The SMCW airdrop by Space Misfits was supposed to be a gateway into a futuristic space game where players could mine asteroids, build ships, and earn real money. Instead, it became a textbook example of how not to launch a blockchain game. Two years after the airdrop ended, the CROWN token is worth less than a penny, the game is dead, and most participants lost everything. Here’s what really happened - and why you should never trust another "Play to Earn" airdrop without digging deeper.
What Was the SMCW Airdrop?
The Space Misfits CROWN (SMCW) airdrop was launched in early 2022 as a way to distribute 8 million CROWN tokens to early adopters. The total value of the distribution was $21,000, split two ways: $5,000 went to 500 randomly selected participants who signed up, and $16,000 was reserved for active players inside the game. That sounds fair - reward real users, not just speculators. But the structure hid a bigger problem: the game barely worked.The project claimed to be a 3D MMORPG set in space, where you’d mine asteroids, fight NPCs, upgrade your ship, and trade resources on a marketplace. Sounds cool? It was. But when you tried to play it, you got a clunky, barely functional alpha build. No real graphics. No smooth controls. No real economy. Just a few buttons and a black screen with floating asteroids. The game was never ready for public release - but the airdrop kept going.
How the CROWN Token Was Supposed to Work
CROWN wasn’t just a reward. It was meant to be the backbone of the whole system. As the governance token, it gave holders voting rights in the planned Space Misfits DAO. As the premium currency, you needed it to buy rare ship parts, fuel upgrades, and special mining tools. That made sense - if the game had actually worked.There was also a second token called BITS, meant for everyday in-game transactions. CROWN was the high-value currency, meant to be saved, staked, or used for big purchases. The plan was to let users stake CROWN through a dashboard to earn more rewards. But the dashboard never launched. The staking contract was never activated. The DAO never formed. All of it was just slides on a website.
The Tokenomics That Doomed It
The project raised $1.01 million across multiple funding rounds. That’s not a lot for a blockchain game, but it should’ve been enough. The problem? Token distribution was a mess.- Public IDO buyers got 25% of their tokens at launch, then 25% every 30 days.
- Seed investors got only 5% at launch, then 10% every quarter - a much slower release.
- But here’s the catch: the total supply of 8 million tokens was mostly sold off in the early rounds. When the airdrop went live, most CROWN tokens were already in the hands of insiders and early investors.
That meant when the public finally got access, there was no real scarcity. Everyone who joined the airdrop got a few tokens. But the big holders - the ones who bought in during the IDO - started dumping as soon as they could. Within weeks, the price dropped from $0.160 to $0.002. The ROI? -99.1%. That’s not a bad investment. That’s a total collapse.
Why the Airdrop Failed
The airdrop didn’t fail because of bad luck. It failed because the whole project was built on hype, not substance.- No working product: The game was an alpha test with no polish, no content, and no roadmap. Players couldn’t even mine properly.
- No community engagement: Discord went quiet after the first month. Telegram vanished. No updates. No developer replies.
- No utility: Even if you had CROWN tokens, you couldn’t use them for anything. No marketplace. No staking. No governance.
- Overpromised: They claimed to be built on Enjin blockchain - a respected platform for gaming NFTs - but never used it properly. No real NFTs. No interoperability. Just token transfers.
The airdrop was a marketing trick. It attracted people with the promise of free crypto, but the game behind it was never meant to be played. It was a shell. And when the shell cracked, everything inside turned to dust.
What Happened After the Airdrop Closed
The airdrop officially shut down in late 2022. No announcement. No farewell post. Just silence.By mid-2023, the Space Misfits website was gone. The Twitter account had no new posts since 2022. The GitHub repo was empty. CryptoRank and CoinGecko still listed CROWN, but with zero trading volume. The token’s All-Time High was 4.54x - reached for a few days in April 2022 - but that was just a pump before the crash.
