Images via Crypto: The Game
Words by: Joseph Genest

Cofounded by Dylan Abruscato alongside Tyler Cagle and Bryan Lee, Crypto: The Game is an interactive online game designed for anyone to participate, engage, and win. For each 10-day season, strangers worldwide compete by completing challenges, puzzles, and games for a prize pool that grew to over $200,000 for the second season. At each day's end, competitors vote someone out of the game. 

Beginning his media career as a Page for SNL, Abruscato was inspired to start Crypto: The Game after his time leading partnerships at HQ Trivia.

“HQ took a traditional TV game show and made it live, mobile, and interactive,” says Abruscato, noting that his fandom for Survivor brought in “a vision to have a massive, live interactive Survivor game.”  Even after jobs following HQ Trivia, Abruscato felt like it was a persistent dream.

Example Gameplay

Building out the game with Cagle and Lee a few months ago on Coinbase’s Base, the first season went live in early 2024. The first winner of Crypto: The Game, who went by MFL, didn’t focus on strategy but rather just being kind and endearing towards other participants. In the final vote, not a single person went against him. 

This is the magic of Crypto: The Game- it enables anyone to participate, regardless of whether they’d make for good TV, creating an atmosphere of new human behaviors from popular game formats.

With over 800 players for the second season, the top prize of $200,000+ was donated to the legal defense fund of two crypto developers who are friends of the winner, Player 733. Abruscato stated that 733 pitched the group to band together and forward the winnings.

“To win this thing, you need to tell a great story and have a convincing case to a jury on why you deserve it, plus your plan with the money.” 

Throughout our conversation, Abruscato reinforces that the thesis of Crypto: The Game was to create something that he wanted to play online with his friends. “It’s so rewarding to see it so well received and everyone caring about who wins.”

For future seasons, CTG is planning to “embrace the spirit of crypto and lean into the different game and social mechanics this technology enables”, pointing out that in season two, players were able to buy back into the game, adding more to the pot, but also creating a ‘Deal or No Deal’-esque aspect.

“At different checkpoints through the season, players could essentially hedge their parlay or cash out their NFT to someone else who wanted a spot. You could never sell your spot halfway through a traditional reality show.” 

With a background in partnerships, Abruscato very quietly brought adidas into season two, which enabled players to bid on one of 10 adidas tracksuit skins for an in-game advantage. When asked if we’d see more brand activations like this, Abruscato was eager about onboarding more companies into CTG. Big picture, he envisions this project to eventually become a network of games and competitions, “ideally, there’s something for everyone.”

“The most engaging shows and games are the ones that offer the most fun. People are gravitating towards this because it was an idea before there was a crypto component attached. I’ve always wanted to build this and that idea resonates with people.” stating that taking a crypto-first approach probably wouldn’t have gotten the same reception.

Abruscato says that “there are side effects (he) didn’t imagine, like the networking opportunity. I’ve seen people expense their entry because of their working abilities. When you go through such an engaging and interactive experience with hundreds of people, there’s a community that forms,” recalling that people have enjoyed meeting up IRL, exchanging gifts and merch with each other. 

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