Aussie Crypto Project Sportemon Go Token Collapses Leaving Investors Fuming

Australia-founded crypto NFT project Sportemon Go has ceased trading on its native token SGOX, leaving investors disgruntled, to say the least.

The news has spread across all major UK news media as Sportemon Go was sponsoring Scottish football clubs Rangers and Hibs. The brand removed all presence from social media on Monday night and locked up its website before resurfacing with a notice:

The SGOX Token has ceased trading. The community voted unanimously to redeem SGOX for L1TF token. This was [a] great result for Token holders, with 1 x SGOX Token being redeemable for 1 x Liberty One Treasury Fund Token. This was overwhelmingly voted in favour by over 90% of holders, with more than 95% of tokens. Also note the Team, Athletes and other IP are currently being removed or deleted, as we finalise amicable termination agreements. These will all be removed once finalised. For further partner and token information or information on how to redeem tokens, please email: [email protected]
Notice on Sportemongo website

Rangers signed a two-year deal with Sportemon Go in October 2021 and the club has since featured the Sportemon Go logo on its player strip and TV ads for the brand.

The Edinburgh Evening News reported that Hibernian FC, aka Hibs, began to distance itself from Sportemon Go after it showed signs of financial difficulty some months ago, with commercial director Greg McEwan telling the paper: “Knowing Sportemon Go’s difficulties, we had been planning for a mutual termination of the partnership and have a new partner in place for the upcoming season, which will be announced soon.”

What Now For Sportemon Go?

Sportemon Go co-founder Ricky Jackson has taken to Twitter and Telegram to try to calm the FUD caused by the SGOX token collapse:

Before spreading malicious lies and FUD, which is a poor reflection on crypto communities. DYOR, read notices first. Real world businesses with IP rights must remove all IP, upon contracts terminations. This 100% standard practise with every IP CONTRACT. As per notices. #NOFUD pic.twitter.com/BABELTPsKe
— Ricky Jackson (@MetaDogRacing) May 2, 2022

At the time of writing, there was no information about the new “Liberty One Treasury Fund Token” referred to in Sportemon Go’s website notice and there are reports that SGOX token holders were not adequately notified about any voting poll. With the brand’s Telegram channel history deleted, there is nothing in the discussions.

Investors took to Twitter to voice their frustrations, with some writing off their DeFi investment in the project:

The fact that the Jackson’s didn’t take any responsibility for the failure of a broken business model and blamed it all on FUD is unbelievable. They never built income streams for SGO that’s why it failed. No app, no vr, nothing…
— Wanderer (@86_donnadieu) May 4, 2022

The “FANTASTIC OFFER” of swapping SGOX for whatever the hell L1TF is/will be seems dependant upon bagholders keeping their mouths shut & not complaining. pic.twitter.com/O9ANofZrXf
— .__No__. (@HuchaNo) May 4, 2022

There are a few folk saying that the new one will be a stablecoin but guess we’ll have to wait & see whether that really turns out to be the case. Five years is rather a long time though, and an eternity in crypto. pic.twitter.com/0ue4lnHIus
— .__No__. (@HuchaNo) May 4, 2022

Seems to be how the Jacksons roll – I’ve pretty much written off my Def1 investment as gone to whatever the Jacksons are burning cash on these days.
— Flat Circle (@flat_circle_) May 4, 2022

SGO Biting Off More Than It Can Chew?

Crypto News Australia reported last August that Sportemon Go was to create NFTs for Australian cricket legend Adam Gilchrist. Since then we have followed the project, and it has promised more and more platforms, features and tokens, including (but not limited to):