Today, the CROWN token trades at $0.00014. That’s 99.9% below its original price. If you joined the airdrop and got 500 CROWN tokens, they’re now worth less than 7 cents. You didn’t lose money - you lost time. And maybe trust.
Who Lost the Most?
The biggest losers weren’t the random airdrop winners. They got maybe $10 worth of tokens. The real victims were the early IDO buyers who invested hundreds or thousands of dollars into the project. Some bought in during the Seedify round, thinking they were backing a serious gaming project. Instead, they funded a ghost.There’s no record of refunds. No legal action. No team statement. Just a quiet death. That’s the reality of many blockchain games from 2021-2022. They raised money, launched a token, ran an airdrop, and vanished.
What You Can Learn From This
If you’re thinking about joining the next "Play to Earn" airdrop, ask yourself:- Is there a working demo? Not a video. Not a teaser. A playable version you can try right now?
- Are the devs active? Check Discord, Twitter, GitHub. Are they answering questions? Pushing updates?
- Is the token actually used? Or is it just sitting in wallets with no purpose?
- Who holds the majority of tokens? If insiders own 80%, they can dump anytime.
- Has the project raised money? If so, where did it go? Was it spent on development - or marketing?
Space Misfits had everything: a cool theme, a blockchain tech stack, a clear token model. But it had no heart. No discipline. No commitment to building something real. And that’s why it died.
Is There Any Hope for CROWN?
Unlikely. No new team has stepped in. No revival plan has been announced. The blockchain records show all transactions - and they’ve been silent for over a year.Some people still hold CROWN tokens, hoping for a comeback. But without a functioning game, a working economy, or a transparent team, that hope is just wishful thinking. The token is dead. The project is dead. The airdrop was a mirage.
Was the Space Misfits CROWN airdrop real?
Yes, the airdrop was real. It was conducted on the Ethereum blockchain, and thousands of participants received CROWN tokens. But "real" doesn’t mean valuable. The tokens were distributed, but the game they were meant to power never launched properly. The airdrop was a marketing tool - not a gateway to a working product.
Can I still claim CROWN tokens from the airdrop?
No. The airdrop campaign officially closed in late 2022. The official website and sign-up pages are offline. Even if you missed the deadline, there’s no way to retroactively claim tokens. The project is inactive, and no one is managing the distribution anymore.
What happened to the Space Misfits game?
The game never moved beyond a basic alpha build. It had minimal graphics, no real gameplay mechanics, and no updates after early 2022. The development team disappeared. The website was taken down. The GitHub repository was deleted. There is no active version of the game available today.
Is CROWN token still tradable?
Technically, yes - it still shows up on a few obscure decentralized exchanges. But there is zero trading volume. You can’t sell it for anything meaningful. Most wallets holding CROWN tokens are abandoned. The token’s market cap is effectively zero.
Did anyone profit from the Space Misfits CROWN airdrop?
A handful of early investors who bought CROWN during the IDO and sold during the brief 4.54x peak in April 2022 made money. But those were insiders with access to information and timing. The average airdrop participant - someone who signed up hoping to earn from gameplay - lost everything. The project was designed to benefit early backers, not everyday users.
Are there any similar projects still alive today?
A few Play-to-Earn projects survived the 2022 crash, but only those with real gameplay, active communities, and sustainable economies. Examples include Splinterlands and Alien Worlds - both of which kept updating, added new content, and focused on player retention instead of token pumps. Space Misfits failed because it was all hype and no substance.
Final Thoughts
The SMCW airdrop wasn’t a scam in the legal sense - it didn’t lie outright. But it didn’t deliver either. It offered a dream, sold a token, and walked away. That’s worse than a scam. It’s a waste.If you’re looking to get into blockchain gaming, don’t chase free tokens. Chase real games. Look for teams that update weekly, listen to feedback, and build slowly. The ones that survive aren’t the ones with the flashiest whitepapers - they’re the ones that actually show up for their players.