How the Creator League crumbled after 5 days, and why it’s a bad omen for crypto

On Sept. 2, the world was introduced to the Creator League, a flashy e-sports platform featuring some of the top internet stars and video game streamers, and promotion by none other than MrBeast.

Five days later, the Creator League was gone.

The league’s fiery crash is something that will likely be the subject of much analysis in the coming weeks and months, but the story that’s emerged already shows a controversial launch strategy, a dispute over blockchain technology, and a fierce backlash by creators who say they were duped. And it paints a bleak picture for the struggling crypto industry. 

What happened: The Creator League was going to be a live-streamed game tournament with at least $250,000 up for grabs. The teams in the league were captained by elite creators, such as Bella Poarch, Clix, Sapnap, CdawgVA, OpTic, and more, who would promote the tournament to their combined 226 million followers on socials and entice them to purchase a $20 pass to watch the games.

The problem is that these $20 passes were connected to the NEAR blockchain, and it appears that the league’s organizer, eFuse, never disclosed this fact to anyone. It turns out that many of the participating creators have a deep antipathy towards NFTs and crypto technology, which they consider to be an inherently scammy business. 

When they found out, they went ballistic. 

“I accepted to join the creator league not fully understanding the tech behind it,” tweeted YouTuber Connor Colquhoun (known as CDawgVA) on Sept. 3, announcing that he was withdrawing from the league. “I was given assurances that it had nothing to do with NFT’s. Given my vocal hatred of such tech, I would never agree to join had I known that.” 

There was no mention of the underlying blockchain technology in the press packet sent to Fortune ahead of the launch. A spokesperson for the company told Fortune that it was wrong for the company not to explain the blockchain technology to the press, public, and creators involved. This person also said the company thought it was merely an accounting process and did not need to explain it.

“We used the blockchain to power transparency and create a public ledger so the community knew we weren’t overselling passes,” a company representative told DeCrypt. 

The company vehemently disputed characterizations of the passes as NFTs. “The Creator League community passes are not considered NFTs nor a token launch because they had no transfer utility, which means there is no ability to resell,” eFuse said in a press release. According to DeCrypt however, based on the company’s description, the passes are “still a type of NFT, even if the restrictions mean that there is no speculative element around them.”

The Fallout: Now eFuse has laid off 30% of its workforce. A company spokesperson said that this is because the staff that built and supported the Creator League is no longer needed. The company said the Creator League is postponed, though it did not provide a timeline for when it would be back. “We remain excited about the Creator League and will take some time to reflect on community feedback and refine its structure,” eFuse CEO Matthew Benson said in a statement.

And the troubles of the Creator League can be viewed as a barometer for public opinion on NFTs. The industry once defined by a Bored Ape Yacht Club has transformed into more of a singular sinking dinghy. This happened after the Securities and Exchange Commission cracked down on NFTs, calling Impact Theory’s offerings unlicensed securities.  

UPDATE: This story has been updated to reflect the fact that eFuse disputes the characterization of the community passes as NFTs, and that the Creator League is dead. The Creator League is postponed, according to the company.

Separately, Fortune is compiling its next Impact 20 list, which showcases startups that are trying to solve the world’s biggest problems in a profitable fashion. We’ll publish it in December. You can nominate a startup (your own or someone else’s) by using this Google form—the deadline is Oct. 23—and if you have any questions about the process, just pop an email to impact20@fortune.com.

Alexandra Sternlicht

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ON OUR FEED

“I say this realizing it’s going to come across as arrogant, and I don’t mean it that way… There used to be great research that happened in companies in Silicon Valley… There [has] not been for a long time.”

—OpenAI CEO Sam Altman risks annoying quite a few people, in a Wednesday podcast interview

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BEFORE YOU GO

Update your iDevice. If you’re an Apple customer who someone might plausibly want to spy on, you’ll want to immediately update your iPhone, iPad, Mac and/or Apple Watch. The latest versions of the company’s operating systems fix what researchers at Citizen Lab called “an actively exploited zero-click vulnerability being used to deliver NSO Group’s Pegasus mercenary spyware.”

As described in a Citizen Lab blogpost, the vulnerability is known as BLASTPASS and was first spotted on the device of someone working for a D.C.-based civil society organization. It was apparently possible to thwart it by activating Apple’s Lockdown Mode, which launched just over a year ago to protect customers dealing with sensitive data.