Xterio: From Star Project to Altar, the Dream of Getting Rich Was Shattered

first time I've seen someone lose money by playing poker." Crow (pseudonym) commented in the Xterio rights protection group.

Web3 game development and operation platform Xterio was once a star project in the market. With its strong team background and abundant capital support, it attracted many investors to invest with real money. A netizen named "Little Man" wrote on X to recall the reason for building a position in Xterio: "I suddenly remembered why the people around us lost 1 million yuan per person on this project. Half a year ago, when this project was in its heyday and announced Binance's investment, I had a meal with Xterio people on an occasion, and then came back to Fomo each other's positions. This meal was so expensive, I wanted to cry."

However, what awaits investors is the reality of widespread losses. On January 8, Xterio launched a token generation (TGE) event, and investors’ dissatisfaction with losses continued to rise. As KOLs involved in Xterio continued to expose and display loss data, the community’s dissatisfaction was suddenly stirred up, and various Xterio rights protection groups were brewing vigorously.

Losses, fraud, humiliation...the dream of wealth was shattered, and the once dazzling star project seemed to have fallen from the altar.

TGE is full of doubts, and the community is hammering Xterio

Xterio's founding team members come from top game developers such as FunPlus, EA, and NetEase. It has also received investments from well-known institutions such as Binance Labs, FunPlus, and FTX.

Compared to many Web3 native projects, Xterio can be said to be born with a silver spoon in its mouth. On August 30, 2022, it completed a $40 million financing with a valuation of $300 million. Well-known institutions such as FunPlus, Makers Fund, FTX Ventures, and XPLA led the investment, and many industry giants participated in the investment. Then on July 13, 2023, Binance Labs injected another $15 million into it to support its game development and token launch plans in the fields of AI and Web3.

Based on the sluggish performance of the NFT market in the past, investors have already suffered losses on Xterio. An investor told ChainCatcher reporters that he had purchased the small dinosaur NFT (from the self-developed game Age of Dino) launched by Xterio at an average price of 1-1.2 ETH. According to data from the Opensea website, the floor price of the small dinosaur NFT has been below 0.3ETH for a long time in the past three months.

It can be seen that losses are not the main factor triggering community sentiment. The real fuse was the TGE event on January 8, which completely ignited the powder keg between the community and the project:

Xterio officially released its token economic plan on January 2, planning to issue 1 billion XTER: 28% for the community, 20 million tokens will be fully unlocked at TGE; 26% for the ecosystem, 20 million tokens will be fully unlocked at TGE; 15% for investors; 12% for the team; 9% for marketing, 15 million tokens will be fully unlocked at TGE; 4.25% for the treasury, and 5.75% for liquidity and staking during TEG.

After announcing the token economic plan, Xterio also released information about Age of Dino's rewards during the TGE event, promising that Age of Dino will receive a 2% XTER token ecosystem subsidy during the TGE. In addition, at least 8% of Age of Dino tokens will be fully unlocked and distributed to NFT holders and players during AoD's TGE.

After TGE, many investors reported that the actual airdrop ratio of tokens was different from what was claimed. ChainCatcher conducted centralized interviews with investors after the TGE event.

Xiao Tao (pseudonym) is one of the many losers. He is an individual player of Age of Dino. In an interview with ChainCatcher, Xiao Tao said: "You airdropped normal shares. I admit that the price of the currency is not good. But issuing 0.5% airdrop, what else is this if not a scam? This is a complete insult to investors!"

Tao showed ChainCatcher a screenshot of the airdrop contract address during the project’s TGE. “The airdrop contract had a total of 20 million tokens, but only 5 million airdrop tokens were claimed in one day.” Tao also told ChainCatcher that he invested 50,000 U in the Xterio project, expecting a huge return. However, reality dealt him a heavy blow, and he only got 4,000 U back, a loss of 92%.

Investor Peng Peng said: "