warren want to “kill crypto because they think it’s all a scam. .”
Now that MFC has shut down, Sood is focusing on Irreverent Labs more fully in artificial intelligence. Sood said Decrypt in a direct message that Irreverent has made a “significant success” with his AI model, which he said can create short videos from images. The studio plans to release it later this year under new branding.
Hopes for MFC were short-lived, but fervent—just a year ago, the company announced a big $40 million funding round led by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), along with Solana Ventures, CAA founder Michael Ovitz, Bollywood actress Sonam Kapoor, Infinity Ventures founder Brian Lu, and others who invested.
Decrypt reached out to Andreessen Horowitz for comment, but did not receive an immediate response.
General Partner at VC firm Arianna Simpson WRITES last year that at the beginning, he thought that the game “sounds strange,” but then invested because he believed that the team was “serious” and “competent,” and had a good sense of humor with a progressive community on the Discord server.
Now, that community is on the wane—but at least chicken keepers can part with their robo-chickens and try to find entertainment elsewhere.
