Fishing Frenzy has begun its final round of community payouts, distributing $62,845 in USDC to eligible users while refunding another $7,021 in player purchases ahead of the game’s planned shutdown later this month.
Developer Uncharted confirmed that the payments were calculated using its Karma scoring system, which measures community participation through activities such as token staking, NFT staking, and other engagement within the ecosystem. Purchases made after the launch of Chapter 3 on May 14 were also refunded automatically, except for spending tied to diving features.
We are sad to announce that we will be shutting down.
From Gangster Arena and Blast the Balloon to Fishing Frenzy, we had a good run at validating the crypto gaming opportunity.
We are grateful for everyone who were part of our journey. https://t.co/0rNeAfUEAe
— Uncharted (@gguncharted) June 15, 2026
Karma-based payouts mark final phase
The USDC distributions were based on a snapshot of Karma scores taken on June 15, with rewards already sent to qualifying community members. Uncharted also urged users who provided liquidity to the FISH/USDC pool to contact its Discord support team for help withdrawing their positions before operations end.
The company previously announced that all remaining USDC in the FISH/USDC liquidity pool would be redistributed according to Karma scores instead of token holdings. To prevent heavy selling during the wind-down, FISH tokens can no longer be traded or transferred and remain usable only within the game until servers are taken offline.
Uncharted has also made its Karma score dataset publicly available, allowing partner projects and other developers to use the information for future reward programs.
Has the crypto gaming experiment come to an end?
The payouts follow Uncharted’s recent decision to shut down both the studio and Fishing Frenzy after concluding that it could not achieve a sustainable business model in crypto gaming.
According to the team, more than a year of testing different products and strategies failed to establish the product-market-business fit needed to continue operating.
Fishing Frenzy’s servers are scheduled to go offline on June 25 at 2 a.m. UTC, although existing game functions will remain available until then. USDC purchase packages have already been removed from the platform.
More rewards still planned for players
Despite the shutdown, Uncharted said additional rewards are still expected. Proof of Distribution incentives will be handled by Sky Mavis using the same Karma-based allocation method. At the same time, partner projects will receive Karma data to support previously planned token distributions for top community members.
The closure shows ongoing challenges in the crypto gaming sector, where several blockchain projects have ended operations this year after struggling to generate enough long-term economic demand despite maintaining active user communities.
Earlier this month, Botanix Labs announced the shutdown of its Bitcoin Layer 2 network, citing insufficient economic demand to sustain the platform. 0xPPL also announced it will shut down its onchain super app after four years of development, marking the end of a project that aimed to simplify access to decentralized finance across multiple blockchains.
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