‘Exit scamming’ gaming literally feeds on users’ greed to bulk up pot money

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

FOMO3D literally simulates how pump and dump ICOs work: people dump money, and somebody runs away with it while the rest are left with nothing.

The parody game makes a mockery of exit scams, which have become so prevalent in the space usually in the form of “hacks,” or more commonly as silent dumps of tokens by the founders themselves after an ICO pump, and a gradual fadeout into oblivion and into Lambo-lined pavements in mansions sponsored by the bag-holders.

Although in the case of FOMO3D, they’re upfront about the mechanics: every user that buys a token or key extends the timer by 30 seconds and adds to the pot money. The last to pitch in when the timer ends (if it does) gets the prize. As a result, the prize will keep going up and the game will probably never end.

The game was created by an anonymous group (anonymous even to each other, they claim) called Team JUST, who also created a cryptocurrency exchange called POWH3D. The team’s branding is quite witty, much like its mockery game.

“Fomo3D is a parody of the cryptocurrency space as a whole, namely the seeming requirement of all ICOs (initial coin offerings) to run off with large amounts of unaccountable cryptocurrency,” Team JUST wrote in their website.

“Unlike the lottery, you actually have a chance to win this,” a message on a pink bar on FOMO3D’s website reads. But judging by the limitlessness of human greed, it may be unlikely that there will be a winner anytime soon—or maybe ever. A lottery will be won many times over before this game might end.

A more accurate message on that pink bar was the one that says: “Don’t forget, you’re here forever.”

While this game may sound pointless seeing as it may be endless, it has gained quite a lot of attention. In fact, as of writing the pot has amassed a whopping 21,521 ETH—worth over $10 million, with the timer still at over 23 hours and continuously being extended. This means the pot money also keeps getting heavier (it has increased by 3 ETH by the time I got to the end of this article). Considering that each key costs 0.00545772 ETH, that means over 3.9 million keys have been purchased.

But who knows, maybe one day everyone will forget about it and somebody actually ends up running away with the bag.