Uniswap Labs acquires Crypto: The Game—’It’s ballooned into this 24/7, crypto actuality present’

“We’ve seen CTG generate a ton of excitement and Uniswap is focused on making on-chain experiences more human and fun,” Uniswap Labs’ chief operating officer Mary-Catherine Lader told Fortune. The purchase amount is undisclosed, but is a mixture of cash, tokens and equity.

As part of the acquisition, founders Dylan Abruscato, Tyler Cagle, and Bryan Lee, will join Uniswap. Together the companies are currently working on developing season three, while also exploring new interactive consumer crypto experiences. However, the game will not simply become an advertisement for Uniswap’s wallet or exchange, the companies explained on a call.

“Now we have the full force of Uniswap Labs behind us, we think that’s going to help us make season three the best one yet,” Dylan Abruscato, the game’s co-founder, told Fortune. Abruscato’s entertainment career spans beyond crypto, as his previous gigs include working as a producer for Saturday Night Live and developing once-viral mobile game HQ Trivia.

CTG has drawn inspiration from TV shows that pit contestants against each other like Survivor, Hunger Games and Squid Game. In the first two seasons of CTG, contestants bought in with 0.1 ETH (about $367), joined eight tribes of ten, participated in daily challenges, and voted each other out over ten days, until one person won the entire pot. A Japan-based player won the grand prize pot of over $150,000 in season one, with the prize pool growing to around $250,000 by season two.

Uniswap Labs sponsored a challenge in season two, joining the likes of Adidas—who created branded tracksuits for each player in the form of non-fungible tokens—and crypto firm Wormhole, among other partners. The sponsorship gave Uniswap a “behind the scenes look into how [CTG] cracked this code for bringing new users into crypto,” Lader said.

Digital tracksuits for Adidas x CTG s2

We look forward to Season 3 🔴 pic.twitter.com/PXbe0f07zQ

— Daybreak (@madebydaybreak) May 15, 2024

Following its launch at the end of January, shortly followed by a second season in April, the game has generated cult-like status within crypto, with speculators watching from the sidelines via X, Farcaster and even a podcast created by Web3 and culture media outlet, Boys’ Club. “My 68-year-old mother-in-law called me after listening to a podcast episode and asked if I thought if Ted was going to buy back in and play anonymously after he got voted out,” Abruscato said.

Abruscato described the fandom as a mixture of crypto Twitter enthusiasts, venture capitalists, founders, and notable crypto influencers such as 3LAU, Packy McCormick, Jesse Pollak, and Bored Elon. But, more crucially, about 10-15% are “normies,” or, in other words, those who have never before engaged with crypto, suggesting the game can be an opportunity to onboard new users to decentralized finance.

While CTG can’t calculate the precise number of onlookers who watched the game last season, Abruscato says there were 50,000 unique visitors on the site during ten-day period. “It’s ballooned into this 24/7 crypto reality show where there are villain-arcs, drama and fan favorites, and it’s kind of become this spectacle in the crypto community,” said Abruscato.