Big Time was popular for less than five days. Was it a wealth-making myth or a scientific harvest?

The popularity of Big Time lasted for less than five days before the myth of wealth creation it promoted was shattered. However, the sharp drop in coin prices, lower explosion rates, and restrictions on withdrawals still plagued players who entered the market at high points, leaving them in a dilemma.

This short-lived boom in the bear market has many suspicious points, including insufficient liquidity of tokens, market makers trying to conceal on-chain traces, strong promotion by Chinese institutions and KOLs, and project owners using KYC to prevent withdrawals.

An obvious fact is that Big Time, as an international project, has only become popular in the Chinese circle this time. Its popularity in mainland China in the past week is equivalent to the combined popularity of the top ten countries and regions.

| 15% plunge in 10 minutes

"I don't want to play anymore. There are always problems with the project. I don't feel safe."

"Have you passed KYC? Mine has been over 48 hours and still hasn't passed. I can't withdraw it even if I want to."

On the morning of October 18, the token BIGTIME of the blockchain game Big Time plummeted 15% in 10 minutes, and the relevant community was filled with criticism. Big Time users generally encountered problems such as difficulty in passing KYC, inability to withdraw funds after making deposits, plummeting coin prices, and longer payback periods.

As of press time, BIGTIME was priced at $0.16, down 50% from its high of $0.32 a few days ago.

Big Time is a popular 3A blockchain game recently initiated by Ari Meilich, the founder of Decentraland. The company members come from companies such as Epic Games, Rockstar, and Riot.

The project was first launched in 2021 and has been lukewarm. However, after its token was listed on exchanges such as Coinbase, Bitget, and OKX recently, it suddenly became popular, with an increase of more than 20 times in a short period of time.

What makes users crazy is the money-making effect of the project. Many KOLs claim that "it only takes two or three days to get back the investment" and "a minimum monthly income of 200,000 yuan", which attracts many Chinese users to join the market. However, many users told Techub News that they basically lose money after entering the market, unless they are users who enter the market very early.

According to users, when it was popular, the entry cost was more than 10,000 U, and it was "hard to get a code". Big Time adopts an invitation mechanism, and users who enter the market now need to be given an invitation code by previous users.

Techub News found that people were selling Big Time invitation codes in various communities and Xianyu, with prices ranging from 40 to 70 yuan. After the coin price plummeted this morning, the price dropped to a minimum of 30 yuan.

However, after entering the market, users found that it was not as good as it seems. There were various pitfalls. First of all, many users encountered the problem of being unable to withdraw cash after making deposits, and withdrawals required KYC certification.

According to users, many people have been stuck at KYC. "It takes at least two or three days to pass the certification, and some users have reported that they have not passed it yet. The coins earned from mining cannot be withdrawn. Now the coin price has fallen, and even if KYC is passed, the withdrawal will result in a lot of losses."

Secondly, after entering the market, users found that the project team had lowered the gold mining rate, and some even said that "the rate was reduced by 10 times."

A user said that the current situation of Big Time is "cannot get in, can not get out, low mobility, high cost", and now there is also the problem of "difficulty in making a profit".

In addition, a video suspected to be about Big Time's game bug was leaked on social media, in which some users were able to swipe tokens infinitely. Some users also revealed that Big Time staff were seeking to contact relevant users.

The cryptocurrency KOL “Fa Cai Gou” said on X that several big investors have started to leave the market. When everyone is talking about this, it is time to cash out and leave.

| Most popular in China

Big Time's popularity is actually only in the Chinese community.

According to Google Trends, the search popularity of Big Time in the past week was almost all concentrated in China, with the top five being mainland China, the Philippines, Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, and Vietnam . The popularity of mainland China alone was equivalent to the sum of the popularity of the other top ten.

Judging from various signs, this wave of enthusiasm concentrated in the Chinese community is fueled by a behind-the-scenes promoter.

The cryptocurrency KOL “Fa Cai Gou” said that Big Time’s popularity was not as high as that of Candy Crush in the previous few months. Candy Crush became popular among players from the bottom up. There was no official marketing in the early stage, and there was no restriction mechanism after it became popular. But Big Time’s promotion this time was very popular. Official platforms advertised it, and Chinese KOLs held various gatherings for this project. In the early stage, it was rare to see overseas bloggers promoting it.

On-chain analyst Yu Jin once wrote that the Big Time market makers on OKX are Amber Group and FBG Capital. The two companies each received 60 million Big Time allocations in the past few days. Currently, most of the Big Time in the OKX address belongs to market makers.

According to media reports, Amber Group and FBG Capital transferred a total of 30 million BIGTIME to Coinbase and then transferred it out again to a new wallet, seemingly concealing their on-chain footprints.

According to CoinMarketCap data, the maximum total supply of Big Time is 5 billion, and the current circulation is 147 million. However, market makers Amber Group and FBG Capital each received 60 million Big Time, which means that the holdings of the two market makers account for more than 80% of the total circulation.

It is worth mentioning that both Amber Group and FBG Capital are teams originating from China.

Amber Group's official website shows that it is headquartered in Singapore and has offices in Hong Kong, Japan, Australia, Dubai, etc. However, according to multiple media reports, Amber Group was founded in Hong Kong in 2017 and has received multiple rounds of financing from Temasek, Sequoia Capital, Coinbase Ventures, etc.

According to media reports, FBG Capital was founded in Beijing in 2017 and is a digital asset investment fund focusing on blockchain.

An industry insider advised Techub News that this wave of popularity was created by teams in China, so be careful not to be ripped off.

Another industry analyst said:

The Big Time project team was very smart and took advantage of loopholes in China's policies. On the one hand, they made good use of China's advantages such as a large user base to quickly pull up the market. On the other hand, they also took advantage of mainland China's encryption policies and delayed user withdrawals by blocking mainland users' KYC, thereby delaying user withdrawals and thus delaying the decline in popularity.

One player said: "Big Time is really amazing. The promotion is in the Chinese circle, the players are in the Chinese circle, but the token is listed but the Chinese community is not allowed to buy it, and you are blocked through KYC. It's really sweet to harvest Chinese leeks, and there is no legal risk."

According to the "Notice on Further Preventing and Dealing with the Risks of Virtual Currency Transaction Speculation" issued by the People's Bank of China and 10 other departments on September 24, 2021, virtual currency-related business activities are illegal financial activities, and related civil legal acts are invalid. The losses caused thereby shall be borne by the parties themselves.

The cycle of withdrawal and selling is a death spiral that blockchain games can never get out of. For users, most blockchain games are a game of “who runs faster”, while Big Time is even better, a game that “does not let you run away”.

"If it's a loss, then it's a loss. I'm going to switch to other projects." said the player above.