Abstract mining game Bigcoin plots comeback after BIG crash
The new team aims to turn the game into a fair token launcher
Bigcoin and Adobe modified by Blockworks
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Remember Bigcoin?
If you don’t, I don’t blame you. Its bubble popped fast.
The Abstract-based crypto “mining” game saw a sudden surge of activity back in April, reaching a cumulative user count of nearly 70,000 according to some dashboards.
Players had to buy a virtual room and spend the game’s token, BIG, to add passive BIG mining rigs. Those rigs take the form of pixelated computers, GPUs, animals like Pudgy Penguins, or other objects. The rigs earned players more BIG over time.
The original game loop was about earning BIG and expanding their facilities. To get a larger room that can fit more mining rigs, players also have to — you guessed it — pay with BIG.
But initial hype around the game didn’t last. By June, the game was seeing less than 40 new users joining daily.
BIG’s price remains down 93% from its April 11 all-time high.
But it’s climbed about 290% in the past month.
What gives? Its creator, an anon who goes by “Bigtoshi,” announced his departure from the project last month and has handed it over to a small group of community members.
One of Bigcoin 2.0’s core contributors is a crypto entrepreneur (and reported ex-game developer) who goes by the pseudonym BoredElon.
Bored, who takes protecting his real identity seriously, describes himself as a Bigcoin whale. He’s tried his hand at a few different crypto projects in recent years, from his BoredBox crypto gaming lootbox idea to his Edison metaverse project. Neither of those projects are currently active.
The new Bigcoin is being overseen by a “handful” of community members, including Bored, plus a trader who goes by EJR, and a few others. They’ve just turned the pixelated “mining” rigs into over 29,000 Abstract NFTs on OpenSea in a way that generates royalties so the new team can build up a treasury to reinvest into further building out the game.
The new team also wants to be able to add more BIG liquidity so that buyers won’t have to pay a lot in slippage.
Of course, BIG’s price crash was nothing new. Like many, many low-cap tokens before it, BIG’s price spiked upon launch, only to dump and trail downward for months after. That price action, plus the fact that those who started “mining” early got more rewards, spurred (arguably valid) accusations that the whole thing was just a Ponzi.
Bored said this week that BIG’s price “got out of control” when it first launched.
As a result, that created some unrealistic expectations. And, like with most tokens, the price plunge spurred anger from those who bought the top.
“The problem with a lot of tokens today is they can be created in seconds,” Bored said during a livestream of the game yesterday, where he displayed his “mining” facilities onscreen.
“I think the first iteration of Bigcoin definitely felt like a Ponzi,” Bored told me when I asked him during the stream if the “Ponzi” accusations were fair. “I don’t think the current version of Bigcoin is a Ponzi at all,” he said.
Over half of the BIG that’s been mined has already been burned, with over 9 million burned out of 16.9 million mined (BIG has a capped 21 million supply).
Michael Lee, co-inventor of Abstract and former VP at Activision Blizzard, confirmed to me in a message that Bored and Bigtoshi aren’t the same person.
“Bigcoin’s handover to its community mirrors Bitcoin — its success depends on outgrowing its founder and becoming a project owned by everyone, yet no one. In this story, notable members like Bored step into the role of Michael Saylor.” Lee said.
He added: “With merge mining, Bigcoin’s promise is to evolve into a fair token launcher — free from KOLs, whales, cabals, bundlers, and market makers — for the people. Like Bitcoin, put in the work and mine the tokens.”
Whether Bigcoin 2.0 succeeds in this way is still up in the air, of course. But about 215 unique wallets have already bought into the new NFTs, suggesting at least some believe it can happen.
Update 8/12/2025 at 3:50 pm E.T.: wording around token burning changed for clarity.
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